PPC Origins - Rachael Beech

In episode 47 of Getting Granular, host Chris Cesar continues the PPC Origin series with Granular’s newest Paid Media Specialist, Rachael Beach. Rachael shares her journey into paid media, from an unexpected internship opportunity to becoming a PPC professional. She talks about the importance of specialization in marketing, her experience in B2B advertising, and her enthusiasm for structured, well-organized accounts. Alongside professional insights, Rachael tells a hilarious and unexpected story of working at a Christmas-themed petting zoo, where she was unexpectedly thrust into farm labor and even got bitten by a woodchuck. Tune in for an engaging discussion on PPC, career growth, and some truly unforgettable job stories.

Show Notes

Meet Rachael (00:23): Rachael shares a bit about herself, her love for outdoor activities, and her unhealthy number of houseplants.
How She Found PPC (02:27): Rachael details how she fell into paid search while interning during college and unexpectedly became responsible for an entire company’s PPC efforts at just 19 years old.
Why PPC? (06:34): Discussing why she stuck with PPC, Rachael explains the value of having a specialized skill set in marketing, the blend of creativity and data-driven strategy, and how she enjoys working in the field.
The Importance of Specialization (07:50): Chris and Rachael discuss the advantage of developing hard skills over being a generalist in marketing.
Past PPC Experience (11:57): Rachael shares her experience working with B2B clients, including industrial manufacturing companies, and her time managing Amazon advertising campaigns.
Rachael’s Wildest Job Story (14:15): Before PPC, Rachael worked at a Christmas-themed petting zoo and amusement park—where she did everything from cleaning barns to getting bitten by a woodchuck.
Life at Granular (20:30): Rachael talks about what she enjoys most about working at Granular, including the diverse client portfolio, collaborative culture, and strong team dynamic.
Her Approach to PPC (22:38): Rachael shares her PPC philosophy: setting up accounts in a structured and organized way from the start, taking ownership of client relationships, and maintaining a high standard of work.
The Future of PPC (26:42): A discussion about automation, AI, and the evolving challenges of paid media, including concerns about losing control over key account functions.
Final Words of Wisdom (28:58): Rachael’s advice: never be afraid to ask questions and continue learning—don’t let the fear of feeling “dumb” stop you from growing.

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Episode Transcript

Narrator: Welcome to Getting Granular, the podcast where digital marketing experts from the agency granular talk about the latest trends, tried and true best practices, and share their unfiltered thoughts about the industry. Whether you are here to learn how to grow your business, improve your digital skills, or just want to hear some Midwest PPC experts rant about digital media, you’ve come to the right place.

Chris: Welcome. Thank you all for tuning into the Getting Granular podcast. I’m your host, Chris Caesar, and today we are continuing our PPC Origin series with Granulars current newest employee, I believe. Yes.

Rachael: Yeah,

Chris: Yeah. Current newest employee. For now until we hire somebody else, Rachel Beach. Rachel, welcome.

Rachael: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Chris: Yeah, we’re glad to have you. Always fun to bring somebody new into the podcast. I guess let’s just start off with who are you? Tell us about yourself.

Rachael: Sure. Yeah, so I’m Rachel. Currently, I live locally in downtown Milwaukee, which I really, really love. I enjoy most outdoorsy things like camping, hiking, rock climbing, and most of the granular employees know that I’m well known for owning far too many plants that I do not have space for in my tiny apartment. And currently I am a paid media specialist at Granular.

Chris: How many plants is too many plants?

Rachael: Right now I have 42. They all are in one room, so probably 40 twos. Too many

Chris: Is 41, too many.

Rachael: We’ll find out if one dies, if

Chris: When. Yeah, yeah, happens. Rachel’s also the assistant manager of Plant Life here at Granular as well. Is that your

Rachael: When on call? Yes. I take the opportunity

Chris: Only like two or three have died so far.

Rachael: Just one. I’ve only lost one.

Chris: Well, either way you’re doing a better job than I would’ve. Thank you. They’d probably all be dead.

Rachael: They’re finicky.

Chris: But yeah, like you said, paid media specialist here at Granular. Been here for about a year-ish now, almost kind

Rachael: Of. I don’t think so. I think it’s only been like six months.

