From Startup to 2000+ Clients: John Horn’s Blueprint for Digital Marketing Success

The Proven Entrepreneur

Don Williams

Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Careers, Business

5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2025

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome to another episode of The Proven Entrepreneur Show, where we dive deep into the stories behind today’s most successful business leaders. In this episode, host Don Williams sits down with John Horn, the CEO of Stub Group — a digital marketing agency that has helped over 2,000 businesses grow through smart, ROI-driven advertising.

John’s journey is anything but ordinary. From working in a warehouse at age 10 to becoming the first employee at his brother’s startup, John has played a pivotal role in scaling Stub Group into a powerhouse agency managing hundreds of millions in ad spend. His story is one of grit, strategy, and relentless focus on results.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

How Stub Group grew from a bootstrapped startup to a 30-person team
The biggest mistake brands make with paid ads — and how to avoid it
What it means to land in “Google Ad Jail” and how John’s team helps clients get out
Why hiring the right people early is critical to long-term success
How diversification helped Stub Group survive the COVID-19 crash
A behind-the-scenes look at ad campaigns so effective, they were shut down by platforms

John also shares his thoughts on the future of digital marketing, the importance of tracking ROI, and why best practices from platforms like Google and Meta aren’t always in your best interest.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, marketer, or business owner looking to scale, this episode is packed with actionable insights and hard-earned wisdom.

Key Entities Mentioned in this episode:

John Horn (Guest): CEO of Stub Group
Don Williams: Host
Stub Group: Advertising Agency
The Proven Entrepreneur Show: Podcast Channel

Transcript

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0:00.0	Are you an entrepreneur looking for more free time, more money, or just looking for that success blueprint?
0:11.6	The proven entrepreneur is the podcast for you.
0:14.6	Host Don Williams and his guests share real success stories from proven entrepreneurs.
0:19.7	Here's your host, Don Williams.
0:27.9	Hey, Don Williams here with today's episode of The Proven Entrepreneur Show. I have a real treat
0:34.2	today. I have a digital marketing guru expert, Phenom, and John Horn with Stub Group.
0:43.3	Welcome to the show. Hey, Don. Thanks so much for having me. So I'm thrilled to have you on the show.
0:48.0	You are, your company has tons of clients, has managed ad campaigns into hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.
0:57.1	And interesting to me, somehow you seem to have identified a path back.
1:02.7	If a client gets in, I'll say Google ad jail, you have been able to parole some of those people. So, John, tell us what Stub Group's
1:14.5	core competencies are, who you serve, how long you've done it, all that stuff. Yeah, absolutely. So Stub
1:20.4	group, we've been around for over a decade at this point and really focus on the digital
1:25.5	marketing side of things. So working with all sorts of different
1:29.5	businesses, everything from e-commerce companies to local service businesses, lead generation,
1:35.7	SaaS, etc. And helping them use the internet to find new customers and ultimately make more money.
1:41.6	So the platforms usually, you know, talking about things like Google, meta, and yeah, ultimately going out finding where people are at and capturing them
1:49.0	in the right stage in that customer journey so that we can get them introduced to our clients. And again,
1:54.7	make more money than our clients are paying to the platforms they have to use to advertise.
2:00.0	Yeah. Return on advertising.
2:03.2	That is the magic. That is the magic. So I'm going to take you all the way back to young John.
2:09.4	So you're in your household that you grew up in between five and 18 and people's households are
2:15.7	different, but you're in that house. Was there an entrepreneur
	...

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