Generating leads through Google Ads is easy. Generating high-quality, conversion-ready leads that actually turn into revenue? That’s where most businesses get stuck.
In this episode, we sit down with John Horn, Co-Founder and CEO of StubGroup, to unpack what really separates profitable Google Ads campaigns from expensive experiments. With years of experience managing and optimizing high-spend ad accounts, John brings a refreshingly data-driven perspective on how to attract the right prospects—not just more clicks.
We dive into the most common mistakes businesses make with Google Ads, how to align ad strategy with actual sales outcomes, and the key metrics that matter when your goal is quality over quantity. Whether you’re running ads yourself or overseeing an agency, this conversation will help you rethink how Google Ads fits into a sustainable growth strategy.
If you’re tired of chasing low-intent leads and ready to build a smarter, more scalable acquisition system, this episode is for you.
Episode Highlights Here:
Brett
Before we jump into this episode, I want to invite you to join our community to help you become a better steward scale to billions and ultimately give more or all of it away. All I want
you to do is to click the subscribe button right now. I love your support. It’s incredible to seeyour comments, and we’re just getting started. I can’t wait to go on this journey with you.
Thank you so much for subscribing. It means the world to me. Hello everybody, and welcome tothe build tip lanes podcast, where we got successful entrepreneurs and investors on theirjourney from millions to billions. We believe the key to scaling and compounding your wealthstarts every single day with the mindset and practice of stewardship over ownership andapplying billionaire biblical principles. Our ultimate goal is to have you scale and compoundyour wealth and life so you can give more all the way to help MVPs, the most vulnerablepeople. My name is Brett Swartz. Each and every episode, we’re joined by the world’s top entrepreneurs, millionaires and billionaires, and they share their story, secrets and insights with us, so we can all level up and compound our wealth and our impact. I’m excited about our next guest. He’s out of the great state of Texas, and he’s on a mission to help all of us dominate Google ads and grow our business. And today, we’re going to be talking about AI and Google ads, and what’s, what’s changed, what’s not changed, and maybe how it’s being enhanced. And you know, what’s, what are some things that you can take advantage of. As an entrepreneur who’s wanting to level up their SEO, level up their Google ads, but our guest is the CEO of Stubgroup, again, where he helps small business owners and marketing teams who are struggling with paid ads to achieve a real ROI. He combines expert Ad Management with a personalized, boutique approach that fosters close client relationships and ensures sustainable growth without the risk of unexpected setbacks like ad disapproval or suspensions and his journey began in 19 working in a warehouse while nurturing a passion for marketing. And then he joined his brother to build stuff group from the ground up and so much more. They have served over 2000 clients, and they have run more than 15,000 campaigns and generate over 3 million leads and over 400 million in client revenues. Amazing stuff. Please all show me. John Horn, John, how we doing?
John
Brett, doing fantastic. Thank you so much for having me absolutely.
Brett
If our listeners get to know you for the first time, maybe just give us a little bit more about your story and then your current focus.
John
Yeah, totally. It’s a story I had the opportunity to get into the workforce from a pretty young age, actually, starting, really at age 10, going into the warehouse one day a week. My dad was an assistant warehouse manager, and so I got to see what, what is it like to, actually, you know, have a job, work with people many times my age, and got to do that for many years. And then, you know, other jobs, customer service, marketing, so forth. And then came stud group, like you mentioned. And so, stud group started by my brother and a long-term friend of his, and they brought me on as basically employee number one. We said, Hey, there’s this thing called Digital Marketing. A lot of people need help with it. How do we help them? And so we bootstrapped the company, figured out how to do it ourselves, figured out how to bring on more talent into the team. And then I took on the CEO role about six years ago, and it’s been a fun, fun journey to build excellent
Brett
let’s dive right into the topic at hand, which is, you know, AI versus Google ads and the world as we know it. So, people are saying, oh, you know, chat, GPT is taking over all the things and, you know, so maybe just, you know, what is the biggest myth with that, or what is, what is kind of the new, the new norm. And maybe you can just and then we can dive into the to the power of Google ads and how you help your customers.
John
Yeah, AI is changing a lot of things right now in the marketing space, really on both the demandside and the supply side, which we can talk about both. But what most people see is what Iwould call on the demand side, which is, how are people actually going and finding informationonline now? And Google is still the number one place people go to find information, but we see this massive exponential curve of people also using either Google’s own AI tools like Gemini, AI overviews on search engine results pages, or now AI mode, which is directly available from when you go and do a search on Google, as well as, like you said, chat GPT and Some of the other players like perplexity and so forth. And I’d say what we’re seeing is we are absolutely seeing people start to use these llms to find not just kind of general educational information, but to make purchase decisions. We’ve already started getting clients ourselves who found stud group through chat GPT. I was talking to a mover based out of California last week, and he’s like, hey, I just got a client. He, you know, he typed in, I think best movers near me, or best movers in Los Angeles, something like that. And I came up, and he found me, and we closed the deal. And so there is very much this shift right now where people are using these llms to make actual purchase decisions, or to find the places they’re going to purchase
products or services from.
Brett
So if you like this little, short clip of the interview I just did, click over here to watch the full interview, and please don’t forget to subscribe. Thanks so much everybody.
Watch the episode here:
Important Links:
About John Horn
John Horn is the Co-Founder and CEO of StubGroup, a performance-driven digital advertising agency specializing in Google Ads and Amazon PPC management. With a background in engineering and a deep passion for data, John brings a highly analytical, ROI-focused approach to paid advertising.
Under his leadership, StubGroup has helped hundreds of businesses—from fast-growing e-commerce brands to established service companies—optimize ad spend, generate higher-quality leads, and scale profitably. John is known for cutting through marketing noise to focus on what actually drives results: clean data, disciplined testing, and alignment between advertising strategy and real revenue outcomes.
In addition to leading StubGroup, John is a frequent podcast guest, webinar host, and educator, sharing practical insights on Google Ads strategy, account optimization, and sustainable growth. His work is especially valued by founders and executives who want transparency, accountability, and measurable performance from their advertising investments.
Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!
- capitalgainstaxsolutions.com
- Capital Gains Tax Solutions Facebook
- Capital Gains Tax Solutions Twitter
- Capital Gains Tax Solutions Tiktok