How to choose a PPC agency: 12 questions

The short answer

Judge a PPC agency on how it answers a few plain questions before you sign: who does the work, how tests end, who owns the accounts, which number results are judged by, and what the contract commits you to. Specific answers, written into the agreement, tell you more than a polished pitch. Ask every agency on your shortlist the same 12 questions and compare the answers side by side.

Fit: is this agency right for your business?

An agency fits when it has run accounts like yours, at a budget like yours, and can say plainly when paid media is not the answer.

Which businesses like ours have you run, and at what monthly spend?

Running $3,000 a month for a business that closes by phone is different work from running $80,000 a month for an online store: budget changes how many tests are possible and how fast the platforms learn.

Good answer: names comparable work by type of business, goal and spend level, and explains what changed and why.

Pause if: you hear only famous names, or results with no spend, timeframe or goal attached.

When would you tell us paid media is the wrong move?

Ads multiply what is already there, including the problems.

Good answer: lists real conditions: a page that does not convert, missing tracking, margins too thin for paid acquisition, a budget too small to learn. It points you to the real constraint, even when it is not ads (we set out the order we usually recommend on our services page).

Pause if: every business is a fit and every problem is solved by a larger budget.

Who will actually do the work on our account?

The person in the sales meeting is not always the person who changes your campaigns.

Good answer: names the role that changes the campaigns, confirms that person joins your calls, and says how many accounts they look after.

Pause if: a senior strategist sells the work and hands it to someone you never meet, or an outside contractor does it unmentioned.

How the work runs: what happens each week

A good agency can describe its week on your account: what it changes, how often new ads go live, and when a test is over.

What happens in the first 30 days?

An account built on broken tracking or a muddled structure takes months to untangle.

Good answer: starts with an audit of the account and the tracking, produces a written plan with a launch date, and says what the agency needs from you and when.

Pause if: the plan is to launch first and check tracking later, or “onboarding” has no dates.

How often do you test, and how do you decide a test has finished?

Testing is where results are easiest to misread.

Good answer: gives a cadence, such as a set number of new ads or ad sets a month, and a threshold agreed before each test starts: the spend or result at which it is stopped or scaled.

Pause if: tests are judged after a day or two, or “we are always testing” comes with no record of what was tested and what was learned.

Worth knowing: automated bidding needs time to settle after a change. Google’s help page on the learning period says a bid strategy typically takes 1-2 conversion cycles to calibrate to a new objective.

How do you decide where the next dollar goes between channels?

With more than one platform, someone has to decide which one earns the next dollar, or budgets stay wherever they were set at the start.

Good answer: gives each channel a defined job, judges it on that job, and moves budget on evidence agreed in advance, with every change logged.

Pause if: budget is split evenly by habit, fixed for months at a time, or each channel is run by a different person with no one responsible for the total.

Ownership and access: what stays yours

Your business should own the ad accounts, tracking, audiences, creative and data, and the agency should work inside them with access you grant.

Held in your business’s name

Your own Google Ads account
Meta assets in your own business portfolio
Pixels, tags and audiences
Creative and source files
Software subscriptions

What the agency gets

Access you grant, at a level you choose
Partner or user access, never ownership
Access you can remove when the work ends

Who owns the ad accounts, tracking and creative, during and after the work?

This matters most when a relationship ends, because an account’s history, audiences and conversion data take time to rebuild.

Good answer: everything sits in your business’s name: your own Google Ads account, and on Meta, assets held in your own business portfolio with the agency given partner access. Creative and source files are yours to keep. Google’s advertiser guide states that a third-party agency must set up a separate Ads account for you, and Google’s transparency requirements oblige partners to give you your customer ID when you ask.

Pause if: the agency runs your ads from an account it owns, keeps creative files at the end, or charges a fee to “release” anything.

What access will we have, day to day?

Ownership on paper means little if you cannot log in.

Good answer: keeps admin access with at least one person at your business and gives you a login or a live dashboard from day one. Google’s page on access levels notes that an account with only one administrator can lose access to its tags if that user becomes unavailable, and suggests adding at least one more.

Pause if: you are offered read-only access at best, logins only “on request”, or reports instead of access.

Tip: if you have inherited a Meta account and are not sure who owns it, our Meta Ads Account Audit checklist starts with that check.

Measurement and reporting: how results will be judged

Agree in writing, before launch, the one number results will be judged by and where it comes from: your own orders, bookings or CRM.

The number you judge by=One metric+Your own records+A review date

For example: cost per qualified lead, read from your CRM, reviewed on an agreed date

What number will you be judged by, and where does it come from?

Every account produces dozens of metrics. Choosing one in advance keeps both sides focused on the one that pays the bills.

Good answer: names one primary number tied to your goal, such as cost per qualified lead, return at your real margin or bookings that show up. It sets a baseline or target and a review date, and reads the result from your own records. If nobody can yet tie a sale or lead back to where it came from, a good agency suggests setting that up first, which is conversion and analytics work.

Pause if: success means clicks or “awareness” when your goal is sales, or the measure is decided once results are in.

The best time to agree how results are judged is before there are any results.

What will we see each week and each month?

