How to Level Up Your Income as a Paid Ads Specialist

How do you move through every stage of income growth as a paid ads specialist? How do you actually make money running paid advertising?

We’ll walk through every step, including: “Where do I find clients?”, “I can’t trust anyone else with my work!”, and “We can’t charge clients that much!”

The difference between this article and others out there is that I’ve walked this path myself, and I know what I’m talking about.

So,

Level 0.

Where should a beginner look for work to build initial experience and get noticed by clients? Why you need a small but polished portfolio, and how to create a steady stream of clients.

No matter how much you love your work and what you do, every activity has a “performance metric” — and in paid ads, there’s no getting around it: the main metric is money.

How much does a click cost, how much does a lead cost, what’s the client’s ad budget and how much did the client earn after working with you, how much have you spent on advertising throughout your career, how much of that was profitable for clients and how much was wasted — and of course the most important question of all: how much did you earn from it?

After running a survey in my community, I saw that the majority of people hadn’t yet crossed the minimum “worthwhile earnings” threshold of $330/month. By “worthwhile earnings” I mean the amount that makes it worth starting something and putting in the effort. Roughly speaking: if some action will bring me an extra $330 a month, then I see the point in spending my time and energy on it. And I also see that only half of the survey participants are earning enough from social media advertising to actually live on for a month.

 

If you think you can do it differently, faster, simpler, better, bigger — do it exactly the way you think is right.

Level 0 — $330/month.

I hit this level after transitioning from my role as head of the SMM department at a digital agency to freelance. I didn’t have any clients ready to follow me, I had no clients at all.

You might say I had an advantage — agency experience, a portfolio, connections. No, none of those things gave me a particular head start at the beginning.

At level 0, the most important thing you need right now is: clients. Doesn’t matter what kind, doesn’t matter how much they pay — what matters is getting real-world experience and building a portfolio.

Step-by-step action plan:

1. Learn paid advertising either on your own or by taking a course from an experienced mentor.

2. Find work for “food money.” Basically, you need to take on a few clients and set up their ads for free or nearly free. They provide you with the budget, you provide the expertise.

• Freelance marketplaces like Upwork or Fiverr
• Yes, in my first month I took on an Apple computer service center, a pizza delivery company, and a women’s online store
• Online marketing, business, and entrepreneurship communities — Facebook Groups, LinkedIn Groups, Reddit communities like r/digital_marketing or r/PPC
• When I was starting out there were only a handful of these, and I didn’t get orders from them. But now there are tons of clients there.
• Friends, acquaintances, friends of friends.
• A watch and jewelry store, a US mail-forwarding shop, a tire service — these were my first real clients

I won’t pretend I worked purely for free (I didn’t have a backup job and was already working somewhere), but the difference between what I charged and what the work was actually worth was enormous.

Don’t lie to clients — tell the truth that you’re a beginner, that you’re working to build your reputation and portfolio, and therefore you’ll do your very best for them.

3. Create your own page or account where you simply describe what you’re working on right now (brief, no fluff, to the point, without your philosophical musings).

4. Run paid ads to your own page — even just $2/day — but make sure it’s running. Ads along the lines of “ready to work for testimonials and portfolio pieces” — yes, exactly that.

Keep sharing how you’re setting up your campaigns. You can write interestingly even about spending $5, especially if you got great results from it.

5. Sooner or later the right clients will come — those who want to get ad campaigns done as cheaply as possible. Until you’ve built a portfolio of 3–4 clients and proved your skill, that’s perfectly fine — it’s your investment.

6. Build your portfolio. As an example, you can take a look at mine — format yours in a similar way — it works.

7. Over time you’ll get more and more clients. First one a week, then two. Then three, and one day you’ll notice there’s actually a waiting list.

How much should you charge at Level 0?

Until you’ve built up 3–4 clients in your portfolio — work for experience.

After 3–4 clients in your portfolio, you can confidently charge around $20 for a test ad campaign over the course of a week, and $50/month for ongoing management.

Why not charge more right away, since that would get you to the $330 goal faster? Simply because you don’t have much experience yet, the chance of messing up is high, and it’s not fair to charge top rates when you’re still learning.