Chris: What a great six months it’s been.

Rachael: Yeah.

Chris: Great to have you. We’re glad to have you. Cool. So I guess let’s just jump right into it. How did you get into Paid Search and what brought you to Granular and tell us your whole little backstory. What got you here?

Rachael: Yeah, so I kind of fell into PPC when I was a sophomore in college. I really just wanted any internships that I could afford to stay in Milwaukee.

Chris: Where are you from?

Rachael: Oh, I’m from Algonquin, Illinois.

Chris: What is that?

Rachael: It is a tiny little town on the edge of farmland abyss. It’s like an hour and 45 minutes outside Chicago

Chris: Algonquin. That’s a Native American tribe, right?

Rachael: Yeah.

Chris: You know how I know that?

Rachael: Probably a sports team.

Chris: No, because Mil is Algonquin for the Goodland.

Rachael: Oh, full circle have gone on.

Chris: All right.

Rachael: Escape

Chris: If no one has caught onto this yet. Rachel is a little younger and did not catch the movie reference I just made. So if you’re a millennial or older, you probably understood that, Rachel, we’ll explain later. You didn’t catch it, did you?

Rachael: No.

Chris: Alright. All the old people just rolled their eyes at you. I’m sorry. Anyway, go on. Continue to tell us about the mean streets of Algonquin to downtown Milwaukee.

Rachael: Anyway, I was going to school at Marquette and I wanted to stay on campus over the summer, but to do that I needed money, so I needed an internship. So I applied to any and all ones that I could find as I was pretty young at the time, and so I landed one at this company called Olympus Group. It was just like a generic digital marketing internship role. But when I arrived on my first day, I found out that the digital marketing manager at the time had just put in her two weeks. So she spent two weeks fully training me in everything that she did, which largely revolved around the paid search she did for the company. So she trained me up and then she left, and then it was just me and my 19-year-old self running the company’s paid search, which was a little frantic for a while, but it was a cool experience and probably one that most people wouldn’t have gotten, if not for the odd circumstances that I was in.

So it was a really cool way to get responsibility that I might not have been qualified for or definitely wasn’t qualified for, but just got lucky into getting. So yeah, that was my start. And then from there I worked some other internships on campus doing marketing for the school, and then got another internship the next summer at a different company called Brady Corporation who saw my internship history and thought I would be good for a digital marketing position there, which I did over the summer and then into the following school year. I continued to do it two days a week. I worked full time and then did school the other three days of the week, and then when I graduated, they gave me an offer, and so I worked at Brady Corporation doing paid search there and learning from a team. That’s also where I met a coworker that I have now at Granular, which is Lauren. And so she’s the one that connected me to Granular and told me about the opening here and referred me so that I was able to get connected to people here. And then I eventually applied here

Chris: 19 years old running an entire PC an entire company’s PPC. That’s not terrifying. Yeah,

Rachael: They’ll trust anyone if they need to, I suppose. I think nothing blew up. I spent the budget pretty accurately for someone taking their first stab at it

Chris: And no one died.

Rachael: Yeah, no one died. We sold mascots for sports teams. You actually, you would like that.

Chris: Yeah, that’s the old adage. There’s no such thing as a marketing emergency. You handled it flawlessly. Probably. Probably. Cool. So I guess then, what was it about PBC aside from the fact that they were paying you money to do it that made you sort of want to stick with it and choose that down a career path?

Rachael: Yeah, so I mean, aside from getting lucky with the different positions that I had, it was a skill that I thought helped me stand out against my peers in the marketing field. I really didn’t want to be a generalist in it. It just wasn’t super viable for getting an actual job and having something sustainable, and I already had those skills to begin with, and so I just kind of enjoyed doing it and I just kept doing it and after a while I just had the experience to stick with the role and it never bothered me doing the job. I always kind of enjoyed the people I worked with, and so it just kind of fell into place really nicely there.

Chris: Yeah, I think that’s interesting what you bring up about the marketing generalist. That’s sort of when you go through college, again, this was my experience a few years back, but it was more of that was what you learned. It was all the general, you learn the terms you learned. They basically taught you how to be an account executive at a agency, but there were no hard skills. This is paid search. This is SEO, this is how to buy billboards, things like that. Where was that sort of your consistent experience too?