Google sets a floor: its advertiser guide says you have the right to know at least the clicks, impressions and total cost of your Google ads, and partners must report the exact amount Google charged, separate from their own fees.

Good answer: covers progress against the agreed number, what was tested, what was stopped and why, and what comes next, with losing tests reported as plainly as winners.

Pause if: reports show only wins, merge spend and fees into one figure, or list changes without reasons.

Contract terms: what you are committing to

Read the fee basis, the minimum term, the notice period and the exit terms before you sign, and make sure each one is in the written agreement.

How is your fee worked out, and is ad spend marked up?

Flat fees, a percentage of spend and tiered fees can all be fair. What matters is seeing the fee and the ad spend as separate numbers.

Good answer: states the fee basis in writing, keeps ad spend separate, and lets you pay the platforms directly or see their invoices if the agency handles billing. Google requires partners to tell new customers about management fees in writing before the first purchase and to show the fee on every invoice.

Pause if: you are quoted one combined monthly figure with no split between fee and media. Google’s guide lists deceptive pricing among its warning signs and advises getting an official copy of the agreement in writing.

How long is the contract, and what happens when we leave?

A minimum term is reasonable when it has a reason, such as giving tests and bidding time to produce a reliable answer.

Good answer: gives a minimum term with its reason, then a rolling arrangement with a clear notice period, plus an exit list: access handed over, files delivered, and software subscriptions in your name so nothing switches off.

Pause if: the contract renews automatically for long periods, carries exit fees, or leaves tools on the agency’s billing.

How we answer these questions

Our media buying terms are written on the page: you own the ad accounts, pixels, audiences, creative and data, ad spend is never marked up, and every test carries a kill-or-scale threshold agreed with you. The term is 3 months, then month-to-month with 30 days’ notice.

See how we run media buying

Good answers and red flags side by side

Six of the 12 questions do most of the work in telling agencies apart.

Question	Good answer	Warning sign
Who does the work?	A named role who joins your calls	Seller hands off to someone unseen
How do tests end?	A threshold agreed before launch	Judged after a day or two
Who owns the accounts?	Your business, with agency access	The agency’s own account
What number judges results?	One number, from your records, in writing	Clicks, or decided later
Is spend marked up?	No; fee and spend shown separately	One combined monthly figure
How do we leave?	Notice period and an exit list	Auto-renewal and exit fees

Google’s advertiser guide names several answers that end the conversation:

A guaranteed top position. Google states that it is not possible to guarantee a specific ad position on its search results pages.
A claim to be calling from Google without an @google.com email address to back it up.
A claim that advertising will improve your organic search ranking. Google says the two are separate.
Pressure to sign quickly, or terms that stay verbal.

A checklist for comparing agencies

Run the same process with every agency, in the same order, so the answers can be compared fairly.

Write down your own numbers first Your goal, current monthly ad spend, and current cost per lead or sale from your own records.
Send the 12 questions before the first call Ask for written answers, so you can compare like with like.
Ask for a sample monthly report and a sample contract Specific and written beats vague and verbal.
Check any badges Google advises clicking a Partner badge to confirm it. The badge is a useful baseline, not proof of fit.
Match the answers to the contract Ownership, the fee basis, the term and the exit terms should appear in the agreement, not only in the pitch.

What a Google Partner badge requires, according to Google’s Partner requirements:

70%minimum optimisation score on the agency’s manager accountSource: Google Ads Help

$10,000ad spend across managed accounts over 90 daysSource: Google Ads Help

50%of account strategists certified in Google AdsSource: Google Ads Help

Keep this list open on each call and tick the questions the agency answered clearly.

What business owners ask about hiring a PPC agency

Should we hire a specialist PPC agency or a full-service agency?

It depends on where the constraint is. If ads are the main lever and the website already converts, a specialist is usually enough; if the site, creative and tracking all need work, one team owning the whole result saves coordination.

How long should we give a new agency before judging it?

Long enough for automated bidding to settle and several tests to finish, which for most accounts means months rather than weeks. Agree the review date and the number at the start.

Is it a bad sign if an agency asks for a minimum term?

Not by itself. A short minimum with a stated reason, such as completing a full testing cycle, is common; a long lock-in with automatic renewal and exit fees is the part to question.

Can we keep running some ads ourselves while an agency runs others?

Yes, if the split is clear, for example by channel, and both sides can see the same accounts. Two parties changing the same campaigns makes results hard to read.

What should we do if our current agency owns our ad account?

Ask in writing for the account to be moved into your business’s name, or for admin access, before you give notice. If that is refused, a new account in your own name is often simpler than a long dispute, though its history starts from zero.

Do we need a large budget for an agency to be worth it?

The fee has to make sense against the spend, and the budget has to be large enough for the platforms to learn. Ask each agency at what spend level it thinks its fee stops paying for itself for a business like yours.

From our projects: every engagement on our projects page is written up from the client’s own ad accounts, analytics and sales reports. That is the kind of evidence worth asking any agency for before you sign.

Want a second opinion on your own numbers?

In a strategy session we review your accounts, tracking and spend, and you leave with a written plan you keep either way. The session fee is credited in full toward any service that follows.

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How to choose a PPC agency: 12 questions to ask before you sign