Business
Who's Actually Managing Your Ad Spend: What to Ask a PPC Agency Before Signing
Before you hand an agency your monthly ad budget, here are the questions that reveal who's really running your account and whether they'll spend it well.
Who's Running Your Account Day to Day
The person who sold you on the agency is almost never the person managing your campaigns. That's normal, but you need to know who actually is. Ask directly: what's their experience level, how many other accounts are they juggling right now, and how much of your budget have they actually managed before at a similar scale. An account manager running 25 accounts at once isn't spending much real thinking time on yours.
How They Actually Structure Campaigns
Ask them to walk you through how they'd structure your account — not in theory. Actually pull up an example from a past client (with names blurred if needed). You want to hear about campaign segmentation, keyword match types, negative keyword lists. This is where you find out fast if you're talking to someone who actually knows paid search or someone reading off a template.
What Counts as a Win
Some agencies optimize for clicks. Some optimize for conversions. Some optimize for a specific cost-per-acquisition target. These are not the same goal, and an agency that isn't clear on which one they're actually managing toward is going to make decisions that don't match what you actually want. Get this nailed down before you spend a dollar.
How Much of Your Budget Goes to Testing vs. Proven Channels
A good PPC manager tests new keywords, new ad copy, new audiences — but testing costs money and some of it won't work. Ask roughly how much of your monthly spend goes toward testing versus scaling what's already proven. If they can't answer this with any specificity, that's a sign they're not actually managing spend with intention.
Reporting: Real Numbers, Not Just Screenshots
A dashboard full of impressions and clicks looks like reporting but tells you almost nothing about whether the spend is working. Ask specifically for cost-per-conversion, return on ad spend, and how those numbers are trending month over month. If reporting stays vague on these, that's usually not an accident.
Whether They Get Paid a Percentage of Your Ad Spend
Some agencies charge a flat management fee. Others take a percentage of what you spend. The percentage model quietly incentivizes them to spend more, not necessarily spend smarter. Not automatically a dealbreaker, but you should know which model you're in and think about whether the incentive lines up with what you actually want.
Access to Your Own Ad Accounts
This one's simple and non-negotiable: the ad account should be owned by you, not the agency. If an agency insists on running campaigns through their own account, you lose your data, your history, and your leverage if you ever want to leave. Always insist on account ownership from day one.
Red Flags to Watch For
Guaranteed ROI or guaranteed cost-per-click numbers — nobody can actually promise this in a live auction system. Reluctance to give you account access. Vague answers about who's actually managing your campaigns. Reporting that only shows vanity metrics like impressions and clicks with no conversion data. Any one of these alone might be explainable; more than one together is a real reason to keep looking.
The Short Version
Don't hire based on the pitch. Hire based on who's actually going to touch your account, how clearly they define success, and whether they'll give you real ownership and real numbers. A good PPC agency will answer all of this without flinching. A weak one will get vague fast.
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