My name is Dashen, pronounced Da-Shen rather than Dash-en.

I’m a remote Google Ads specialist based in Durban, South Africa, and I’ve been managing paid search campaigns since 2013. That’s over a decade of being deep in Google Ads accounts, not managing teams, not sitting in strategy meetings, not delegating. Actually doing the work.

I got my start at a web hosting company where the Google Ads Manager role was passed on to me. That was the moment I decided I wanted to make a full career out of it. From there I worked my way through agency life, managing accounts across a wide range of industries and geographies, from property and industrial equipment clients to mental health care and home services businesses. The move to freelance wasn’t impulsive. After years in agency and in-house roles I had a clear enough picture of how I work best, independently, with direct client relationships and no layers in between. PPCProfessional.com is where that led me.

How I Work

I’m a one-man operation, and I think that’s a feature, not a limitation. When you work with me, you get me, not a junior account manager who hands your account off after the onboarding call.

I don’t place much value in meetings. I’ve found they rarely move things forward in any meaningful way. I prefer email and WhatsApp, it keeps communication documented, asynchronous, and efficient. I work independently and I expect clients to trust the process. If you need someone to check in with daily for reassurance, I’m probably not the right fit.

I’m also selective about who I work with. Before agreeing to take on a client, I do my own research. If I genuinely don’t believe Google Ads can deliver results for a particular business or industry, I’ll tell you upfront rather than take your money and underdeliver.

What I Actually Believe About Google Ads

A few things I’ve formed strong opinions on after a decade in the trenches:

Landing pages beat websites. If you’re running paid search and sending traffic to your homepage, you’re leaving money on the table. A proper PPC landing page presents a focused offer and forces a binary choice, convert or leave. No navigation menus, no distractions, no “About Us” rabbit holes.

Offline conversion tracking is underused. Most advertisers are optimising toward form fills and phone calls. That’s a start, but it’s not enough. If you’re not feeding actual closed deal data back into Google Ads, you’re teaching the algorithm to chase leads instead of customers. More people need to be doing this.

YouTube on connected TVs is an overlooked opportunity in South Africa. South Africans are a mobile-first market, most people own a smartphone, far fewer own a WiFi-enabled smart TV. That means the people watching YouTube on a TV are a self-selected, higher-income audience. It’s a quality signal that most advertisers are ignoring.

Tools I Work With

• Google Ads
• Google Analytics
• Google Tag Manager
• Google Data Studio

A Little More About Me

I’m based in Durban and I’ve been working remotely since 2015, long before it became fashionable. Outside of work I’m into gaming, I own a Meta Quest 3 VR headset, and I’m a fan of the superhero genre. Make of that what you will.

You can find me on LinkedIn.