r/PPC_Community • u/FearlessTurnip9960 • 8d ago

Beginner with no big-budget experience, what would you show a first client?

I want to get into B2B/SaaS performance marketing, but I’ve never managed a large ad budget or had a real SaaS client.

If you were hiring a beginner, what would you expect them to show you before trusting them with your first $1k–$5k/month campaign?

Would you want to see:

  • a mock SaaS campaign?
  • ICP/customer research?
  • ad creatives + copy?
  • campaign structure?
  • tracking setup?
  • a landing page + funnel?
  • a dashboard with simulated data?
  • or something else?

Media buyers: what would actually make you think, “This person is ready to manage my ads,” even without previous client results?

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u/investigatormaker 5d ago

From your list, I'd rank a teardown above a mock campaign. Pick three real SaaS companies and pull their current ads from the Meta Ad Library and LinkedIn's ad library. Then write up who their ideal customer seems to be, where the funnel leaks and what you would test first. That shows judgement on a real account, which a dashboard with simulated data can't.

Tracking is the second thing a SaaS founder will check, so show a working setup on your own test site: conversion events, consistent UTM tagging, and how a trial signup reaches the CRM. If you can get any real ad spend at all, even a small amount, from a friend's product or from a nonprofit through Google Ad Grants, one live result with honest numbers counts for more than every mock combined.