Go niche or go nowhere: Aedin O'Neill, Grow Web

Connor: Welcome to Exit Ready, the podcast for agency owners building profitable businesses, because a profitable business and a sellable one are exactly the same thing. My name is Connor McAuley and today I’m sitting down with Aedin O’Neill, founder of Grow Web, a boutique PPC and paid media agency here in Belfast. Aedin spent over 20 years in marketing before starting Grow Web and has since built her agency to be one of the most trusted across all of Northern Ireland and internationally. Now she’s working with some fantastic national and international clients and I’m delighted to have her here today. So with that, Aedin, welcome to the show.

Aedin: Thank you. Delighted to be here, Connor.

Connor: Brilliant, brilliant. So what I love about your background, Aedin, is that you spent, as I said, 20 years in marketing before starting Grow Web. What made you decide to leave wherever you were and then build your own thing?

Aedin: Well, firstly, that’s an awful start. You’re making me feel ancient. But yes, my career span was very much in traditional marketing at the start. I was in-house, in brands, mostly marketing roles, a stint in sales as well. But I fell into agency and digital agency 14 years ago and I just love it. The difference really is just the fast pace, the different clients you got to work with, no one day being the same, and then just being able to measure the impact you’re having from your work.

So Grow Web then. The big driver behind setting up my own was that it was pre-COVID. There was no flexibility. Working from home wasn’t a thing at all back then. And I had my first baby and I just thought, career-wise, I knew this was my passion. I loved agency. I loved performance marketing. And it was really that key thing. Let’s build something that I can work around, like my lifestyle, drop the wee man to school, stuff like that. So that was the key thing back then to start. That was seven years ago.

Connor: Seven years ago. And I know the business has changed significantly from then to now, but tell me where Grow Web is today as an agency.

Aedin: So we’re very boutique specialists and it’s intentional. We’re not full service. We eat, breathe, and sleep performance marketing. So all things paid ads. To be honest, it’s a challenge and a necessity just with the fast pace and the digital landscape, as you know. But we’re all marketing background. So it’s very much performance focused is where we’re at. 80% performance and then 20% probably with brand, but very much all about the results.

Connor: Yeah, that was one thing that always has struck me about your side of the agency world. It’s data driven, first and foremost. There’s no feelings essentially. It’s literally data, facts and figures that you work on every single day.

Aedin: Yeah, that’s what I love about it. To be honest, that part has got more challenging over the recent years just with tracking challenges, the cookieless world, GDPR. Back in the old days with analytics, it was great. You could see everything. It is more of a challenge. But that’s what we base our decisions on: the data.

Connor: It’s the same for us now. We always look at where the figures are and try to use our knowledge and experience and understanding to make best sense of it and then present that as value to the clients. Brilliant. So if you had to sum up the reason why clients are sticking with Grow Web, what would it be?

Aedin: Definitely has to be that transparency. We’re really honest. We’re no bullshit. We don’t hide behind any metrics. I’m too long in the tooth for that. But that really is it. If it’s not that commercial piece, if it’s not making you money, then we’ll be the first to say turn it off. The results are at the core of what we do and it has to work for the clients really to see that growth.

Connor: Meta has changed massively over the last couple of years. It’s been significant, the amount of changes. It almost feels like it’s daily that they’re happening. How do you react and change your business to these massive platforms?

Aedin: It’s been crazy. It’s constant. Very challenging. We come in daily now and there’s new stuff in the interface. There are updates. You’re not really told about them. They’re just rolled out. And it’s been very aggressive in the last couple of years. We’re fighting it. There are obviously really good nuggets and better tools and enhancements with creative and all sorts. On the other hand, there’s also updates that we’re seeing that we need to nearly put two people on it, because we need to have that control to make sure that there isn’t stuff going out in ads that hasn’t been approved, or the tone has changed when we’re putting out content on behalf of brands. So that bit is a wee bit frustrating, to be honest. It’s nearly too much. But it is what it is. We’re dealing with it. It’s not slowing down.

Connor: In Meta, it almost seems daily that they’re making updates and they’re changing content, they’re changing background music and things like that. And that takes you further away from the brand positioning that maybe some of your clients have. How do you deal with that on a daily basis?

Aedin: It’s very difficult, but we do have processes internally where there’s videos and how-tos. Even with setting up campaigns, what default settings you shouldn’t accept, which ones you should, all those checks. But it’s changing every day. There are buttons being hidden. Even with budget, pushing budget to increase. It’s tough. It’s very, very aggressive. But it’s known in the industry. We’re all facing the same challenges. We can see it day in, day out. We keep clients informed and they’re aware of it. But on the other hand, we do have to control the brand. You can’t just let music and all these images go out to test. We do have to go with it to a certain extent and try to embrace the change as much as possible.

Even with Google Ads, they’re pushing you to do it all their way and less control over things. But then you’re getting scores. If you don’t go with it, your score is pulled down and they’re saying you’re not going to get your ads served if you don’t do X, Y, Z as much. So it’s a tough one at the minute.

