Disruptive Advertising's Founder and CEO - PPC and Conversion expert
Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Jacob Baadsgaard
Stop Being the Bottleneck: How Marketing Leaders Scale Teams
You’re Not the Hero. You’re the Bottleneck. It’s 9:45 PM on a Tuesday. You’re on your couch, laptop burning your thighs, rewriting email copy for tomorrow’s campaign. You worked a 10-hour day. Your team is talented. Your budget is healthy.
Stop Firefighting: The 70/30 Rhythm for Marketing Leaders
by Jacob Baadsgaard • March 20, 2026 Congrats on Being the Hardest-Working Marketer Who Accomplished Nothing It’s 10 PM, and your Slack is blowing up. Again. You worked 50 hours this week. Put out a dozen fires. Answered three “quick questions” from Sales that murdered your entire Thursday. But when the CEO asks, “Is it working?” you go quiet. Because despite all that motion, your strategy hasn’t moved an inch. You’re exhausted. You’re responsive. You’re available. And you’re completely ineffective.
91% of New Year’s Resolutions and Marketing Strategies Fail—Here’s How to Break the Cycle
TL;DR: If you’re heading into 2026 with the same systems, same structure, and same strategy as last year, expect the same results. The businesses that win align before they accelerate. Start your year fully aligned across Vision, Strategy, Execution, and Team Alignment. Vision Strategy Execution Team Alignment The New Year Trap Every January, business owners and marketing leaders promise themselves that this year will be different.
When Small Teams Win Big: The Alignment Advantage
TL;DR: If your marketing feels like too many moving parts and not enough momentum, alignment is the missing piece. Take our free Team Alignment Audit to see where your leadership, systems, or culture are out of sync and how to fix it fast. 👉 https://assessment.disruptiveuniversity.com/teamalignment Why “Doing More” Isn’t the Same as Growing More After talking to over six hundred business owners and marketing leaders this year, one theme stood out: it’s not talent or effort that holds teams back.
When Hard Work Stops Working: Why Great Marketing Teams Still Stall
TL;DR: If your marketing team feels busy but not effective, take our new Team Alignment Audit. In ten minutes, you’ll see where leadership, systems, or culture are out of sync and get a clear action plan to fix it fast. The Reality That Businesses Face Over the past year, we’ve spoken with more than six hundred business owners and marketing leaders. Many of them came to us after working with multiple digital ad agencies, still frustrated by the same challenges that never seemed to go away.
AI Doesn’t Fix Broken Advertising Strategies—It Scales the Chaos
What businesses need to know about AI and online advertising. Everyone’s using AI. Few are actually getting value from it. You’ve seen it, right? AI-generated content is flooding every channel. AI tools are overloading marketing workflows. AI promises that sound world-changing…but despite all this, even businesses working with online advertising companies are finding their efforts aren’t moving the needle.
The Truth About Choosing the Right Internet Marketing Agency (And Why So Many Get It Wrong)
Most business owners don’t struggle to find an internet marketing agency — they struggle to find one that actually works. Agencies are full of promises: better results, lower costs, more leads. But while every agency promises results, few deliver clarity — and clarity is what scales. After 600+ conversations with business leaders in Q3, we found 9 core pain points that keep great companies stuck in the same exhausting cycle:Hire → Hope → Get Burned → Repeat.
Most Brands Switch Marketing Agencies Every 6 Months — Here’s Why It Hurts Their Growth
Why Most Brands Switch Agencies So Often Let’s face it: most brands switch marketing agencies every 6 months. Why? Because the relationship stops delivering results—or worse, it was never built on a solid foundation. Here’s the pattern we see all too often: Short-term tactics. Shiny new platforms. Quarter-to-quarter panic. This doesn’t just waste money. It: ⛔ Kills momentum. ⛔ Destroys trust. ⛔ Erodes confidence in marketing itself. What If It Didn’t Have to Be This Way?
90% of Businesses Fail Because of This One Thing
Why the most successful leaders stall — and how clarity brings everything back into focus. You’re not stuck. You’re just scaling faster than your vision. That’s what we’re seeing across nearly every business right now—especially in the AI-fueled chaos of 2025. Teams are moving faster. Markets are shifting faster. Noise is multiplying. But the companies that win? They’re not necessarily the ones moving the fastest—they’re the ones moving with the most clarity.
We Don’t Work With Every Brand—Here’s Why
At Disruptive Advertising, we’re proud to be known as a performance marketing agency. But here’s the truth: performance without purpose is empty. Clicks, conversions, and revenue only matter if they actually move something bigger forward. That’s why we don’t work with every brand. We only work with authentic brands—brands that blend purpose and performance. Because when purpose and performance align, the wins multiply. What It Means for Our Employees Our people aren’t order takers.
