How to choose a Google Ads agency: a 12-question checklist

What to look for in a Google Ads agency

When you choose a Google Ads agency, look at four things: whose name the ad account is opened in, how conversions are measured, what the report shows and how the management fee is set. Working with an agency that gives clear answers on these four points protects both your budget and your historical data.

You can use the 12 questions below in the first meeting. Asking for the answers in writing lets you compare different quotes by the same standard.

The size of the agency or the badges it holds is not enough on its own. Who actually manages your account, how often changes are made and how the results are explained to you decide the quality of the day-to-day work.

Account and ownership

1. Whose name is the ad account opened in? The account should be opened in your business's name with your email address, and the agency should be added as an administrator. If the account is kept inside the agency's own structure, your history can be lost when the work ends.

2. Whose card pays for the ad spend? Billing the ad budget paid to Google separately from the management fee paid to the agency lets you see how much actually goes into ads.

3. What happens when the work ends? The account, the campaigns, the conversion settings and the reports should stay with you, and the contract should say so clearly.

Besides the Google Ads account, connected accounts such as Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager and Merchant Center should also be opened in your name. The links between these accounts are part of your campaign data and take time to rebuild later.

Check regularly who has access to the account and at what level. When you stop working with an agency, removing its admin access is one of the first things to do for the account's security.

Measurement and conversion tracking

4. How will conversion tracking be set up? Until the actions that turn into business for you, such as sales, form submissions, phone calls and WhatsApp clicks, are defined, you cannot tell whether a campaign is working. Management that only aims for clicks can spend the budget on visits that lead nowhere.

5. Which actions will be measured separately? A form and a phone call are not worth the same. Tracking each action separately shows which campaign actually brings customers.

6. How will Google Analytics and cookie consent be connected? Linking the Ads and Analytics accounts and installing tags in line with cookie consent are needed for both accurate measurement and legal compliance.

When phone calls are measured, the call button in the ad and the phone link on the site are tracked separately. A WhatsApp click is measured with an event added to the link on the site. Without this split, you cannot tell which channel brings more customers.

After setup, always test that measurement works. Sending a test form and checking that it shows up in the dashboard prevents months of campaign management based on faulty data.

Campaign structure and landing page

7. Which campaign types will be used, and why? Search, Shopping, Display and Performance Max serve different purposes. Expect the choice to be justified for your business.

8. How will negative keywords be managed? Reviewing the search terms report regularly and excluding irrelevant searches is one of the basic tasks that keep the budget from being wasted.

9. Who is responsible for the page the ad sends people to? Even a well-run campaign gets weak results if it sends traffic to a page that loads slowly or makes it hard to ask for a quote. Ask whether the agency gives recommendations for the page or edits it. In our Business website Premium package, conversion tracking for forms, WhatsApp, phone calls, the Meta Pixel and the Google Ads tag is part of the setup.

Also discuss where and at what hours the ads will run. Showing ads across the whole country for a business that serves only certain areas, or leaving call ads running outside business hours, uses up the budget for nothing.

Fees, reports and contract

10. How is the management fee set? It can be a fixed monthly fee, a percentage of ad spend or a mix of both. Know in advance which model applies and how the fee changes when the budget grows.

11. Which metrics will the report show, and how often? Spend, number of conversions, cost per conversion and a list of the changes made are the basics every report should include.

12. What are the contract length and termination terms? A short trial period and a clear exit clause are a healthy start for both sides.

Ask whether there will be a regular review call alongside the report. Numbers alone do not tell the whole story. Knowing why a campaign was paused or why a test was started lets you take part in the decisions about your ad budget.

Under a percentage-of-spend model, the management fee rises as the budget rises. The model makes sense for large accounts, but ask what any recommendation to increase the budget is based on. Under a fixed-fee model, the quote should state up to which budget level the fee applies.

Which answers are warning signs?

Be careful with answers that guarantee a certain number of sales or the top position. Ad placement is decided by auction, and no one managing an account can guarantee results in advance.

Setups that do not give you account access, report only with summary screenshots or hide the management fee inside the ad spend are not transparent either. In that case you cannot verify how much was really spent on ads.

Where one person manages a large number of accounts, campaigns can be left unreviewed for long periods after setup. Asking whether search terms, budget allocation and conversions are checked at least once a week helps you see this risk.

How to evaluate the first three months

The first weeks and months are when the ad system gathers data and the campaigns are tuned. During this period you see which searches work, which should be excluded and where cost per conversion settles.

At the end of the third month, ask the agency for a review covering how many conversions the budget produced, how many of them became actual customers and what they recommend for the next period. Since only you have the real sales data, sharing how many leads turned into business helps the agency improve results.

Looking at a single metric can mislead. If cost per click drops while conversions drop too, the campaign may be reaching cheaper but less useful visitors. Read spend, conversions and cost per conversion together.

How we manage Google Ads

The ad account is opened in your business's name, and you pay the ad budget directly. Conversion tracking is set up before the campaigns start, and you work directly with the founder. The management fee is set by quote based on the size of the account.

The scope, the setup steps and the metrics in our reports are explained on our Google Ads management page. Choosing a method for Instagram and Facebook ads is covered in our article on Instagram ads.

Our ad management is not sold as a package. Once we have discussed the size of the account, the number of campaigns and your goals, the monthly management fee is set by quote. You decide how much budget goes into the ads.