The point of Level 0

So, first and foremost, remember: at this level your goal is not to earn money, but to:

• build up minimal experience,
• put yourself on the radar for clients,
• get a community going that will generate tons of clients for you in the future,
• create a minimal portfolio.

You have a maximum of 2 months to complete Level 0. The level is considered cleared if you either managed to earn $330 in a month, or if you have a portfolio with 3–4 clients, a growing community, and at least one paying client.

In my first month of freelancing I earned exactly $330, and back then I had no idea what I was doing, had no community, no portfolio — just clients who came through word of mouth from my first free work.

And yes, don’t forget to ask yourself every day: “What did I do today to earn more?”

Level 1.

You have a small but polished portfolio, your own community or page, a few happy clients, and most importantly — even if small, a regular flow of inbound inquiries.

How to hold this level and why it’s important to know how to manage your reputation.

If you managed to earn your first $330 in a month, and especially if you managed to repeat that a second time, then you’ve already proved to yourself that it’s possible. Now the goal is $500/month.

How you can theoretically earn $500 you already understand — gradually raise prices, take on new clients who come through referrals, and so on.

But the essence of Level 1 isn’t just to earn $500 in a month — the most important thing to achieve is: a stable $500/month.

 

Why $500 matters so much.

Because $500 a month is enough to live on in many parts of the world. Working at an agency, I earned around $500 a month for about 9 months — and it was quite enough for a single person in a mid-sized city.

Of course, $500/month won’t cover renting in a major city and supporting a family, so if you’re not on your own — now you know your first real goal.

Reputation

The foundation of your stable income is your reputation. And it’s something you need to pay special attention to from the very beginning.

The more you work on your reputation, the more money you’ll earn.

First you invest in it, then it works for you — I’m sure both myself and this community are living proof of that.

In the case of paid ads, your reputation consists of two parts — working with existing clients, and working with potential future ones.

Your clients

Here are the main principles and rules to lean on so that clients love you:

1. Honesty and transparency in your work

Under no circumstances lie to your clients! It will come out, sooner or later it will come out — and the damage to your reputation will be enormous.

Don’t know the answer to a question? Don’t say what the client wants to hear — tell the truth. Just answer honestly: “To be honest, I can’t give you an exact answer right now — let me find out and get back to you.”

Burned through the budget? Ran an inefficient campaign? Tried everything and got no results — tell them honestly, offer solutions — restructure the campaign, offer a partial refund, suggest a different approach.

That’s exactly why I strongly recommend running ads from the client’s own ad account. First, they’ll have access to the stats 24/7 and there’s nothing to hide. Second, any agency discounts go to the client, not to you — and that’s how it should be.

2. Don’t hoard over money like a miser

Understand that the client doesn’t have a massive budget, and that they’re not necessarily earning more than you — meet them halfway, figure out where you can give a discount, don’t squeeze every last dollar out of them.

Messed up? Burned through the budget? Own your mistakes and refund the payment for the work! Yes, it happens, and yes you spent several days at your computer, but honestly — just give them the money back, take the lesson, and move on.

Money is a resource, not your family heirloom. It’s points in a game — learn to play better and you earn more points, make mistakes and you lose points. The key is to keep playing so you learn more and earn more.

Though keep in mind: it’s normal to refund payment when you genuinely messed up, but it’s not normal to refund just because the client thinks you messed up when you actually did everything right. It’s a fine line, but an important one.

3. Friendship and client retention

As long as you’re operating on the principle of “nothing personal — it’s business,” a client might drop you as soon as they find a more affordable specialist. But when you actually connect with clients as people, it becomes much harder for them to leave.

At Level 1, it’s really important to communicate with clients constantly, share ideas, opinions, and suggestions, listen to what they’re talking about and what they think about advertising and their business.

It’s important to make sure clients don’t just order a campaign from you once, but that they pay for ongoing monthly management. I have regular clients I’ve been working with for over a year — and that’s more thanks to friendship and trust than just campaign results.

In summary: be honest, be friendly with clients, relationships first, money second.

