The Limits of Specialization In Paid Media

The world of paid media is robust and diverse, presenting advertisers with an endless number of ad platforms to work with. From Google Ads, to Meta, to LinkedIn, to TikTok, to Reddit, to Pinterest, to Outbrain, and more… how is a brand supposed to navigate this environment?

If a marketing team decides that they want to test LinkedIn ads, I can absolutely see why they would want to bring on an expert in this platform to get the most out of their investment. However, I’d argue that choosing a partner that only specializes in one platform or discipline, can limit the amount of value that partner can provide.

In this post I’ll dive into when and where I believe skillset specialization made sense, the potential drawbacks of specialization today, and how technology has reduced the need for narrow expertise.

The Origins of Specialization

As I was working to think through my own offer before launching my services, I put on my Graham Hancock hat to theorize how specialist services came to be.

When I started my career in paid media, working in any ad platform required much more manual work than it does today. It could take hours to set up and launch a campaign, let alone managing bids, budgets, and targeting across hyper-segmented ad groups/sets.

Therefore, it took a decent amount of time to learn how to navigate these tools, in addition to the large amount of time that was required to manage campaigns on a regular basis. It made a lot of sense for companies to outsource this type of work to an agency or freelancer. This resulted in a nice symbiotic relationship between the two parties.

This eventually gave rise to freelancers and agencies who began specializing in only one platform. Their selling point is logical; someone who spends all of their time mastering only one specific platform will most likely outperform a competitor who spends time across multiple tools.

Again, I agree that this makes a ton of sense in a world where in-platform work is complicated and time-intensive.

However, that isn’t the world we live in anymore.

The Limitations of Single-Platform Specialization

I’d seen firsthand how specializing in just one platform or channel had limited my own ability to deliver value to clients over the course of my agency career. Below are a few examples of these experiences.

If The Only Tool You Have Is A Hammer, You Tend To See Every Problem As A Nail

In the beginning of my career, the majority of my time was spent working in paid search. I enjoyed the intricacy of analyzing search term data, and exploring the opportunities behind different keyword themes.

While this helped me to sharpen my search chops, it also led me to become more myopic. I started to see every marketing problem as something that began and ended with paid search.

This led to over-optimization in certain instances. When working with clients whose paid search performance had stalled, I’d test everything from keyword optimization, to copy changes, to dayparting, to geo segmentation, yet the needle wouldn’t move much.

I remember feeling lost because in my mind, there was nothing else that could be done to help these clients grow. My perception was that they had capped out on relevant search opportunities, so that was as far as our relationship could go together.

Naturally, I wasn’t even close on this one.

Speaking A Different Language Than Your Client

Following the same theme from above, specializing in paid search led to some uncomfortable conversations during my agency time, despite performance being great.

For one client in particular, we were only managing paid search and performance looked great on paper. We were seeing “conversion” volume improve and become more efficient on a consistent basis. Our team would dial in to client meetings with a lot of excitement to share our most recent updates.

That excitement would pretty quickly lead to confusion because our clients didn’t share our enthusiasm.

The issue was that the client’s overall marketing program was behind goal. While paid search was a bright spot, they were stressed and trying to figure out a way to close the gap. We didn’t have insight into overall performance because we only managed one channel.

If we had a wider purview into overall performance, our team certainly could have shown up to these meetings with recommendations on more holistic adjustments to improve performance. I would have bet this would have improved our client relationship, but instead our hands were tied because of our specialization on this project.

Technology’s Impact on Specialization

As I argued previously, platform specialization made a lot of sense when ad platforms were complicated and required large amounts of time to manage.

Fortunately for everyone, that’s no longer the case.

With recent improvements in automation over the past few years, work that used to take hours now only takes a few minutes. Part of the reason behind this shift is that there are simply fewer controls to manage in these platforms. While I’ll save the examination of automation vs control for another time, the fact is that most ad platforms have become more simple.

This allows paid media professionals to learn how to use these tools faster than they could before. When working with clients, I don’t limit what platforms I work in for this reason.

For example, during some audience research I found that a good representation of one client’s audience could be found on Reddit. I had never run ads on Reddit before, but after running through their support documentation I was able to pick up on the platform’s processes pretty quickly. Within about a week we had launched our first Reddit ads.

By opening myself up to managing new platforms, I can develop holistic strategies for clients, and help them navigate just about any paid media challenge that they face.

Wrapping Up

I believe that there was once a time and a place for ad platform specialization, however modern technology has made it easier than ever to effectively manage campaigns across almost any tool.

Specialization has limited my own view of possibilities and performance, which hurt client relationships.

Now I make an effort to support my clients by focusing on the challenges that they face, instead of the media platforms I’m comfortable with.

Have questions, considerations, or critiques? I’d love to hear them! If you’re reading this via email, just hit respond. Otherwise, you can find me on LinkedIn and X (Twitter).