🎙️ Unscripted SEO Podcast
Jeremy Yang on Paid Ads Strategy and the SEO-SEM Divide
Managing $450K/month in ad spend — why exact match is dead, the “bullets in the chamber” platform framework, and what 7 years of PPC teaches you that no certification will.
Host: Jeremy Rivera | Unscripted SEO Podcast | Guest: Jeremy Yang — Founder, Digital Goliath
Connect: LinkedIn
“The Golden Rule Applies to Businesses Too” — Kyle Merrick on ethical business practices, customer-first frameworks, and why treating people right is the ultimate long-term SEO strategy.
— Kyle Merrick | Listen: The Golden Rule Applies to Businesses Too →
Key Takeaways
- The SEO-SEM divide persists because of operational intensity differences, not strategic incompatibility. Paid ads run hot — clients demand instant reaction, stakes feel higher, things break fast. SEO runs on a different clock. Both need each other.
- Exact match is dead. Everything is “broad-ish” now regardless of match type settings. Competitor brands can sneak into your keyword auctions. Performance Max has brought back the need for negative keyword lists in a big way.
- “How many bullets you got in the chamber?” Jeremy Yang’s platform selection question: if you can’t consistently produce fresh creative assets, Meta will burn you out in 90 days. Service businesses without video should go 80% Google, 20% Bing.
- Display ads should only be used for remarketing. Cold display traffic wastes budget on impression farms. Every dollar on display should be pointed at people who’ve already visited your site.
- SEO builds compounding assets. Ads stop the moment the budget stops. The combination wins — use ads to identify high-CPC keywords, then build SEO content to own them organically.
Google Ads in 2026: What’s Actually Changed
Jeremy Yang manages roughly $450,000 in monthly ad spend across Google and Meta. His clearest observation: Google has shifted from keyword-controlled campaigns to theme-based, AI-managed delivery. The old “set your match types and trust them” playbook is dead.
Performance Max has become the dominant campaign type — and it’s a black box with ROAS targets as the primary lever. The implication: campaign structure now lives at the business strategy level, not the keyword level. What products or services have acceptable ROAS floors? Build campaigns around those clear targets, not around keyword clusters.
The “Bullets in the Chamber” Framework
“How many bullets you got in the chamber? If you go ‘Let’s do this for three months’ and you got like four assets, I’m like ‘Where’d you get these four assets?’ You go ‘We shot it a year ago and the guy’s gone now.’ I don’t know if you’re going to last three months.”
The framework: before committing to a paid channel, count your creative assets. Meta requires constant fresh creative — at least one new ad concept per week at meaningful scale. Google Search requires ad copy variants and landing page tests. If you can’t feed the channel, don’t start it.
The SEO Value Proposition for Paid Ads Clients
“If you run out of ad budget, your campaign’s over. SEO builds appreciable assets that compound over time.” Jeremy Yang’s recommendation to his own clients: use paid ad data to identify your highest-performing keywords, then invest in SEO content to own those organically over 12–18 months. The combined ROAS is nearly always better than either channel alone.
Connect with Jeremy Yang
- Website: digitalgoliath.com.au
- ROAS Calculator: Free tool
The Unscripted SEO Podcast features candid, unscripted conversations with SEOs and digital marketers. Hosted by Jeremy Rivera.
