Getting Granular

PPC Origins - Noah Hardy

Episode Summary

In Episode 50 of the Getting Granular podcast, host Chris Cesar sits down with Noah Hardy to explore his nearly decade-long journey through digital marketing and paid media. Noah shares how starting at a Milwaukee startup at just 19 years old led him to discover a passion for PPC, eventually taking him to VaynerMedia, e-commerce brands, agency roles, and ultimately Granular. Along the way, he discusses the evolution of paid search and social, his passion for creative testing, the importance of understanding profitability and building genuine client relationships, and why marketers should look beyond surface-level performance metrics. Noah also shares his perspective on AI, automation, and the future of PPC, including why human strategy and oversight will remain essential as platforms take on more control. He closes with a simple piece of advice shaped by his own career: find work you genuinely enjoy doing.

Episode Notes

• Introduction (00:23): Host Chris Cesar welcomes listeners back to Getting Granular for the 50th episode of the podcast and introduces Noah Hardy, one of Granular’s newest team members. Noah shares a bit about himself, including his nearly decade-long career in digital marketing, love of travel, video games, cooking, and life in Grafton, Wisconsin.
• Getting an Early Start in Digital Marketing (03:58): Noah traces his PPC origins back to college, when he joined Milwaukee startup GenoPalate at just 19 years old. Working across everything from email and SEO to paid media and even supply chain gave him broad experience, but the speed and measurable results of PPC quickly stood out.
• Why Paid Media Stuck (06:53): The ability to make a change and see tangible business results drew Noah toward paid media. He reflects on how PPC has evolved over the past decade, from granular keyword structures and easier tracking to increasingly automated platforms driven by algorithms, creative, and conversion signals.
• Finding His Strength in Paid Social (09:17): Noah discusses his passion for paid social, particularly creative strategy and testing. He explains how developing new messages, formats, and creative concepts can produce significant growth when marketers find ideas that truly resonate with an audience.
• From VaynerMedia to Granular (10:35): After working with e-commerce brands and major clients like Bose, Noah eventually found his way to Granular. He shares why the agency’s collaborative culture, experienced team, strong client relationships, and return to in-person work have made Granular stand out from previous roles.
• Building Trust With Clients (14:32): Noah explains that strong client relationships start with understanding the business behind the campaigns. From margins and profitability to growth goals and individual communication needs, he believes good PPC management requires understanding both the numbers and the people behind them.
• Reporting Beyond Surface-Level Results (17:48): When evaluating campaign performance, Noah focuses on incrementality, profitability, testing, and context rather than simply reporting that revenue went up or down. He discusses using experiments, historical comparisons, and seasonality to understand what actually drove performance and what marketers should do next.
• AI and the Future of PPC (19:41): Noah sees AI as one of the biggest forces shaping paid media, but doesn’t believe PPC professionals are about to be replaced by AI agents. Instead, he’s excited about using AI to automate time-consuming tasks and tackle complex data analysis, freeing marketers to spend more time on higher-value strategic work.
• Keeping Humans in Control of Automation (23:47): As Google and other platforms remove more manual levers, Noah discusses the shift from hands-on campaign management toward guiding increasingly sophisticated algorithms. While automation can improve performance, he cautions against a future of “just trust me, bro” campaigns where advertisers lose visibility and control.
• The Evolution of YouTube Measurement (26:29): Noah and Chris explore the challenge of proving YouTube’s performance value, particularly for smaller advertisers without access to expensive measurement models. Noah highlights attributed branded searches as an especially promising development for connecting upper-funnel YouTube activity to measurable business results.
• Words of Wisdom: Find Work You Enjoy (30:31): Noah encourages listeners not to waste years doing work they hate. After experiencing roles that weren’t the right fit, he says his first few months at Granular have reinforced the value of finding work—and a company—that makes the day-to-day genuinely enjoyable.
• Wrap-Up (31:53): Chris thanks Noah for joining the podcast and helping celebrate Getting Granular’s 50th episode. Noah embraces the honor of becoming the milestone guest before Chris encourages listeners to subscribe for more PPC tips, insights, and digital marketing conversations.