On this page
Hire a PPC agency that builds campaigns in an ad account you own, reports on revenue or qualified leads instead of clicks, and can explain how Google’s AI features change where your ads appear, including inside AI Overviews. Ask about testing, contract terms and access before you sign, because those are hard to fix afterward.
Paid search is the channel where a bad agency fit costs you the fastest, since every week of weak management is spend you don’t get back. This guide covers what we’d want a prospect to ask any PPC agency, us included, before signing anything.
It’s written for marketing leads and owners who are either hiring for the first time or wondering whether their current agency is doing the job. You won’t find pricing here. You will find the questions that separate an agency that manages your money well from one that mostly manages your perception of it.
What does a PPC agency manage?
A PPC agency plans, builds and runs your paid campaigns on ad platforms, then reports on what that spend produced. For most companies, that means Google Ads first, with Microsoft Advertising and Amazon Ads added when the business case supports them. Those are the three platforms our paid search team covers.
| Platform | What the agency manages | Usually a fit when |
|---|---|---|
| Google Ads | Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns, keyword and query management, bidding, ad assets, conversion tracking | Almost always; it’s where most search demand is |
| Microsoft Advertising | Search campaigns on Microsoft’s network, often built from Google campaigns and then tuned separately | You’ve covered Google well and want more qualified volume |
| Amazon Ads | Product advertising for brands selling on Amazon, tied to listings and inventory | You sell physical products on Amazon |
Display and programmatic media sit closer to awareness than to search intent, so we treat them as a separate discipline. If you need both, ask whether the agency has programmatic specialists or just bolts display onto search campaigns.
Inside each platform, the day-to-day work should include:
- Account and campaign structure that matches how you actually sell
- Keyword research, search term review and negative keyword management
- Bid strategy selection and budget pacing
- Ad copy, assets and creative testing
- Shopping feed management for ecommerce
- Landing page recommendations, because the click is only half the conversion
- Conversion tracking that counts real business events, not page views
- Reporting tied to revenue, qualified leads or bookings
Who should own the ad account?
You should. The ad account, the billing relationship, the conversion tracking and the analytics property all belong in your company’s name, with the agency granted access to manage them.
This is a hard line for us. An agency that builds your campaigns in its own account owns your history: years of search term data, conversion data and test results. If you leave, that history can stay behind, and you start over.
Ask the question directly, and ask what happens to access if you end the relationship. The good answer is short: you keep everything, and the agency’s access is removed. If an agency hesitates here, that hesitation is the answer.
What questions should you ask a PPC agency before you sign?
Ask about four things: account ownership, reporting, testing and contract terms. Then ask how they’re handling Google’s AI-driven changes to where ads show up. The tables below give the questions and what a strong answer sounds like.
Account ownership and access
| Question | Strong answer |
|---|---|
| Whose name is the ad account in? | Yours, with billing on your payment method |
| Will we have admin access the whole time? | Yes, and you can see every change in the account history |
| Who owns the analytics and conversion tracking setup? | You do; the agency configures it in your properties |
| What happens to our data if we leave? | Nothing; it stays in your accounts |
Reporting
The headline metric in a PPC report should be revenue, return on ad spend, qualified leads or cost per qualified lead. Clicks, impressions and click-through rate are diagnostics, and they belong lower on the page.
| Question | Strong answer |
|---|---|
| What’s the main number you’ll report? | Revenue, ROAS or qualified leads, agreed with you before launch |
| How do you know a lead was qualified? | CRM data or offline conversion imports, not just form fills |
| How do you handle attribution across channels? | Explains the model they use and its blind spots |
| How often will we meet, and what’s the agenda? | A fixed cadence focused on decisions and next tests, not a slide recap |
If the agency talks about return on ad spend, make sure you agree on how it’s calculated. Our guide on what ROAS is and how to improve it covers the definitions, and it’s worth having the same page open in both of your heads. For lead-gen businesses, ask how the agency connects ad clicks to CRM outcomes; that’s the work our data and analytics team handles alongside paid search.
Testing
A good agency can tell you what it tested last quarter, what it learned, and what it stopped doing because of it. Ask for a recent example from another account (anonymized is fine).
- How do you decide what to test first?
- How long does a test run before you call it?
- Do you test landing pages, or only ads?
- How do you decide when to move a campaign to an automated bid strategy or to Performance Max?
On that last point, automated campaign types are only as good as the conversion data and assets you feed them. Our Performance Max guide walks through what to have in place first. An agency should be able to explain when it would and wouldn’t recommend one.
Contract terms
- What’s the minimum term, and what’s the notice period?
- Is there a setup or onboarding phase billed separately?
- Does the fee change as spend changes?
- Who on your team actually works on our account, and how many other accounts do they manage?
- Is ad spend paid directly to the platform, or does it pass through you?
We’d recommend paying ad spend directly to the platform whenever you can. It keeps the money in your control and makes the account history unambiguously yours.
Google’s AI features
Ask how the agency is planning for ads in and around AI Overviews. According to Google’s Ads help documentation, text and Shopping ads from existing Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns can appear inside AI Overviews in English in the US and 11 other countries. Ads can also appear above or below AI Overviews in every market where AI Overviews are available.