Not yet your clients

For winning over the reputation of those who haven’t yet agreed to work with you, you have the tools of direct messages, comments, and calls. Yes, word of mouth does an incredible job, but it works too slowly in isolation.

To ensure a flow of external clients, you need to present yourself first as a specialist, and second as a good person. Yes, you can shout from every corner about your expertise, but people will still mostly remember you for how you treated them.

You have two tools for attracting new clients:

1. A community, blog, or niche website

Yes, this is the place where you “announce yourself to the world.” Yes, you’ll need to write in your page/blog/website constantly. Yes, you’ll need to talk about your work, your mistakes, your wins, and your learning.

It goes without saying that the community is at the center of all of my (well, our team’s) work in paid social advertising. That’s where we get the vast majority of our clients, that’s where we share our knowledge, and that’s where the real conversations happen.

Just please — until you’re earning enough that people envy you, spare your audience your life philosophy and musings. Just write about what you do, what you learn, and what results you’re getting.

Though again, that’s just my opinion. If you think you know better — do it your way, after all I listen to myself first.

2. Comments and discussions

This is social media — people communicate here. Someone asked a question in your community — answer it. Someone messaged you directly — respond. Someone commented on your post — reply.

Be the go-to resource in every conversation. Don’t miss opportunities to participate in webinars, training sessions, or workshops. Drop advice in community posts with “Question for the group” — be genuinely helpful.

Level 1 summary

Following the advice from the previous sections, sooner or later (2.5–3, or at most 4 months of work) you’ll hit the $500 mark. By focusing on your reputation, you’ll ensure it stays stable. At this point, it’s important not just to hit $500, but to hold it for 2–3 months in a row.

Levels alternate — income growth, consolidation, income growth, consolidation.

Level 2.

The pros and cons of working with agencies. How to find those that will bring you stable work and income. The tough choice between your professional opinion and just doing what you’re told.

So now you’re an honest paid ads specialist who doesn’t lie to clients, knows how to admit mistakes, publicly shares your wins and stumbles, responds to every comment, and always shows up.

You most likely have 2–3 ongoing clients plus 2–3 new clients per month who either order smaller campaigns or where you’re still making occasional mistakes.

How is a regular client different from an agency?

Between regular clients and agency clients there are several key differences — some good, some not so great. Let’s break it down.

1. Money

At Level 1, your clients are mostly small business owners who are tight on budget. They watch every dollar closely, and if things aren’t going perfectly they’ll be anxious about it.

With agencies, the situation is different. First, most larger clients go to agencies because they trust them more. Second, agencies often work with larger ad budgets. And third — working with an agency gives you 20–30% more income for the same amount of work (they pay their freelancers/contractors more than a small business would).

Note: the rate you agree on with an agency is usually set once, and raising it later will be very difficult and awkward, since agencies plan their budgets. So quote your rate correctly from the start.

2. Stability

The main advantage of working with agencies: if you gel with them, the agency will “feed” you for a long time. I have 3 agencies I’ve been working with for more than a year — the relationship is stable, the payment is predictable, and I basically do the same type of work with them month after month.

3. The agency’s clients

This is another plus. Want to run ads for Coca-Cola, Sony, Samsung? Welcome to agency life. The only catch is that you probably won’t be able to write about it publicly, since agencies have NDA agreements with their major clients.

At training sessions, I share some specific nuances from campaigns I’ve run, but either with permission or only for campaigns that can in no way be connected back to the client.

4. Your opinionAnd here’s the main downside — at first it seems trivial, but in practice it turns out to be the place where you park your professional opinion for the duration of the project.

How the food chain looks in most agencies:

Brand’s marketing department -> Brand’s marketing manager -> Brand manager at the agency -> Agency’s social media team -> Project manager at the agency -> You.

Most of the time, who gets targeted and how is decided by people far above you. Even the ad creatives are often not yours — you simply get approved creatives sent to you and set up the targeting.

And getting through to the actual client in this case is very difficult — bureaucracy. Yes, you can explain to the agency team what’s wrong, what should be changed and improved, but there’s no guarantee your message will get through to the decision-maker in the right form.

