Show Notes
Join The PPC Hub and get PPC OS: https://www.ppcmastery.com/hub Louis Bogdan is 21. He was going to study computer science and become a developer, but fell in love with Google Ads instead. Six months ago he had barely any clients. Today he and his co-founder Niku run Affirmed with more than 40 e-commerce clients, and their third team member is an AI agent called Alfie — which has its own Gmail, its own identity, and a spot on the team page of their website. I sat down with Louis to go through how he built it, what his day actually looks like, what he still does by hand, and where AI let him down before he fixed it. He also has the sharpest take on "AI first" I've heard: on its own, it means nothing. It's always AI-first something. You have to be the expert first, because AI can only be as good as you are.
What we get into: ✅ Why "AI first" is meaningless without an expertise attached to it ✅ The autopilot analogy: why the plane still needs a pilot with hours in the seat ✅ The diagnostic algorithm he built that checks every client account, every day, and tells him what's wrong ✅ 60% of his day automated today, 80% once the last skills land — and why all of that time goes into client acquisition ✅ Giving an agent read and write access, its own service account, and its own email ✅ Why he lowered his prices instead of raising them, and how the retainer works now ✅ The honest answer to "will AI improve my client results?" (it's not what most people want to hear) ✅ Where AI actually broke for him, and the one thing that fixed it ✅ Why he deleted LinkedIn off his phone ✅ His full client acquisition method, start to finish
Timestamps: 00:00 Intro: who Louis is and what he's built 01:55 From wanting to be a developer to falling into Google Ads 03:25 50+ courses, and what finally made it click 04:35 The post in The PPC Hub that found him a co-founder 05:40 What he was looking for in a partner 07:55 "AI first" on its own means nothing — AI first what? 09:00 Why you don't need to become an AI expert 10:45 The autopilot analogy: the plane still needs a pilot 11:35 How agents reshaped the work 12:35 The diagnostic algorithm that runs across every account daily 13:35 A full day a month on reports nobody read 14:40 60% of his day saved, and where that time goes 16:10 What he still does vs what the agents do 17:10 An average day, start to finish 21:00 Does he still open the Google Ads interface? 22:05 Read and write access, and giving the agent a service account 23:05 Meet Alfie, the agent that's on the team page 23:45 Which client communication is automated, and which isn't 25:10 Q from the chat: does the system improve client performance? 28:15 Pricing: £1,000 a month, no contracts, and why they went lower 31:00 CRO and landing pages: what they consult on instead of sell 33:00 Do you need to be technical? He is, and says you don't 35:50 Where AI went wrong for him, and what fixed it 38:45 Why a chat window isn't enough for this work 40:45 His advice if you're where he was 6–12 months ago 43:50 Where to find Louis 45:55 His client acquisition method, leaked 49:00 Wrap
Find Louis on LinkedIn, or in The PPC Hub — he's in there daily, and he still helps people with conversion tracking for free. Affirmed: https://affirmed.co Louis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/imlouisbogdan/ The PPC Hub: https://www.ppcmastery.com/hub
More from The PPC Mastery Podcast
Join The PPC Hub: https://www.ppcmastery.com/hub Seth Gorton runs Searchly out of Cape Town. His pitch to clients is that they take full responsibility from click to conversion — so Google Ads, but also the landing page, the website, the CRM, and everything that happens after the click. At Searchly, Seth uses AI agents to do 6x more with the same resources, scaling back from 6 to 3 team members. I sat down with Seth to get into: ✅ How he grew his agency by adding CRO and AI systems ✅ Why he cut juniors and now only hires senior specialists ✅ What the "yes-man effect" is and why it worried him. ✅ How his team rebuilt a client's entire website in a weekend and lifted conversion rate 40% We also went deep on the CRO side, which is where most Google Ads Specialists say they see the value but don't know where to start. Seth headed up a CRO department before founding Searchly, so he walked through his actual process — and it's simpler than most people expect. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro: Seth Gorton and Searchly 00:50 Full responsibility from click to conversion 02:25 Building the agency on the Google Ads Success Formula from day one 03:35 What they actually offer: search, Bing, SEO, CRO 03:55 Why they launched Searchly Web 04:35 Where to start with CRO if you've never done it 05:20 Find the drop-off, then find out why 06:40 The grandmother test 07:00 How CRO and Google Ads feed each other 07:50 Quality score, landing pages, and the metric on top of the dashboard 08:55 Bringing AI into the CRO process 10:05 Claude's Microsoft Clarity connector 10:45 Why Alfred told him to stop building separate systems 12:05 A day in the workflow: barely opening the Google Ads interface 13:20 Connectors, and changing the Shopify site in real time 14:45 "Anything I want to build, I can build in seconds" 15:30 Should he grow the agency or not? 16:15 Six people down to three, and the yes-man effect 17:40 Why he's fearful for juniors right now 18:45 His advice: don't use agents until you know the fundamentals 19:30 Why senior-only makes sense for a small agency 20:40 Agents replaced 90% of the work juniors used to do 21:30 The fractional CMO move 22:05 Charging when the execution is commoditized 22:55 Pricing: no change, just more efficient 23:05 A website rebuilt in a weekend, and 40% more conversions 23:45 What makes a good landing page 24:15 Custom CRMs for lead gen clients 25:00 Where AI is not perfect 25:45 The campaign that never went live 26:35 Advice if you want to add CRO to your offer 28:45 No wireframes, straight to draft 29:45 Chrome DevTools, self-correcting AI, and version 37 in 30 minutes 30:20 The bubble we're all in 31:10 AI watermarks, and what they'll actually change 35:00 The client who said "don't use AI" 35:35 The ClickFunnels lesson 37:15 Wrap
Join The AI Agent Challenge: launch agents for Google Ads in 5 days: https://www.ppcmastery.com/ai Cindy Ebner runs the PPC department at a German search marketing agency working with finance and insurance clients. Three people, a lot of accounts, and no plan to hire — because AI agents took over most of the execution. I sat down with her to go through the whole journey. She started in SEO on the content side, taught herself Google Ads on the job, and had never touched a terminal before last November. Now her team builds campaigns in minutes, runs audits with agents, and every specialist owns their own clients end to end. We covered how she got there, what her week actually looks like now, what her team does differently, and the mistakes that cost her when she trusted the output too quickly.
🎁 Get your free Google Ads Audit Templates: https://www.ppcmastery.com/audit In this new mini-series (called Scaling with Bob), we take you behind the scenes of Bob's new freelance offer and what he's doing to help a Lead Gen client scale. We hope you enjoy these insights from the trenches!
Download the list of questions here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rVoTjdGKq2QwxQJ7729az5u7FS-lpTQM/view?usp=sharing
🎁 Get your free Google Ads Audit Templates: https://www.ppcmastery.com/audit In this new mini-series (called Scaling with Bob), we take you behind the scenes of Bob's new freelance offer and what he's doing to help a Lead Gen client scale. We hope you enjoy these insights from the trenches!