Connor: Does that actually happen? Will your ads be served less, or is that just a fear mongering exercise for your clients whenever they go in and look at their account? I don’t know the answer to that. I’ve always wondered because I do see those scores and I’m looking at them thinking, is it affecting my ad reach?

Aedin: It does. Definitely with Google Ads, that optimisation score does affect it. You do have to, but there’s ways around it. For an example, we had a campaign that launched for a German client and we didn’t want, it was a very controlled landing page. We didn’t want the users to go elsewhere, to different landing pages. But the score was rubbish because there were no sitelinks. We were able to come up with a solution anyway where we were able to kind of create fake ones. There are ways and means around it. But it’s all linked back to the crack with those scores. They’re also linked to Google Partner statuses and points and blah, blah, blah. So it’s just same old, same old. The client’s always first, but you have to keep testing and coming up with different solutions. Getting the happy medium, I suppose, between that automation and control is key.

Connor: Yeah. It’s Google’s pitch. It’s their ball and their rules and so we have to play by them. Cool. So you are also someone who runs a business with a sibling. Marty and I were business owners together, and yourself and Sinead are the management team of Grow Web. So how do you find it working so closely with Sinead?

Aedin: Simple answer is I love it. We’ve been working together for five years. It did take me quite a while to get used to her telling everybody that there’s a decade between us, that she’s the younger sister. But okay, I’m used to that one now. She gets away with telling me I need a coffee and not offering me a coffee. I think the latest one there last week was, “Have you not taken your magnesium?” She’s brutal with me. But you know what, in the industry we’re in, it’s difficult to get talent, and just having that loyalty, the trust, the decision making that can be made really quickly between us, that synergy. I do love what we do.

We’ve learned that boundaries are very important. Weekends and stuff, if we’re down home or whatever, we don’t talk work. We have a different set of skills as well. She came from a data background and started an actuary degree in finance and wealth management. So she’s the data queen and I had the stronger marketing background. So it does work really well. And we kind of figured that out by accident. It was never that way. But no, I do love it.

Probably the biggest challenge is back to my kind of passion for starting, and family. Working with two young children and trying to get that balance right. Sinead has two wee girls now, two and six months old. So she didn’t take her year out and I didn’t take maternity. I know that’s important to her, but we’re also trying to run the business and we’ve got clients and pressure. So that’s the hardest bit, to get all that right and make sure we’re all on the same wavelength. But I wouldn’t do it any different way.

Connor: No, you hit a really class point there. You’re both collectively working for the benefit of the business. And Marty and I were very different in our skill sets as well. He was very good at customer service and he was even better at sales than I was. Don’t put that in public. He was just as good at sales as me. But certainly from my perspective, I was technical, I was strategy and process, and he was sales, sales, sales and customer service. And again, we kind of dovetailed our service because we were working for the business, but from two different angles, and it worked incredibly well for us. And that’s great that you found that exactly the same. I see so many solo entrepreneurs that are MD and there’s nobody else in the business at their level. And they find it so hard to have honest conversations with their team who have no understanding of payroll, of managing finances, of managing the team themselves. And that’s very, very hard. So I’m delighted that you have that person in the business.

Aedin: Yeah, it is. It’s great.

Connor: You have an All-Ireland GAA background. Now, how much of that competitive mindset carries into how you run Grow Web?

Aedin: Well, I’m kind of known for being very, very competitive. You always have to win. The competition runs in our genes. My mother’s side is very strong GAA background and we’ve kind of been raised with that. With sport, you’re based on your performance and it’s no different in business. It’s all based on your performance, how you do. But yeah, we do carry that through very much.

That results-focused part with Grow Web, that core is linked back to sports where that hard work ethic and you’re all working together for one end goal, and resilience as well. So it is all about the results. Sinead would be the same. We’re both very driven and kind of thriving on seeing the motivation come from seeing the results come through at the end. And again, that’s all linked back to that data piece.

Connor: Yeah. And I see that from your team. You guys work incredibly hard and do great things in the campaigns that I’m aware of just through our work. They’re performing incredibly well. Now not everyone’s a winner of course, but collectively they work for the clients and that’s a great strength to have in a company. Now if somebody came to you tomorrow and they said, “I want to start a PPC agency,” what would be the first thing that you’d tell them to do?

Aedin: Don’t do it. I’m only joking. I would say don’t go broad. Go very niche. Find your niche. Get your hands dirty in the accounts. Get the experience from the spend and the results with the clients. And don’t try to build the brand first. Get the clients, get the successes, and experience the credibility and trust and grow it from there. That would be the key.

Connor: Yeah, I was chatting to a client earlier on and literally had that same conversation. It was like, do the work, show your case studies, show your working out as I would always describe it, and make sure that you can get more good work off the back of that. Because if you don’t know what you’re doing, how can you pass it over to somebody else? And how can you show the results if you don’t demonstrate them?