You can compare this to trying to hit a target with a chain. One link and you can aim well. Two links and it’s harder. Five links — good luck hitting anything specific.

This doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens a lot. I recommend being prepared for it.

How to find an agency?

You don’t need to find them — they’ll find you.

Seriously, 4 out of 5 agencies I personally work with came through referrals or simply discovered this community (or blog, wherever you’re building your presence). And they came because they needed a specialist who didn’t need to be taught the basics.

But one referral isn’t always enough, which is why it’s so important to consistently post in your community and, most importantly, build up your portfolio — so that when someone asks “Can you show me examples of work in [niche]?” you can say yes.

So just keep working with clients, monitor freelance platforms (Upwork, Fiverr, LinkedIn) and community boards in the hope that an agency reaches out to you.

How long to wait? Usually 4–5–6 months — at least based on my personal experience and my colleagues’, that’s how long it typically takes for word of your skills to spread far enough that an agency finds you on their own.

How to get your foot in the door with an agency?

Once you’ve gotten into an agency and completed their test assignment, you’ve done half the work. Now you need to hit the monthly KPIs — even in months that are slow. The agency must see you as a reliable partner.

Some agencies are very particular about what you do, while others care mainly about hitting the numbers (bless them) and give you free rein to work however you want.

The agency workflow

You only need to set up targeting and not mess up — no client communication needed, just with the manager. Payment is once a month (usually), fixed, and everyone is happy.

 

Why not just drop regular clients and only work with agencies?

If you want to keep growing, I strongly advise against giving up other clients in favor of agencies. The thing is, agency work is stability — and stability is addictive.

At some point you’ll become dependent on that stability and on the agency itself. You’ll stop being used to communicating with clients directly, you’ll get used to working toward KPIs measured in followers and clicks, and at some point an agency will be your one and only income source.

After six months of working “only for agencies,” it’ll be hard to get back in the game with direct clients — so I don’t recommend letting yourself get 100% hooked.

But I will recommend two formulas:

1. “Stay in shape” — take agency projects, but don’t neglect the clients you’re currently managing. If someone drops off, find a new one to replace them. The ratio should roughly be 50/50.

2. “Always moving forward” — this one’s for those who want to keep climbing. If the agency gives you 3 projects, make sure you have at least 3 of your own clients in parallel. Agency gives you 5 — have 5 of your own too.

Why is this so great? Because you’ll be a very busy person, you won’t have time to read through piles of messages between managers, answer them endlessly, you won’t have time to worry — you’ll just be doing great work.

And yes, learn to say “sorry, I’m swamped right now” when someone is being particularly demanding.

Summary

Working with agencies is necessary for you as a paid ads specialist for several reasons:

1. Experience working with major brands.

2. Experience working with managers, bureaucratic processes, budget constraints, and behind-the-scenes politics.

3. Stable income that’s also 30% higher than what you charge regular clients.

4. Portfolio building.

What to watch out for:

1. Getting hooked on stability.

2. Becoming dependent on the agency.

3. Screwing up badly — you risk losing access to great clients permanently.

In terms of money — working with both agencies and your own clients, you physically cannot earn less than $700/month. Even at minimum, that’s 2–3 agency projects plus 2–3 of your own clients.

Level 3.

Do you know how to properly prioritize so you’re comfortable and enjoy your work? What pitfalls can you avoid if you know these 6 key filters? How do you structure your workday to not go crazy?

You’ve arrived at the level where the majority of solid SMM specialists and paid ads professionals live. Estimated time of arrival — 6–9 months from starting out.

This section will be most useful for those whose income fluctuates between $700 and $1,000/month, so I’ll try to give you the key recommendations that will help stabilize it.

I’ll warn you: this level is the most comfortable for folks who work for themselves and for whom work isn’t the only addiction in their lives. It’s not a level where you’re constantly grinding — it’s a level where you work well, earn steadily, and have the freedom to choose your clients and projects.

This is no longer the level where you have to prove yourself to anyone — you already have a reputation that works for you, but you’re not yet at the stage where you need to build a team.