Rachael: Yeah. They never really told you about the different jobs within marketing either. They were like, yeah, you’ll graduate and you’ll go do marketing. But if you have an entire graduating class all majoring in the same thing, all going after these general jobs, people are going to have a really hard time with it. So it is important to specialize yourself, get hard skills, be really good at something because that’s the only way it’ll stand out and kind of launch yourself ahead of everyone else your age.

Chris: Definitely. And that’s what I like to tell people too. Get good at the hard skills, be good at Excel, and be able to work out as a team, and then the company will teach you the rest. Cool. What else about PPC do you enjoy?

Rachael: Well, I say I grew up fairly artsy, but I also had a dad that was very much so a salesman my whole life. So he was kind of always teaching me about selling things and trying to be super technical and that. So I saw PPC as a cool mix between getting to creative with writing ad copy, coming up with strategy, but also technical in the sense that you’re always working to sell your work to the client, sell your ideas to the client. So it’s kind of a nice mix between those two sides of myself there.

Chris: I think this is time to bring something up that everyone knows Steve, anybody who listens to this has probably met Steve Kroll once or last in her life. Steve has a quote that he loves to attribute to you. I

Rachael: Don’t necessarily remember the quote. I said it when I was interviewing. It was something about you have to sell no matter what role you’re in, I think you have to sell something. You’re always selling yourself and your ideas. The skill of sales is applicable everywhere and necessary everywhere to get anything done. You have to sell someone on your idea or else they simply will ignore it. So having those kind of soft skills there help you get through life and get things done, I suppose.

Chris: So the quote that stood out most in your interview is something you don’t even remember saying?

Rachael: Not necessarily. When I interview, I usually black out and yap and just, if someone asks me a question, words will come out of my mouth and sometimes they’re good. I heard.

Chris: All right. Well, you’ve faked your way into being insightful. Congratulations. Oh, anyway. Where were we at now? What were we talking about? Yes, selling yourself, selling your ideas. Yeah, that was,

Rachael: Yeah, that’s good. I accidentally got a sales focus in college because I took so many sales classes. I really liked one professor and his classes were not too hard, but he was a great professor. If you just sat in his class and talked to him, he was so, so insightful. So I just kept taking his classes and then when I graduated, they were like, oh yeah, by the way, you have a focus in sales. And I was like, oh, that’s cool. Put that on my degree. Fun.

Chris: I think that might be one of my, I don’t want to say regrets because I still made it where I am today, but one thing I remember, some sort of some club or something I was in had a speaker come in and say, if you do take one class, make sure you take a sales class. Because like you said, no matter what you’re going to be selling yourself, nothing in this world happens unless someone sells one thing to another person. And I was like, oh, that’s really great. And then I ended up not being able to fit a sales class in my schedule, but here I am today. So I guess moving on from that, what sort of specializations do you have? What industries have you worked in? What do you enjoy doing? Any specific verticals or industries that you find yourself that you’ve either worked in and either may not have liked that much or did enjoy a lot?

Rachael: Yeah, so in the past, I largely worked with larger manufacturing B2B companies that sold different things from mascots I talked about before, or something like industrial label printers, which isn’t the most glorious thing to be selling. I’m sold, they’re cool printers. I brought ’em home, I labeled stuff. But yeah, it was largely B2B work, so definitely a different perspective on things there that I gained. I enjoyed them. They were really good experiences. I think sometimes when I was super focused on only one thing that you were selling it, it did get a little boring and redundant, especially when the accounts or the account that I was working in was so old and so well built out where it was like there was just missed learning opportunities at those or in those positions there. But good experience working in B2B and kind of getting into that mindset of you are not selling to a person, you’re selling to a group of people, and which of those people do you want to talk to? Because there’s people that you can talk to that they don’t have any decision-making skills, but other people do have the decision-making skills, so how do you get in front of the right people at the right companies to do that kind of a thing?