That matters because on those searches your ad shares the page with an AI-generated answer, and in our view that answer shapes what people click. An agency that can explain which of your campaigns are eligible, and how it would measure the impact, is paying attention. We cover the details in our guide to ads in Google AI Overviews.
How do PPC agency fee models work?
Most PPC agencies charge in one of three ways: a percentage of ad spend, a flat monthly retainer, or a performance-based fee, sometimes with a mix of two. Each model creates a different incentive, and you should know which one you’re buying.
| Model | How it works | Works well when | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Percentage of ad spend | The fee scales with your monthly media budget | Spend is growing and management work grows with it | An incentive to raise spend whether or not returns hold up |
| Flat retainer | A fixed monthly fee for an agreed scope | Spend is stable and the scope is well defined | Scope creep, or effort dropping once the retainer is set |
| Performance-based | The fee is tied to leads, sales or revenue targets | Tracking is reliable and both sides agree on what counts | Arguments over attribution, or chasing cheap conversions that don’t close |
| Hybrid | A base fee plus a variable component | You want stability plus a shared stake in results | Complexity; make sure the formula is written down |
No model is automatically better. What matters is that the incentive lines up with what you care about, and that the agency is upfront about where it doesn’t. If an agency on a percentage model recommends cutting spend on a campaign that isn’t working, that’s a good sign.
What are the red flags when hiring a PPC agency?
The clearest red flag is an agency that wants to run your ads from an account it owns. After that, look for reporting built around clicks, vague answers about testing, and contracts designed to keep you in place.
| Red flag | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Campaigns built in the agency’s account | You lose your data and history if you leave |
| Reports lead with clicks, impressions or CTR | Activity metrics can rise while revenue falls |
| No conversion tracking audit at the start | Every optimization after that is built on unverified data |
| Guaranteed ROAS or cost per lead before seeing your data | Nobody can know that without your history, margins and market |
| Won’t share search term reports or change history | You can’t see what your money is buying |
| Brand campaigns that take credit for sales you’d get anyway | Makes the numbers look better than the real impact |
| Long lock-in with no performance exit | The contract keeps you, not the results |
| “Set it and forget it” automation pitch | Automated bidding still needs strategy, clean data and regular review |
Brand search deserves a closer look. Bidding on your own brand name is often sensible, but an agency that reports brand and non-brand performance as one blended number makes it hard to see what the program is adding. Ask for them separately.
What results should you expect from a PPC agency?
Expect results measured in revenue, leads or bookings, reported against a baseline you agreed on before launch. Expect the first few weeks to go into tracking and structure, not dramatic swings.
For reference, these are the kinds of numbers we put in front of clients, across our full mix of channels rather than paid search alone: a hospitality brand at +445% year-over-year revenue, a senior living operator at +263% year-over-year leads, and a B2B company at +5,300% demo bookings. Each one is a business outcome, not a click count.
Ask every agency for numbers in that form. Then ask what they changed to get them, and which channels contributed.
Use this PPC agency onboarding checklist
Once you’ve signed, the first month should follow a clear sequence. Use this list to hold any new agency, or your current one, to a strong start.
- Confirm ownership. Verify the ad accounts, billing, analytics and tag manager are in your company’s name.
- Grant access. Give the agency the user access it needs on each platform, and record who has what.
- Agree on the main metric. Pick the headline number (revenue, ROAS, qualified leads) and how it’s calculated.
- Audit conversion tracking. Check that every conversion action fires once, counts the right event, and matches your CRM or store data.
- Connect offline data. For lead-gen, set up a path to send qualified lead or closed deal data back to the ad platforms.
- Record the baseline. Capture current spend, conversions, cost per conversion and revenue by campaign before anything changes.
- Review structure and search terms. Look for wasted spend, missing negatives, and campaigns that mix unrelated intent.
- Separate brand and non-brand. Make sure reporting shows them apart.
- Check landing pages. Confirm each campaign sends traffic to a page that answers the search, loads fast and makes the next step obvious.
- Agree on a test plan. List the first three tests, how long each runs, and what result would change your approach.
- Set the meeting rhythm. Fix the cadence for check-ins and quarterly reviews, and agree that every meeting ends with decisions.
Frequently asked questions
Should my business own its Google Ads account?
Yes. Keep the account and billing in your company’s name and give the agency access, so your data stays with you no matter who manages it.
Is a percentage-of-spend fee a bad sign?
No, it’s a common model. It does reward higher spend, so look for an agency that still recommends cutting campaigns that aren’t paying off.
What should a PPC report focus on?
Revenue, ROAS or qualified leads, reported against an agreed baseline. Clicks and impressions are useful diagnostics but shouldn’t be the headline.
Do I need ads in AI Overviews?
You don’t build anything separate for them. Google’s documentation says ads inside AI Overviews come from existing Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns, so the question is whether those campaigns are set up well.
How soon should I expect results from a new PPC agency?
Expect the first weeks to focus on tracking, structure and cleanup. After that, results should be reported against the baseline every month, with a clear explanation of what changed and why.
Want a second set of eyes on your paid search?
If you’re hiring an agency or questioning your current one, start with a free growth audit. Within about five business days you’ll get three to five ranked opportunities and a 90-day roadmap, which gives you something concrete to compare proposals against.