This day in search marketing history: January 15 Original
Facebook Graph Search arrives In 2013, Facebook announced a new experience that it called Graph Search. Facebook Graph Search relied heavily on Likes and other connections to determine what to show as the most relevant search results for each user. At launch, Facebook Graph Search only included people, photos, places and interests. Facebook Graph Search wasn’t a traditional web search engine like Google or Bing. It was a new type of search – a social search engine.
This day in search marketing history: January 7
The Spam Clock in 2011, startup search engine Blekko launched a spam clock that estimated 155 million spam pages had been created since Jan. 1 of that year. Blekko said 1 million spam pages were being created every hour. How bad was Google’s spam problem then? Big.
This day in search marketing history: January 5 Original
Google AdWords introduces click-to-call ads In 2010, Google sent out notification to its AdWords advertisers that “your location-specific business phone number will display alongside your destination url in ads that appear on high-end mobile devices. Users will be able to click-to-call your business just as easily as they click to visit your website.
How to steal the competition's best keywords: A 3-step guide
Why invest so much into keyword research when your competitors have already done the work? Columnist Jacob Baadsgaard explains how to use competitive research to inform your paid search keyword strategy.
Why email marketing should work, and why it often doesn’t
Email marketing is the first and oldest online marketing strategy. Long before Mark Zuckerberg was even a twinkle in his parents’ eyes, businesses realized that email was a great way to turn contacts into customers. And, in the more than four decades since the first email marketing campaign, a lot has changed in the marketing world. Old marketing staples like billboards, radio spots or direct mail seem to be going the way of the dodo – or at least, that’s what many newer businesses seem to believe.
Are you on the wrong platform? Paid search vs. paid social
When it comes to online marketing, pay-per-click advertising is one of the most powerful tools you can use. Year after year, it gets easier and easier to reach your target market on Facebook Ads, Google Ads and the like. Unfortunately, with all of the features and options we now have available, it can be overwhelming to find the right way to market your business.
Are you on the wrong platform? Paid search vs. paid social
Get traffic data and keyword intel on competitors instantly. When it comes to online marketing, pay-per-click advertising is one of the most powerful tools you can use. Year after year, it gets easier and easier to reach your target market on Facebook Ads, Google Ads and the like. Unfortunately, with all of the features and options we now have available, it can be overwhelming to find the right way to market your business.
3 ad copy mistakes keeping you from paid search success
When it comes to ad copy, everyone makes mistakes – even experienced paid search marketers. After all, Google provides all kinds of helpful information about keywords, bids and search volume, but when it comes to ad copy, it’s up to you to figure out what works and what doesn’t. So, if you feel like writing ad copy is kind of like playing “Wheel of Fortune.” You throw out a bunch of letters or words and hope you guess the winning combination – you’re not alone.
Here's how to identify and define your brand to engage customers
What is your brand? Ask most business owners or marketers that question, and they’ll usually start talking about their logo, catchphrases or even their color scheme. Particularly savvy businesspeople might even describe their market niche and competitive advantage. But, while all of those points are important parts of how your business represents itself to the public, they aren’t your brand. Take Apple, for example.
Cognitive biases: How to get people to prefer your business
Most of us like to believe that we’re inherently logical people, especially when it comes to purchasing decisions. However, we’re not computers. No matter how logical we try to be, emotion always influences our decisions to some extent.
Scarcity marketing: Does it still work?
These days, everything seems to be about ease, convenience and availability. With a few clicks, you can get almost anything (groceries, clothes, transportation…you name it!) sent to your home. If people can’t get what from one business, another option is just a few more clicks away – so why wait? In this climate, it seems like scarcity marketing should be a thing of the past. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
In The Grip Of Gmail: Will Brands End Up Facing An Inbox Monopoly?
by Ray Schultz , Columnist, 6 minutes ago Is there no escaping Gmail, and the smothering embrace of its parent Google? Gmail now has 1.5 billion users — 20% of the world’s population — and email marketers have little choice but to deal with its design quirks, changes and insidious blocking mechanisms. Will Gmail will end up being the only gateway to the inbox? One sign of Gmail’s dominance is an article by Sydney Mugerwa on Dignited.com advising readers on how to migrate to Gmail from Yahoo Mail.
A quick and dirty guide to winning with Gmail ads
Email marketers love to brag about how email marketing is still one of the most effective digital marketing mediums. But what if you don’t happen to have tens of thousands of emails on hand? Or what if you want to get into the inboxes of new potential customers without…you know, breaking the law? Fortunately, there’s a fairly easy way to do this: Gmail ads. Now, I’m not trying to say that Gmail ads are as effective as your standard opt-in email marketing campaign. They’re not.
Can you trust website design best practices?