When it comes to special skills in PPC, I did a lot of search in the past. It was mostly search-based. We did a little bit of shopping there as well, and I also really enjoyed doing some Amazon advertising for them. It was a really cool and fun platform to learn about because it’s not a lot of the times in regular search or regular shopping that you get to put your products in front of consumers when they’re so ready to purchase something. So it was a totally different environment of consumers who were actively looking to buy right then and there. They’re in the mindset. They have their credit card in their hand, so that was really cool and kind of a different strategy that I got to learn about there as well.

Chris: Interesting. I guess before we transition out of the past and how you got here, any other fun facts you’d like to tell us about past jobs or anything?

Rachael: Yeah. One of my most humorous past jobs that has made me very grateful for the desk job that I now get to work at, which is sometimes odd to say, is that I used to work at a Christmas themed petting zoo slash amusement park. It was called Santa’s Village, ament Park, if anyone’s ever heard of it in, I think it was in Illinois. It was my first job ever. I applied to it to be a petting zoo handler assistant, whatever,

Chris: Because you loved animals.

Rachael: I love animals. I was like, yeah, I’ll get to play with some bunnies and feed some goats and hang out little feed cups. I was like, cool. This will be a great first job. That sounds like fun. How old are you at the time? I think maybe I was like 16, maybe 15, something like that. And I thought it’d be really fun. I was like, this would be great. Great summer. I’m going to have it. Turns out the position was more of a farm hand that I was going to be, and so I would have to get to this place that played Christmas music all day, every day in the middle of July when it was 80 degrees outside, you’d show up at seven in the morning, Christmas music blaring and my little Steve Irwin outfit, full khaki, and I would do manual labor, so I would have to heave bales of hay out of a barn and distribute them around the farm. I would have to muck out barns for cows. Never.

Chris: What does that mean?

Rachael: It means you fully take out all the bedding and all of the manure produced by the animals and clean it out fully, and then reed it with whatever hay or bedding that there is. So a lot of cow poop and goat poop that my 16-year-old self was not anticipating at this job. I also, on my very first day of not even training or not even job, I was being trained that day, they had a woodchuck there named Smokey the Woodchuck, and they told me to go give Smokey the woodchuck water. And so I went to Smokey the Woodchuck’s little area and put down his water and smokey the woodchuck didn’t like me, I suppose, and he came up and bit me on the hand. I found out at that moment that I faint at the sight of my own blood. So in front of all of my new coworkers, I passed out twice because I was under the age of 18. They couldn’t even give me Advil.

And this of course was the morning of prom, and so I had a hair appointment to go to, so I refused to let my mother take me to go get stitches because I had to get my hair done, of course. And so I went to go get my hair done. I was doing prom the whole day and I changed that bandage on my hand every hour on the hour. I dance in on the dance floor. I’m like, oh, it’s bleeding through again. I’ll be right back. And then I continued to work there all summer. I should have quit on the spot that day. I did not. There’s so many stories from me. You ever see those little carousels where the horses are, kids are sitting on the horses walking in a little circle on those things. The horses don’t push the circle, the people do at Santa’s Village. So I was out there, there’s no sun cover because the sun cover got broken. So an 80 degree heat, me pushing this little wheel in the sun, lifting kids on horses. There was a lot of funny stories there.

Chris: So if anyone has not actually met Rachel, she is not of a very large stature. She’s quite tiny, so if you ever do see her, you would not think carry big bales of hail, carry big bales of hay, push large wheels around with horses doing large manual labor. So this is just, I’ve never heard this story. This is great.

Rachael: There’s some good stories there. It was a terrible job at the time, but now I have a lot of funny, fun facts.

Chris: I have a number of questions, few highlights. One, I guess. How big is a woodchuck?

Rachael: They’re pretty big. They’re like, you’re talking

Chris: Like raccoon size? Rabbits size?

Rachael: Yeah, like raccoon sized.

Chris: Okay. Bigger than I thought. Like a beaver

Rachael: Without the tail. Yeah.

Chris: Okay. That’s bigger than I expected.

Rachael: This guy also, he might’ve been larger. He was in captivity. He was a little chunky.

Chris: Okay. Did you not have to get a rabies shot?

Rachael: I wasn’t told about one, and I’m still alive, so that’s really cool.