Personally, I spent more than half a year here, occasionally dipping into Level 4, while also working on various interesting side projects like app development.

Level 3 checklist

If you’ve been following the instructions from previous sections, you already have everything listed below. If something is missing — now’s the time to address it.

Specialist qualities:

• Responsibility and punctuality

If you forget to launch an ad campaign because you went to the movies with a friend, or you were “really tired today” — clients won’t forgive that. If you promised to do something — do it. If you can’t — communicate in advance.

• Honesty and transparency

I repeat this in every section — if you messed up, say so honestly, don’t dance around it. Tell the client the truth, not just what they want to hear.

• Politeness, professionalism, openness and readiness for dialogue

First impressions matter, so I strongly recommend greeting people properly, addressing clients professionally, being polite and tactful in every interaction — even difficult ones. Write without typos, format your messages clearly.

(Nikita, if you’re reading this — take note, you intimidating guy.)

Specialist skills:

• All major ad platforms — Meta Ads (Facebook & Instagram), Google Ads, and TikTok Ads — this is non-negotiable
• Google Analytics, UTM tags, Retargeting

You don’t necessarily have to install all this for every client, but you absolutely must know where to place conversion goals, where to insert the retargeting pixel (inside the <body> tag, etc.), and how to read the data.

• Understanding how other platforms work, their quirks, and also display/search advertising

Boosting posts on Facebook, running Instagram campaigns, community management, influencer promotions. You don’t necessarily have to do all of this (though it’s great if you can), but you should understand how it works when clients ask.

• Canva/Photoshop, retargeting services, and all those supporting tools

Clients will definitely ask about these.

Specialist assets:

• A professional page or community with 3,000–5,000 followers

Come on, you’ve been at this for half a year — make sure you have a real, well-maintained presence.

• PayPal, Stripe, Wise, bank transfer, and a dedicated business bank account

Clients should never have to think about how to pay you — all payment methods should be available. Consider a business account for cleaner transactions.

• Formal freelance/business registration (varies by country — sole trader, LLC, etc.)

Don’t want tax problems? Don’t want fines for unregistered business activity? These things are serious — get yourself properly registered. Seriously, I can’t stress this enough.

• A service agreement template for paid ads work
• Report templates for ad campaigns
• A portfolio in PDF format

 

Client filtering

Remember, our main goal at this level is to create comfortable working conditions. And that depends primarily on your clients.

If you take everyone who comes along — be prepared for your income to bounce around. You’ll encounter genuinely difficult people (sorry, but it happens, and these are serious hazards to your health), and your work quality will suffer.

Who we usually turn down:

1. The client demands guarantees for all metrics without a test campaign.

2. The client doesn’t understand or respond to your arguments appropriately — no matter how many times you explain that “you can’t know what the conversion rate will be without testing,” they don’t get it.

3. The client’s project is too sketchy — MLM, miracle products, shady info-business schemes.

4. The client is overly nitpicky, asks a million questions they don’t really need to know the answer to. These clients will drive you crazy, waste huge amounts of your time, and never be fully satisfied.

5. The client thinks they’re an expert at paid ads and doesn’t just suggest things — they dictate what to do. Then why did they hire you?

6. The client is too anxious about money — as strange as that sounds, if someone demands accounting for every single dollar, normal working conditions become impossible.

I’m not saying these are iron-clad rules, but if your client is showing any of these signs — be cautious and very alert.

Who we usually take on:

0. The client has a significant budget — this overrides most objections.

1. The client understands and engages with your arguments and respects your professional opinion.

2. The client is aware of the risks and accepts them. Yes, it’s possible the project might not take off, even though you’ll do everything you can to make it work.

3. The client has some experience with paid ads, but comes to you as a specialist with broader experience.

4. The client came through a referral from another very important client. You take the first one for the sake of the second.

5. The client fully trusts you and gives you full creative control.

Want to genuinely love your work? Only take clients like these.

 

Project filtering

Of course, no matter how great the client is, the project itself plays a crucial role. It’s no secret that paid advertising doesn’t work equally well for everything. For some projects it demands huge effort, for others results come easily.