If you want advice on how to design your website, you don’t have to look very far. There are countless articles out there with “best practices” and even more case studies where someone made a specific change to their website and produced incredible results. The assumption is that if it works for someone else, it should work for you, too. While there’s nothing wrong with trying these recommendations, not every business will get the same results from the same tactics.
5 ways to make your holiday advertising campaigns more profitable
For retailers, it seems like the holiday shopping season starts earlier every year. If you’re an e-commerce retailer, that means it’s time to start thinking through your holiday advertising strategy. There are a variety of tricks you can use to reach the right customer base and give them an online shopping experience that will not only win you their business now, but for months and years to come. 1.
Target acquired: How to define and use your ideal target market
Ironically enough, when it comes to promoting themselves, many businesses jump straight into marketing and forget to really think about the most important part of marketing: their target market. This problem isn’t just limited to new entrepreneurs or start-ups, either. I’ve talked to plenty of well-established companies who can only describe their target market in broad generalities.
15 questions to ask yourself before publishing a new landing page
Landing pages are an important part of most online marketing campaigns. They are a great way to tailor the page that people see after clicking on your ad to your target audience and actual ad content. Unfortunately, while there are a lot of great articles out there about how to test, tweak and refine your landing pages, not every tip or trick works for every page.
Planning to make a video ad or other video asset? 3 things to consider
Video advertising is all the rage these days, but, as with any online advertising channel, you can’t just make an ad, run it on YouTube and expect the sales to start pouring in. All great ads start with a great advertising strategy. Video advertising is no exception. In fact, creating a video ad tends to be a lot more expensive than creating, say, a text or display ad, so the upfront risks of video advertising are even higher than they are in many other online marketing channels.
National ads, local results: Where should you be putting your money?
When it comes to search engine marketing (SEM), geotargeting is a local advertiser’s best friend. After all, if you only serve customers in Evanston, West Virginia, it doesn’t really make sense to pay for clicks from people in New York City. Geotargeting is also great for franchises. Even if you have locations around the world, potential customers are a lot more likely to respond to a location-specific ad than one-size-fits-all ad copy. But what about national or international e-commerce retailers?
National ads, local results: Where should you be putting your money?
When it comes to search engine marketing (SEM), geotargeting is a local advertiser’s best friend. After all, if you only serve customers in Evanston, West Virginia, it doesn’t really make sense to pay for clicks from people in New York City. Geotargeting is also great for franchises. Even if you have locations around the world, potential customers are a lot more likely to respond to a location-specific ad than one-size-fits-all ad copy. But what about national or international e-commerce retailers?
Intent-based keyword research: Let Google be your guide
Whether paid or organic, when it comes to search marketing, keywords are king. Good keyword research is at the heart of any successful search marketing campaign, so it pays to get it right from the get-go. Good keyword research, however, isn’t just about search volume, competition level, suggested bids or any of the other metrics you see in a keyword research tool like Google’s keyword planner. While all of these metrics are helpful, the most important trait of any keyword is the intent behind it.
Intent-based keyword research: Let Google be your guide
Whether paid or organic, when it comes to search marketing, keywords are king. Good keyword research is at the heart of any successful search marketing campaign, so it pays to get it right from the get-go. Good keyword research, however, isn’t just about search volume, competition level, suggested bids or any of the other metrics you see in a keyword research tool like Google’s keyword planner. While all of these metrics are helpful, the most important trait of any keyword is the intent behind it.
Intent-based keyword research: Let Google be your guide
Contributor Jacob Baadsgaard takes a look at why intent is an important part of keyword research and explains how to use Google to guide your SEM and SEO keyword strategies so you're not losing time or money.
Are there PPC monsters lurking inside your paid search account?
Have you ever opened up a paid search report and felt a jolt of fear? Maybe your new campaign wasn’t performing well. Maybe you’d inexplicably spent a ton on AdWords and had nothing to show for it. Maybe it was just more bad news in a losing fight for profitability. Regardless of your particular situation, if you’ve been in paid search for long, you’ve probably had that gut-wrenching feeling at some point. Turns out, there’s more to that feeling than you might have thought.
Content-specific chat prompts: Unlocking the power of conversation
Often, live chat is viewed as a customer service tool — or, even worse, a pesky sales pop-up. In my opinion, though, while live chat can be used for both of those purposes, it can also be used for so much more. Think about it: people love to buy from companies and people that they feel connected to. That’s why content is such a great marketing tool. It helps people get to know your business, build positive associations with your company and, hopefully, become a loyal customer.
Should you bother rewriting your ads?
When it comes to paid search, there is a lot to optimize. Amidst all of the keywords, bidding and landing page refinements you have to do on a regular basis, it can be easy to wonder, “Does my ad copy actually make a difference?” To make matters worse, there’s nothing exciting about tweaking ad copy. Redesigning a landing page is like creating a piece of art. Eliminating keywords can dramatically cut your cost-per-conversion. But ad copy? Does tweaking a word here or there really make a difference?
