>Specific to, say, AdWords, the point I'm making is that people who a) have enough development capability to ship software products and b) also know AdWords well enough to get entrusted with a company's budget are as rare as hen's teeth. Because many, many companies have 6 figure AdWords spends monthly and generate millions of dollars of revenue as a result of them, someone who is capable of applying their skills horizontally across a company's AdWords operation (+) can be very, very useful to have around.
This is something I have very little knowledge of... I have a (perhaps irrational and unjustified) generally low opinion of marketing people, and little contact with that world, but I thought that adwords/seo people were usually mediocre programmers.
> (P.S. If you're not going to make the company a million bucks next Monday, consider banging this out.)
so, how come you aren't a millionaire many times over? Clearly you are good at this sort of thing, you are a reasonable programmer, and on top of that, you are a good writer, and have a bit of fame. (I am convinced that being able to write well is one of those skills that, while nearly useless on it's own, dramatically multiplies the value of any other skills you obtain.)
I mean, I'm not saying you are wrong... just that it's more complicated than that. Marketing fluff, I mean, selling something for money that is pure marketing and nothing else is harder than it looks. And actually providing a service to a large number of users is also harder than it looks.
There is always that choice of "do I spend my time improving the product?" or "do I spend my time on marketing?" - the more time you spend on the latter, the harder the former becomes. The more time you spend on the former, the easier the latter becomes.
This is my current problem; I can't add users much faster than I am without degrading the service for existing customers. Marketing, right now, is mostly a 'for fun' thing.