It All Started With An Idea

Performance marketing agency, Queen Creek, Arizona

Done-for-you paid media, powered by Buddy.

We run Google Ads, Meta and Amazon for growing businesses, and build the sites, systems and AI tools behind them.

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Free. No contract. Results back within 48 hours.

Squeaky Clean Turf website, built by It All Started With An Idea

Buddy by Ahmeego app finding wasted Google Ads spend

$350M+ ad spend managed
15+ years in performance media
Founder-led, no junior handoffs
48 hours to your free audit

Where John has worked

Brands and clients John has run advertising for

Beta and product work with

Earlier: Dex Media and Yellow Pages · Including Meta call-only campaigns and Google local actions and audiences · Hero Conf speaker, 2025 and 2026 · AO / Altig partner · GM, Toyota and Ford work ran through their local dealer programs

Selected work

Things we've built for clients.

Live sites, CRM moves and the systems that run a business. Every one is still in use.

Meekins Corp · Wholesale operations hub

One system for every order, from Faire to the warehouse.

Meekins sells through sales reps, trade shows, Faire, Shopify, Amazon and TikTok, and ships from a 3PL. We built a hub that keeps all of it in Odoo: orders, invoices, stock, shipping and payments sync every 15 minutes, the numbers are reconciled every night, and the team gets a summary every morning.

Odoo ERP
Faire
Shopify
Cloudflare Workers

Related: ERP and Odoo · Faire wholesale

MarketTime and Faire
Shopify, Amazon, TikTok
Shipedge 3PL
Stripe

Odoo

Margin and sell-through
Reorder alerts
Daily, weekly, monthly reports

Phoenix and Mesa, AZ

Squeaky Clean Turf

Rebuilt the site on a fast static stack with a headless Shopify storefront, cart and online booking.

Website
Headless Shopify
Local SEO

Read the case study · Visit the live site ↗

Mesa, AZ

Good Life Insurance Group

Quote-first site wired to GoHighLevel: leads land in the CRM, the team gets a text, and a follow-up drip starts.

Website
CRM integration
Meta ad creative

Read the case study · Visit the live site ↗

Queen Creek and Gilbert, AZ

Streamline Plumbing

New site plus a full move from Thryv to HubSpot: clients, invoices, bookings and payments, with form tracking in GTM.

Website
CRM migration
Tracking

Read the case study · Visit the live site ↗

Retirement and legacy planning

The Acclivus Group

Rebuilt with the information architecture of a major wealth-management brand, in Acclivus's own colors and logo.

Website
Information architecture

Read the case study · Visit the live site ↗

See all our work → Start a project

Services

What we run for you.

Every engagement starts with the free audit, so recommendations are based on your account rather than a sales script.

Search, Performance Max, Shopping

Paid search

Google and Microsoft Ads: keyword research, bidding, Performance Max asset groups, Shopping feeds and conversion tracking.

Paid search services

Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok

Paid social

Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok: audience layering, creative testing, retargeting and lookalike scaling.

Paid social services

Display, programmatic

Display ads

Google Display Network and programmatic with audience targeting, creative testing, brand safety and remarketing.

Display services

YouTube, CTV

Video ads

YouTube, Demand Gen, Performance Max video and connected TV, built around the creative.

Video services

Get a free audit →

Also: SEO, CRM, landing pages and websites. See all services.

Our products

We build the tools we use on your account.

iOS and Android

Buddy by Ahmeego

The AI agent we run client accounts with, as a free app. Audit an account, find wasted spend, write ads inside Google's limits and build a roadmap from your phone. I designed it, built it and shipped it to both stores.

App Store Google Play

A 250-point Google Ads audit, done in seconds

Find wasted spend before it burns budget

Platform

ahmeego.com

Free tools for advertisers: a 250-point audit engine, campaign builder, keyword analyzer and weekly account teardowns on video.

Open ahmeego.com ↗

Open source

50+ public repositories

The Buddy Google Ads agent, MCP servers for Google Ads and ad creative, Google Ads scripts, an audit engine and MiniAgent, a small advertising model trained for thirteen cents. All public on GitHub.

See the code on GitHub ↗

On stage and in print

Where John shares the work.

2026Hero Conf, San DiegoThe paid media tools you need don't exist, so we're building them live. Track 2, September 15.
2025Hero ConfTarget Like a Pro: AI-Powered Advertising.
OngoingGoogle and MetaBeta and product work, including Meta call-only campaigns and Google local actions and audiences.
OngoingSearch Engine Land and PPC HeroContributor on paid search, automation and AI.
2020PPC Hero SummitSpeaker.
PressAdweekProfiled in Profiles in Black Creativity.

**Hero Conf 2026 preview**What John builds live on stage, and the calls he won't automate.

How we work

From first call to running account.

Free auditWe review your live account and send a written plan within 48 hours.
ClarifyWe agree on goals, budget and what counts as a conversion.
ExecuteBuddy runs daily checks. John approves every change.
ReportPlain-English results tied to leads and revenue.

Get a free audit →

Insights

Notes from running real accounts.

What's working in paid media right now, and what AI actually changes.

Strategy

Doing ads on a small budget: a strategic guide

New on the YouTube channel.

Weekly account teardowns and walkthroughs on real Google Ads accounts.

**Cross-Channel AI Strategy**Oct 13, 2026

**Real Google Ads Account Teardown, Week of Oct 12**Oct 12, 2026

**How to Sign Up for ChatGPT Ads**Oct 11, 2026

Headquartered in Queen Creek, serving the Phoenix metro and clients nationwide: Queen Creek, Mesa, Tempe, Scottsdale, Tucson, Sedona.

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John M. Williams, founder of It All Started With An Idea, with his dog

Who you work with

"I built Buddy because I wanted my own agency to have an unfair advantage. Open-sourcing it is the fastest way to make the whole industry better."

Builder of Buddy, the open-source AI agent for Google Ads. Founder of It All Started With An Idea + AHMEEGO, with 15+ years on $350M+ in managed digital ad spend. Previously at Seer Interactive, Hanapin, Brainlabs and CDK Global, where he ran dealer strategy for GM, Toyota and Ford. He has done beta and product work with Google and Meta.

Talk to John → More about John → On ahmeego ↗

Questions

Common questions before an audit.

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Done-for-you paid media, powered by Buddy.

Things we've built for clients.

One system for every order, from Faire to the warehouse.

Squeaky Clean Turf

Good Life Insurance Group

Streamline Plumbing

The Acclivus Group

What we run for you.

Paid search

Paid social

Display ads

Video ads

We build the tools we use on your account.

Buddy by Ahmeego

ahmeego.com

50+ public repositories

Where John shares the work.

From first call to running account.

Notes from running real accounts.

The dark side of AI overload in campaign management

The future of automated campaign types in PPC and social media

Truths in "AI Search Has a Citation Problem"

Doing ads on a small budget: a strategic guide

New on the YouTube channel.

Common questions before an audit.

Request your free audit.

Get our paid media notes by email.