Chris: Okay. That would’ve been my concern had I gotten bit by an animal that was unfamiliar to me.

Rachael: Yeah. I

Chris: Think I have others, but

Rachael: I got to play with baby bunnies, so that did happen.

Chris: It all evens out

Rachael: Some days.

Chris: Yeah. Alright.

Rachael: It was a good first job. It made me very grateful and appreciative of all of the other jobs I had. I’m like, wow, granular has air conditioning crazy.

Chris: Who would’ve figured? Yeah, there’s no sun either. You don’t have to get,

Rachael: I’m happy. I’m a happy camper. Easy to please. We started real low.

Chris: Yeah. It’s only up from there.

Rachael: Yeah.

Chris: Yeah. So I guess if you have any more follow-ups, reach out to Rachel and I’m sure she’d be happy to tell you about

Rachael: It. I got bowl loads of fun stories. Only got bit once I think.

Chris: Good. What’s important. And you didn’t die, you survived.

Rachael: No.

Chris: Great. Okay. Anyway, back to non getting bit by an animal things. So back to granular, what would you say, aside from windows and air conditioning and

Rachael: The basics? Yeah,

Chris: Yeah. Aside from basic things that most people have at offices, what do you enjoy about working at Granular?

Rachael: Aside from basics, I do really enjoy the variety of clients I get to work on. It really keeps you on your toes, not knowing a new client, what they sell, what kind of an item it is. You’re always trying different strategies based on the target audience. It is really a continuous learning process where there’s always opportunities to grow your skills there and just continue learning, keep growing as a pp, cer, and as an individual with professional skills. So it’s very interesting and it makes every day different, which is really cool. It also has a great company culture here. It seems like everyone around me, while people make jokes every now and then, everyone treats each other like family. And it is really fun coming into the office, and I enjoy the people I work with, and I think Granular overall does a really great job of making their employees feel cared for and very seen. It’s a great culture overall.

Chris: Very cool. Very cool.

Yeah. I mean, we always obviously have done a good number of these at this point, and I think that one of the main storylines, or one of the main themes has always sort of been people feel like they’re valued here. And that’s sort of the main thing that we always try and push for here is you’re not just somebody clicking your mouse and pushing buttons, and it’s not transactional, but have it more, more that personal approach where you’re tied together and everyone’s a team and working together, and again, you’re going to get in disagreements with people, but end of the day you’re there for each other and we’re always pushing each other to be our best.

Rachael: Yeah, it’s really cool to be a part of.

Chris: So as we talk about being a paid media manager, working with clients, working on accounts, take us through your personal approach. How do you operate on a day-to-day basis, be it within an account, within a client, just again, to make sure you’re getting all your work done, making sure everyone’s as happy as you can possibly make them.

Rachael: Yeah, so I would say for that, it really varies from client to client. I’ve always come from the philosophy that accounts should be set up as thoroughly and cleanly as you can from the start. You should always put your best foot forward and try your hardest at everything. From the simplest of ad copy to super thorough keyword research. Everything should have your best effort behind it. And also that cleanliness that you hopefully start out with then makes the organization of the account much easier down the road where things are all of the nitty tiny things in the account, you just have the super thorough of how things are laid out, how they’re being run. So I’ve always personally loved a really neat organized approach from the start. It just kind of helps my brain take things in. And then from more of a personal approach of working with clients, I think this does go back to being raised by someone in sales where you need to be liked by your clients.

So that comes from working on being really friendly and enthusiastic about the work that you do. It’s a privilege to work on someone’s account. It’s they’re trusting you with their image and their funds. So being enthusiastic about getting to do something is important. You want to show the client that they’re your top priority. You want to make them feel seen and cared about, just like employees want to be seen and cared about. And so that excitement will hopefully then cause them to be excited about working with you. And then that forms that really good bond between client and worker. I think it’s important and hopefully helps things go smoothly even when there’s bumps in the road or changes. I think it’s good overall and a good philosophy to have.

Chris: Yeah, definitely. And when something isn’t clean and it’s a little messy, then you just take that extra step to show yourself that it’s clean, right?

Rachael: Yeah. You got to put the work in to make it nice and neat.

Chris: Yeah, definitely. This is a personal experience that Rachel and I share together.