Boost your conversion rate by 45% today... no, really!
The goal of any good marketing campaign is conversions — or better yet, sales. Yes, key performance indicators (KPIs) like rankings and traffic can help you figure out whether or not your campaigns are on track, but if your marketing doesn’t lead to action (a conversion), it isn’t doing your business a whole lot of good. Obviously, the more conversions you can squeeze out of your traffic, the better, which is why conversion rate optimization (CRO) has become such a hot topic in digital marketing.
No search volume? No problem! 3 ways to improve low-traffic AdWords campaigns
Search volume is the foundation of most successful AdWords campaigns. After all, if you’re bidding on a keyword that gets 10,000 searches per month and you have a 5 percent click-through rate, a 10 percent conversion rate and a 20 percent close rate, you can expect to close 10 sales a month from that keyword. Better ad copy, landing pages or sales tactics can improve those numbers, but at the end of the day, you only have 10,000 searches per month to work with.
No search volume? No problem! 3 ways to improve low-traffic AdWords campaigns
Search volume is the foundation of most successful AdWords campaigns. After all, if you’re bidding on a keyword that gets 10,000 searches per month and you have a 5 percent click-through rate, a 10 percent conversion rate and a 20 percent close rate, you can expect to close 10 sales a month from that keyword. Better ad copy, landing pages or sales tactics can improve those numbers, but at the end of the day, you only have 10,000 searches per month to work with.
A guide to writing irresistible calls to action
Often, when we think of optimizing our call to action (CTA), we immediately think of landing page buttons and tweaking colors. However, your landing page CTA isn’t the only marketing CTA that matters. To get people to your landing page, you need them to click on your ads, which means you need a smart call to action in your ads. This is particularly important for paid search advertisers in situations where you can’t include imagery to convince people to use your business.
Search Engine Land
Often, when we think of optimizing our call to action (CTA), we immediately think of landing page buttons and tweaking colors. However, your landing page CTA isn’t the only marketing CTA that matters. To get people to your landing page, you need them to click on your ads, which means you need a smart call to action in your ads. This is particularly important for paid search advertisers in situations where you can’t include imagery to convince people to use your business.
A guide to writing irresistible calls to action
Contributor Jacob Baadsgaard looks at common search motivations and different types of calls to action you can use to motivate people so they can't help but click.
What the ROAS? A practical guide to improving return on ad spend
Contributor Jacob Baadsgaard shows how ROAS, or return on ad spend, can be used to show the effectiveness of advertising campaigns and whether they are worth the money spent on them.
What the ROAS? A practical guide to improving return on ad spend
Contributor Jacob Baadsgaard shows how ROAS, or return on ad spend, can be used to show the effectiveness of advertising campaigns and whether they are worth the money spent on them.
What the ROAS? A practical guide to improving return on ad spend
Do you want to improve your paid search campaigns? There are a lot of paid search metrics, but one of the most useful and most underused is return on ad spend (ROAS). One of the main points behind online advertising is to drive sales for your business. This is particularly true when it comes to paid search. Most paid search campaigns are targeting potential customers who are fairly low in the funnel.
What the ROAS? A practical guide to improving return on ad spend
Do you want to improve your paid search campaigns? There are a lot of paid search metrics, but one of the most useful and most underused is return on ad spend (ROAS). One of the main points behind online advertising is to drive sales for your business. This is particularly true when it comes to paid search. Most paid search campaigns are targeting potential customers who are fairly low in the funnel.
How to reverse-engineer your online advertising strategy
Online advertising experts love to talk about the importance of matching your landing page content to your ads. And you’ll get no argument from me — it’s a great way to improve the performance of your online advertising. I mean, it just makes sense. People click on your ad because the messaging resonates with them. If you have the same messaging on your landing page, that should resonate with these users and cause them to convert, right?
How to reverse-engineer your online advertising strategy
Online advertising experts love to talk about the importance of matching your landing page content to your ads. And you’ll get no argument from me — it’s a great way to improve the performance of your online advertising. I mean, it just makes sense. People click on your ad because the messaging resonates with them. If you have the same messaging on your landing page, that should resonate with these users and cause them to convert, right?
Which PPC metrics matter? Lessons from half a million keywords
Columnist Jacob Baadsgaard shares insights from a study looking into how various paid search metrics correlate with return on investment (ROI).
Which PPC metrics matter? Lessons from half a million keywords
Columnist Jacob Baadsgaard shares insights from a study looking into how various paid search metrics correlate with return on investment (ROI).
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Jacob
Contact Jacob, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack