The day Aashna Makin's employer offered her a promotion, she quit, a decision that has looked more strategic with every year since.

She's gone on to manage over $75 million in paid media across 150+ niches, building a full-time practice from the ground up and recently sharing a panel stage with Danny at SMX Advanced in Boston.

In this episode, Aashna breaks down what separates paid ads that actually grow a business from ones that just burn budget, why lead gen is a fundamentally harder problem than e-commerce, and the one habit she wishes every junior media buyer would build from day one.

Episode Highlights:

• Aashna and Danny discuss why paid ads that drive real growth require a predictable, documented system, not just a well-structured campaign, and what happens to accounts built on checklists instead of strategy.
• She gives the B2B team-building example: how a campaign performing perfectly on every platform metric was creating a lead-quality problem that had nothing to do with the ads and everything to do with calendar availability.
• The reveal why lead gen is fundamentally harder than e-commerce in paid media, from messaging precision to seasonality to the scarcity of quality resources for practitioners working in the space.
• Aashna makes the case for pinning headlines, explaining why she hasn't been convinced by Google's arguments against it, particularly for businesses where a single wrong audience segment can poison the entire pipeline.
• The conversation details the ownership mindset: treating every dollar of ad spend as if it's leaving your own bank account, and why she considers it the single most important habit a new media buyer can build.

Episode Links:

• Aashna Makin on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/aashnamakin
• Website: reachaashna.com
• Sell Like Crazy by Sabri Suby: Available on Amazon
• SMX Advanced 2026 Panel, "Agentic PPC: What's Real, What's Hype, What's Next": searchengineland.com

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