Rachael: It is frustrating when things are messy. It makes everyone’s lives harder,

Chris: And then Rachel cleans it up and saves the day.

Rachael: Yeah,

Chris: That’s my experience.

Rachael: Color coordinated, nice spreadsheet. It’s good. It’s good for the brain, makes it happy.

Chris: And then when people even refer to those things, it’s even better.

Rachael: And they call it, they say, this is Chris‘s, Chris‘s spreadsheet.

Chris: That did happen once, and I’m not too upset about it.

Rachael: I was very upset about it. I almost put the name of the spreadsheet, Rachel spreadsheet, thought about it. Still don’t thinking about it,

Chris: But sometimes you got to just let people give you credit for things.

Rachael: That’s fine.

Chris: It’ll happen. It’ll come your way sometimes.

Rachael: Yeah. That’s okay.

Chris: I’ll do a lot of work on something and be like, Rachel, this is great work, and you’re just going to be like, oh, thank

Rachael: You. Just nod and smile. Yes, yes. Yeah.

Chris: You didn’t deny it, but you didn’t take credit for it either. True. You’re still clean.

Rachael: Yeah.

Chris: So yeah, I guess we talked about the past, how you got here, the present, how things are going now, where you’re at. So only one place left to go. The future. The future. You got it. Look at that. See, it’s smart as a whip. So looking at the future of PBC, where do you see it going? What excites you, what concerns you, et cetera?

Rachael: Yeah, so I am always really excited about just getting to continue to learn and to grow my skills. There’s always something new in PPC that you can learn more about. There’s always a new update, a new strategy. Someone has an idea that could be tried. So it is exciting to constantly get to do new things, try new things, learn new things, grow in that sense. When it comes to things that I’m more concerned about for PPC, the future of automation in this industry is always a bit daunting. You never know when controls are going to be taken away from us. Maybe certain things that we do could be automated if someone decides it to be. So there’s always ways and avenues to combat that automation and fight against it. But I think it is a bit spooky knowing that those choices aren’t necessarily in our hands. So that is always a little concerning and you never know what’s going to happen in the future with that.

Chris: And with that, you almost kind of try to anticipate what’s going to come next, whether or not you’re successful at it.

Rachael: Yeah. Testing and always trying to stay ahead of the different sneaky toggles that are turned on, or new features that are supposed to be super great and easy to use. Figuring out the issues with those things and actually learning about the true effect behind them, how it helps you stay ahead of the curve,

Chris: Be ahead of the automation that may come ahead.

Rachael: Yeah.

Chris: Yeah. I think that’s been a common occurrence in this conversation with people is the automation and the ai. So yeah, you’re not alone there. That’s a frequently repeated answer. Makes sense. So as we wrap up here, I always like to ask the guest here, do you have any sort of words of wisdom for anybody listening? Be it work-related, not just life tips for anybody?

Rachael: Yeah. I would say as a younger employee, I always come from the perspective of there’s always something new to learn, and you shouldn’t let the fear of feeling dumb to keep you from expanding your knowledge and growing as a person.

Chris: I would agree with that. Even as you get older. I know there’s a famous saying, I don’t know who said it, but I like to think about it a lot of, if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room. So yeah, I wouldn’t say being young has anything to do with that. That’s going to continue forever.

Rachael: Oh boy.

Chris: Yeah. So there you go. Just assume you’re the dumbest one and then

Rachael: No. Then you just got to work harder.

Chris: Yeah. And then you’ll learn more. Great. Cool. Rachel, it was great having you.

Rachael: Yeah.

Chris: Hopefully we’ll have you back soon sometime to talk about some other new interesting topics.

Rachael: That would be great.

Chris: How keeping plant life applies to keeping PPC accounts running.

Rachael: I could make a connection.

Chris: Oh, well. All right. You heard it here. She just committed to it. Stay tuned for our next edition. But in all seriousness, thank you everyone for listening to the Getting granular podcast. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out on any PC tips, tricks, or news in the digital marketing world. If you have any suggestions for future topic as well, we’ll be here and be glad to talk about it. I’ve been your host, Chris Caesar. Thanks for getting granular with us today.