Personal branding in PPC is like holding a blade by both ends – it can open doors & opportunities, but the moment you grip it wrong, you’re bleeding all over yourself. I’ve learned this lesson the hard way, and if you’re building your personal brand in this space, you need to hear this story.
The Mirage of the Perfect Expert
Picture this: You’ve spent years building your reputation. Your content gets shared, your opinions matter, and suddenly you’re the go-to person for whatever angle you’re pursuing in PPC. The invitations start rolling in – podcasts, consultations, speaking gigs. You’ve made it, right?
Then reality hits like a cold slap.
I was in a consultation recently, riding high on campaign wins in Google search and Performance Max. The conversation was flowing well until they pivoted to YouTube ads. Now, I could have given them a generic answer, played it safe, kept the facade polished. Instead, I paused. I was honest. I told them it wasn’t my strongest area and I’d need to think through my approach. I fumbled, I knew I fumbled.
That pause, that moment of human honesty, became blood in a water that I didn’t know was filled with sharks.
Their entire demeanor shifted. Suddenly, the person who had been deferential was making passive-aggressive comments and personal jabs. It was like watching someone’s ego flip a switch from “impressed” to “attack mode.” They had built me up as this infallible expert, and the moment I showed I was human, they felt betrayed. Or maybe they felt embarrassed that they’d put someone imperfect on a pedestal.
The Pedestal Prison
This is the trap of personal branding in PPC – people put you on a pedestal, then punish you for being human enough to occasionally wobble up there.
The community loves to celebrate expertise, but there’s an unspoken expectation that once you’re branded as an expert, you’re no longer allowed to have knowledge gaps, bad days, or moments of uncertainty. You become a corporate robot in designer clothes, expected to have the perfect answer to every question, delivered with unwavering confidence.
However, here’s the thing: being human is exactly what drew me to this industry in the first place. My authenticity, my willingness to share struggles and failures alongside successes, and my commitment to being real about the learning process. These human qualities built my brand, but maintaining that brand now requires me to hide those same qualities.
The Authentic Trap
For those of us who can’t, or won’t, play the polished robot game, this creates a spiritual and emotional crisis.
Maybe you’re neurodivergent, and masking already takes every ounce of energy you have. Perhaps you’re dealing with family issues, such as aging parents, sick relatives, or the chaos of parenting, and you can’t always present yourself as the perfectly composed expert. Maybe you’re part of a marginalized community and being authentic about your identity is non-negotiable, even when it makes some people uncomfortable.
The irony is brutal: the same authenticity that makes you relatable and builds your initial following becomes a liability once you’re expected to be infallible!
The Criticism Carousel
On Anu Adegbola’s wonderful podcast, PPC Live: The Fuckups That Led to Triumps, she asked if mistakes are discussed openly in the PPC community. I gave an honest, maybe slightly snarky answer about how it’s complicated: people say they want transparency, but they often punish you for it.
The response was telling. Some listened to the podcast and reached out and said they loved the honesty. Others were offended that I’d dare suggest the community isn’t as welcoming of mistakes as it claims to be (I’m laughing as I write this).
Here’s what’s fascinating: the same people who make jokes about “don’t be that person who finds something deep in a tuna sandwich” are often the ones using those exact people as engagement bait for their own branding. They’ll sit on their high horse, mocking others for being “too deep” or “too emotional” about marketing, while building their entire personal brand on being the rational, superior alternative.
It’s the same behavior, just wearing different clothes.
The Engagement Economy’s Dark Side
Personal branding in PPC has evolved into an engagement economy where controversy, hot takes, and undermining others generate more visibility than genuinely helping people. The algorithm rewards the person who takes advantage of someone else’s mistake more than the person who quietly helps a struggling advertiser fix their account.
We’ve created a system where being human, such as admitting you don’t know something, showing vulnerability, or having an off day, is seen as a weakness. Meanwhile, those who never admit mistakes, never show doubt, and never reveal their humanity are held up as the gold standard.
But here’s the secret: those “perfect” experts? They’re either lying or so disconnected that they’re plugged into the matrix I mentioned in the podcast. That special matrix that I, personally, am trying to escape from. As a PPC Expert, you don’t have to follow my lead in trying to escape. Sometimes your best move is to take the “when in Rome” approach: If you can’t beat them, join them.
The Mental Health Tax
Living in this space takes a toll on one’s well-being. You’re constantly walking a tightrope between authenticity and acceptability. Every post, every comment, every consultation becomes a calculation: “Can I be honest here, or do I need to perform expertise?”
For those of us dealing with invisible challenges such as autism, ADHD, chronic illness, family responsibilities, and financial stress, this performance becomes exhausting. You’re not just managing your work and your life; you’re managing the perception of your work, your career, & your image.
The mental, emotional, and spiritual cost is real. You start to feel like you’re losing yourself in the brand you’ve built. The thing that was supposed to free you becomes another cage.
The Paradox of Expertise
The cruel irony is that the best experts I know are the ones who admit what they don’t know. They’re curious, they ask questions, they’re willing to be wrong. However, the personal branding game prioritizes this perceived expertise over genuine expertise.
I’ve learned more from people who say, “I don’t know, but let’s figure it out together” than from those who pretend to have all the answers. But guess who gets more followers, more speaking gigs, more opportunities?
The odd part about it’s that one of the arguably wisest people who have ever lived once said, “The only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing.” This is especially true in PPC, where the platforms seem to change every other month.
The Root System Response
So what’s the answer? How do you build a personal brand without losing your humanity?
You have to dig deeper than your reputation.
When criticism comes, and it will come, especially if you dare to be authentic, you want to be so grounded in your values that it shakes the leaves but not the roots. Your values need to be deeper than money, bigger than followers, more lasting than the next algorithm change.
For me, those roots are:
- Legacy: What kind of industry do I want to leave behind?
- Family: Am I building something that makes my loved ones proud?
- Community: Am I lifting others up or just climbing higher myself?
- Service: Am I actually helping people, or just going through the motions?
When someone makes passive-aggressive comments because I admitted I don’t know everything about YouTube ads, I can let that shake the leaves. When someone criticizes me for being too honest about industry problems, I can let that criticism blow through the branches.
But the roots, my commitment to authenticity, to helping people, to building a more human industry in PPC, those don’t move.
The Long Game
Personal branding in PPC is a double-edged sword, but maybe that’s not a bug, maybe it’s a feature. The blade doesn’t discriminate based on who “deserves” to hold it. It cuts anyone who grips it wrong or right, regardless of their talent, their heart, or worthiness.
Those who survive, thrive, and build something lasting are the ones who learn to grip the sword by the handle, not the blade. Or they use their cut to help others. They’re the ones who understand that expertise isn’t about never being wrong; it’s about being willing to learn when you are.
They’re the ones who remember that behind every account, every campaign, every optimization, there’s a human being trying to build something meaningful. Something that converts. That makes money. That makes an impact.
And maybe, just maybe, they’re the ones who help build an industry where being human isn’t a liability, it’s the whole point.
The pedestals will always be there. The question is: Will you climb up, or will you stay grounded in something deeper? Can you master the ability to do both?
Listen to me have this full conversation with PPC Live founder Anu Adegbola on the Episode 323 of PPC Live The Podcast
