Today we're diving into the world of pay-per-click advertising. You know, it'd be fantastic if customers just stumbled upon our businesses, but we all know that's not how it works. Sometimes we need to invest in advertising, especially in this age of the internet where pay-per-click is an affordable option.

But there are right ways and wrong ways to do it, and that's what we're chatting about today. To help me navigate this terrain, I invited Nick Gosling to join me. He's a fractional COO and business consultant, specializing in optimizing business-to-consumer companies for that sweet bottom line impact. 

Nick breaks down the PPC landscape, emphasizing the importance of knowing your audience and adopting a test-and-learn approach. He highlights how the regulatory environment has changed, with laws like GDPR and the Privacy Rights Act directly impacting behavioral advertising.

As we explore the future, Nick advises small business owners to focus on leveraging first-party data and organic methods, especially with the emergence of low or no-code solutions for data insights. He even drops a gem about Brave Software's advertising platform, a privacy-preserving option that's catching on. It's exciting stuff, considering the ever-evolving nature of PPC.