Aedin: Yeah, that’s very much Grow Web. The first couple of years, we never raised our head. We were in the accounts working hard, getting results, and then it all grew from that. And then we kind of pushed the brand out after that. So the success of that has been very visible.

Connor: No, and you’re in a very strong position today, but what does Grow Web look like three years from now?

Aedin: Still boutique, a bigger team, but with very controlled growth and more focus. So more specialism built in. Possibly more specialism in sectors.

Connor: Sticking with performance the whole way through?

Aedin: Sticking with what we know best. But it’s changing every day. So it’ll not be old by any means. Even if I look back to years and years ago when you were sitting on Google Ads and you were manually putting bids up with 2p and stuff, it has changed so much from then. So I’m still doing the exact same thing as 15 years ago, but it’s so different.

Connor: Yeah, I couldn’t imagine. I remember those days where you did your penny bid and you put it up by another penny to see how it performed to get extra reach. That’s what you did, but that has all changed, of course. So that brings me to today and tomorrow in business. How are you using AI in the agency today?

Aedin: We have been very much focused on the operational and efficiencies, to try to use it as best we can and integrate it into the agency. But again, it’s back to the previous question. The challenge with AI is what we’re seeing within the platform. So we’re trying to manage that and control that as best we can. And use it to our benefit. But also free up time as well that we can spend more on talking to clients and seeing the bigger picture, rather than the nitty-gritty.

The multi-generational team as well, we’ve got 20s, 30s, 40s in there. So it’s interesting even just the different way we all look at it, the attitudes, bringing it in and testing it versus being afraid of it. So it’s bit by bit. We’re doing the workshops and trying to control it and test it and experiment. But it can be overwhelming, to be honest, just with the sheer amount of changes out there. What could you be doing better? What should we be doing? What human elements are going to go away, and what about that experience versus the machine? It’s definitely getting the right balance again.

Connor: The pace of delivery and change in AI and the systems and tools that we have access to at the minute, it’s phenomenal and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to slow down. Who in your team is the most likely to use it? Is it the younger generation? Are they most likely to use it, or are they shying away from it? Have you found any of that currently?

Aedin: I’ve seen a bit of a mixture, to be honest. Sinead was on maternity leave, so she was off, but even just the amount of changes, she was keen to keep up to date specifically in that area because of that.

I’m finding different trends. Even where we would be very much, our habits would be, right, go to Google Planner, keyword planner to look for demand and different keywords. Whereas I’ve noticed just that younger generation coming in and they’re going to ChatGPT first to see what kind of keywords there are, what intent. But I’ve seen then that when we go back and review everything, it’s back to that thing. It’s a bit of both you need there, because there’s no point in the system telling you all these thousands of keywords that are relevant and do this, do that, if you go to the actual market and there’s no volume in it. The Google Planner will tell you there’s a load of tens or zeros for those keywords. You do need to be smart, because you could get down a rabbit hole very quickly jumping on and trying to get ChatGPT to answer a load of questions.

So it is a test. It’s that open mindset where we do need to be testing, but we do need to be vigilant. A key thing for us has been, you can have this culture where we’re saying we need to be trying this, we need to be using AI and all that, but you also need to factor in time for it to actually experiment, because it’s not going to get done. When you’ve got deadlines and you’ve got work to get out and clients, you need to be factoring the time in to use these tools and test them.

Connor: You hit a really great point there. You have to use both tools and you have to understand what you’re actually looking at first and foremost. I think that’s a big problem for not necessarily ourselves, but for people coming behind us. They don’t understand the theory behind it or the methodology behind the decisions that we make. And so they are blindly making decisions based on ChatGPT or Claude and what it’s telling them, and they don’t have an understanding. I think probably the biggest part of all of that is that our processes as agency owners need to be completely robust and nailed down to protect our business from that. And you pointed out a brilliant point where you have checklists. You have a checkpoint where it will be manually reviewed by somebody who understands what you’re trying to achieve.

Aedin: Yeah, but I do think you need that. You need everybody invested in it, because it’s not one person that’s going to bring it in and be the champion. And I say that because we have a small team, so we’re all in it. Every day is a school day in here. We need to all be learning and bringing it back to the table. So it is good for everybody working together that you can say, “Right, go away and figure that one out, come back and we’ll review it together and look at how it fits with our processes.” So it’s getting the talent that has that mindset, that wants to go and figure stuff out and bring it back and really be using their initiative to learn every day. That’s where we’re at really.

Connor: Yeah, brilliant. Well look, Aedin, those are all my questions. And I just want to say thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Thank you for being here. If you run an agency and you want to see where your numbers stand right now, the free Agency Health Scorecard is in the description below. It’s just moveatpace.com/agency-scorecard. Also, if you got any value from this podcast, please feel free to subscribe wherever you’re watching or listening. And if you could leave me a little review, I would appreciate it a whole lot. Thank you so much for watching and I’ll see you in the next one. Aedin, thank you so much for being here.

Aedin: Thank you, Connor. See you later.