Only you can decide whether to take on a specific client with a specific project — you need to calculate your own workload and figure out how much money you need to earn from it to make it worth your while.

I’ll give you rough benchmarks for project categories by complexity and time commitment, in ascending order. Your maximum workload for Level 3 is 15 points. Your optimal range is 12–15 points total across all active projects.

Take on fewer than 12 — it’ll be too easy and not enough money. Take on more than 15 — the work gets exhausting. So you need to have projects on your plate at any time that total 12–15 points.

1 point:

Followers for niche communities, game installs (on social platforms), clicks to a website (clicks only, no conversion)

2 points:

Subscribers to free newsletters, ebook/material downloads, contest participants

3 points:

Leads for a free webinar/online training, mobile games and apps, attendance at free entertainment events

4 points:

Leads for a free offline seminar/conference, members for e-commerce brand communities

5 points:

Members for niche commercial communities (cafes, clubs, bars), leads for paid webinars/trainings up to $170, selling products up to $50

6 points:

Medical niche, beauty salons, fitness centers, selling products and services $50–$80, franchise inquiries, wedding niche, selling cheap goods via paid ads

7 points:

B2B, selling products $80–$120, apartment rentals, ad budgets of $1,700–$3,300

8 points:

Ad budgets over $3,300, real estate, car dealerships

9 points:

Unreasonable clients with large budgets and impossible tasks

 

Working days

Here’s how my typical 8-hour workday used to look:

1. Communicating with all current clients who messaged me

2. Checking all projects for emergencies and problems

3. Resolving any issues urgently if there are any

4. Working on agency projects (even when everything is running fine)

5. Working on high-budget projects (even when everything is running fine)

6. Working with ongoing regular clients

7. Working with difficult clients and dull projects (while I still have energy)

8. Working with great clients and interesting projects (relaxed, since things are going well there)

9. Communicating with potential new clients, posting in my community, side projects, rest.

And of course the dreaded report writing — after a test campaign, and monthly for agencies and ongoing clients. Reports and contracts are annoying but they protect you.

The essence of Level 3

To sum it up, at this level you need to focus entirely on quality in all its forms. You should be a proven, quality specialist with a proper process, clear documentation, the right clients, and optimized projects.

Following even a portion of these recommendations, you’ll notice that your working days become more measured, the work less frantic, and your income stops jumping around and stabilizes at a comfortable level.

If for serious practitioners I didn’t recommend sitting too long at Level 2, and getting too comfortable with agency work, then sitting at “Level 3” — this is the most natural resting point if you love what you do and value a balanced life. You’re earning well, you’re choosing your own clients and projects, and you have time to breathe.

Level 4.

Self-discipline, control, and the absence of a comfortable routine. What reasons push you out of your comfort zone and make every day feel like a roller coaster.

Level 5.

The critical importance of delegation skills and the ability to take responsibility for task completion. Only you can do quality ad setup — but can you teach others to do it too?

Level 6.

Perspective or necessity when hiring a manager? Now you’re a real advertising studio operating as a well-oiled machine.

Level 7. Bonus.

For serious projects and serious money, you need to build a properly balanced team. Just 3 key skills will help you create a team that works for real results.

I’ll note that I’m skeptical about building a team from people who are close friends. In that situation, personal relationships constantly get in the way of business decisions, and sooner or later the friendship suffers — or the business does.

You yourself!

You can choose the role of any specialist in the team — personally, whatever feels closest to you — but I’ll be speaking about the team from the leader’s perspective.

Are you ready to decide to build a team for paid ads? Are you ready to take responsibility for the result of every project? Are you ready to be the leader whose decisions everything depends on?

Actually it’s not as hard as it sounds, but it does require a few key skills that a team leader must have. Oh, and one more thing — being good at setting up ads doesn’t automatically make you a good leader. These are different skills.

• Paid ads experience — you need to have reached at least Level 4 to have enough experience. It would be great to have worked in different niches, with different budgets, and with different types of clients.
• The ability to read people — do you understand which of your friends can be introduced to each other and which ones just won’t click? How long does it take you to understand whether a person is trustworthy or not? Can you tell who is motivated by money and who is motivated by the work itself?
• Managing — setting tasks, tracking completion — no, that’s the manager’s headache. Your function is to say: here’s how this gets done, here’s what the end result should look like, and here’s the deadline. And then you check the result.

Actually that’s pretty much everything required of you. Have these three skills — and you can build an effective paid ads team. The team consists of three roles:

Senior specialist

Without this team member, things will be tough. You need at least one, but a very strong, paid ads specialist. As you already know from previous sections, top specialists in this field are not easy to find — they’re either not on the market, or they’re asking for so much money it makes you reconsider.

If you have enough experience, you’ll easily identify a good specialist by reviewing their portfolio, their ad account, and/or giving them a test assignment.

Core skills:

• Paid advertising — yes, this person needs to be an excellent specialist who loves working with paid ads. They should also be ready for the fact that the projects coming from the team leader will sometimes be challenging, sometimes very large, and sometimes both at once.
• The ability to understand, accept, and complete tasks — you can be a genius at paid ads, but if you forget to pause campaigns, start targeting setups a day late and don’t mention it, or just go silent without warning — you’re not the right person for the team.
• Compensation — I’m against salary-based pay for paid ads work. Fixed rates per setup, yes — high ones, but fixed rates — or a percentage of the project value. Both sides need to understand this clearly.

 

Manager

After a year of working with a project manager, I can say with confidence that this is the most important team member. The person who never touches the ad accounts directly, but without whom the whole operation would fall apart.

The manager is responsible for completing all tasks, timely payment collection, and client satisfaction.

• Client communication — the main skill. This is exactly what we teach in our management course — how to communicate correctly with clients. How to find the right approach to different client types, how to handle objections, how to deliver bad news, how to upsell without being pushy.
• Tasks — setting and tracking. The manager asks you what needs to be done, you explain what each person should do — they distribute the tasks, track progress, and report results. The manager is the hub of the entire operation.
• Compensation — I’ve said it a thousand times — no fixed salary for the manager. The manager should receive a healthy percentage (15%) of everything the team earns. This way the manager is genuinely motivated to bring in more projects and keep clients happy.

I’ll add that besides these skills, the manager must also be a genuinely good person — someone you’ll actually want to be friends with, since you’ll be in constant communication. The manager is the face of your team to the outside world.

Specialists

So, three team members — that’s already solid. Together the three of you can earn decent money, but keep in mind that in this scenario you personally will be doing a lot of the actual ad work. To grow further, you’ll need to expand the team.

• A specialist for consumer/lifestyle projects and a specialist for B2B projects — I believe it’s better to have someone who’s particularly strong with consumer brand campaigns and someone who specializes in B2B. They’ll approach targeting differently, write copy differently, and think about the audience differently.
• Account manager — now this needs some clarification. Managers have an “external front” — client-facing work and servicing — and an “internal front” — task distribution and team coordination. When volumes grow large, one manager can’t handle both. That’s when an account manager comes in — they take over the external client communication, while your original manager focuses on internal operations and oversight.
• Content manager for your community — or simply a community admin. First, someone needs to maintain your professional community. Second, community management is an additional service you can offer clients as part of a package — and it’s significant extra income.
• Landing page specialist — yes, very often clients need a good landing page in addition to paid ads, if they don’t have one or their current one is terrible. You don’t necessarily have to bring this in-house, but having a reliable contractor for this is a huge advantage.

 

In conclusion

I really want to emphasize the approach to building a team. As it turns out, I don’t work based on long-term planning — what matters to me is earning now, and developing based on what’s actually happening in the moment.

That’s why my approach to team building is: when I can’t handle the volume on my own and it starts hurting the quality of my work — I bring someone in. And I’m not taking on someone on the off-chance I might need them later.

And as I’ve already said: building a team is the only correct path to higher earnings and growth if you’ve already reached the ceiling of what you can do alone. You’ve gotten as far as one person can go — time to grow.

 

Also recommended an article on the Google Masterclass