So you’re considering hiring a Google Ads agency to save yourself time, stress and money, and set your business up for success and growth with the help of experienced experts. But after a few google searches you’ve realised making the right choice isn’t as easy as it seems. In this guide, we’ll help you navigate choosing the right agency for you, what to look out for, and how to make the most of the service you’re paying for. 

 

 

Why choosing the right Google Ads agency matters

 

Hiring a Google Ads agency can be one of the most impactful decisions a brand makes. The right partner can significantly improve your PPC success, revenue, reduce wasted spend, and help you scale effectively. The wrong partner can waste your limited budget, deliver poor reporting, and leave you feeling stuck and frustrated with no clear strategy. Many businesses end up having disappointing experiences which can then go on to impact how they invest in PPC long into the future… so you can see how these issues compound to negatively impact your business both short and long term.

 

 

Understanding What a Google Ads Agency Actually Does

 

First it’s essential to understand what an agency is actually going to provide you, especially if this is your first time employing one to take care of your PPC for you. 

 

 

Campaign management vs. strategic partnership

A strong Google Ads agency does more than tweak bids or build a few campaigns. You’re looking for a partner who:

 

• • Understands your products and margins

• • Builds a strategy tailored to your brand, and your customer journey

• • Focuses on sustainable growth, not just vanity metrics

Basic campaign management might keep your account running, but a true strategic partner looks at the bigger picture; your offer, your competitors, your profit, and your long-term goals.

 

What’s usually included (and not included)

Most agency packages include:

 

• • Strategy development (audience and keyword research, etc)

• • Campaign setup 

• • Campaign management and optimisation

• • Conversion tracking setup

• • Monthly reporting and calls

What might be included:

 

• • Google shopping set up

• • Google product feed set up or management

Often not included (important to know upfront):

 

• • Product strategy (which products to advertise)

• • Offer and promotion strategy

• • Creative production

• • Website CRO work

• • Product photography or landing page design

• • Full product feed rebuilds

Clarity here will prevent frustration later, a good agency will take you through what you can expect from the very start. Making it clear for you what is included and what isn’t to avoid any surprises. 

 

How great reporting should look

Asking to see an example of a report before you sign up is a great idea. As part of your service you should receive at least one detailed performance report per month which should include:

 

• • Clear performance summaries, with comparisons to the previous month as well as longer term performance trends shown clearly also. 

• • Explanations of what changed and why

• • Insights written by an account manager, not just numbers

• • Performance broken down by campaign, keyword, products. 

• • Notes on what work is upcoming or planned for the coming months. 

The best agencies will also be willing to customise reporting somewhat for you and your team if needed. Although it’s common for agencies to use reporting platforms to help them save time, don’t feel you have to put up with a template that does nothing for you. 

 

Proof of ongoing testing and strategy iteration

A strong PPC agency should be consistently bringing you suggestions and ideas of where to improve, scale or test. You should expect proactive ideas at least every few months on what to be testing. 

 

• • Recommended tests, with suggested budgets.

• • Clear hypotheses for the test in question.

• • Creative recommendations and feedback 

• • Structured reporting on results

If you are never getting feedback or proactive ideas for testing from your agency, it’s a warning sign that they may not be particularly engaged with your account. 

 

Check That Are You Ready to Hire An Agency

Budget readiness: Can you justify outsourcing?

As a rule of thumb, outsourcing PPC usually makes sense when:

 

• • You’re spending at least £3k–£5k/month on Google Ads

• • Or you plan to reach that level within the next few months

Below this, the cost of hiring a Google Ads agency may outweigh the benefits.

 

Tracking foundations you need

Before an agency can run profitable campaigns, you need:

 

• • Basic tracking set up (Ideally GA4 and Google Ads conversions)

• • A high-quality product feed

• • Accurate revenue reporting

An agency can and will help with fixing a poor tracking set up during onboarding, but it’s essential to at least make sure you have the basics covered – or the ability to edit your website to implement any changes that are required. Without solid tracking, even the best agency will struggle to optimise effectively.

 

Who will handle creative, product updates, CRO?

Successful PPC is collaborative and involves more than just great PPC campaigns in your Google Ads account. Your website needs to work well, your product strategy needs to be strong, and your creative needs to be attractive and engaging. Consider:

 

• • Who will provide creative assets?

• • Who updates product feeds and stock availability?

• • Who handles site changes or CRO improvements?

The clearer these roles are, the smoother your agency partnership will be. If your team is still small make sure to communicate your limits to your agency before you move forward so they know what to expect. 

 

What to Look for in a Great Ecommerce-Focused Agency

Choose an agency that specialises in what you truly need. Hiring a Google Ads agency that hasn’t proven a track record in your niche may be unwise. As a product focused business you will want a PPC team who knows the ins and outs of ecommerce PPC. 

 

Experience in ecommerce-specific PPC

Ecommerce PPC is its own discipline. Look for an agency experienced with:

 

• • Google Shopping

• • Performance Max campaigns

• • Feed optimisation and Merchant Centre

• • Multi-channel attribution

Generalist agencies can struggle with the nuances of product performance, margins, and stock cycles. Make sure that your agency has at least a few strong case studies demonstrating strong ecommerce results. 

 

Their approach to measuring success

A serious ecommerce agency talks about more than just generating revenue and ROAS, they will also bring up:

 

• • ROAS (return on ad spend)

• • POAS (profit on ad spend)

• • LTV (Lifetime customer value)

• • Contribution to total revenue, not just Google Ads revenue

If they only talk about revenue or ROAS, that can be a red flag that they’re not engaging deeper with data and providing more nuanced insights to clients. 

 

Red Flags to look out for when hiring your agency

Here are some core things to look out for when choosing your agency. All of these are “red flags” that should definitely make you think twice about hiring or signing a contract:

 

• • No proactive ideas or testing roadmap

• • Only talking about bid adjustments and keywords

• • No conversation about margins, stock levels, or customer lifetime value

• • Reporting that’s purely surface-level (spend, clicks, ROAS)

• • Requiring long, upfront contracts (3-6 months is standard). 

• • Overpromising guaranteed results. Google Ads performance can’t be guaranteed. Anyone offering guaranteed ROAS is a risk.

• • No access to your own ad accounts. You should always retain full access and ownership.

• • Lack of case studies

An agency should analyse, strategise and optimise, not just tweak your account.

 

Critical Questions to Ask Before Signing

Ask these essential questions before hiring a Google Ads agency, to make sure they are going to be the best fit for you:

 

Who will actually manage your account day-to-day?

Is it a senior strategist, a junior, or a rotating team? Make sure you are happy with who is actually going to be working on your account regularly. Beware of agencies that try to hide freelance account managers behind their initial sales teams. You should know the person actually managing your account, and be in regular communication with them. 

 

How do you handle low-performing months?

Strong agencies have protocols for diagnosing dips, not just excuses after the fact. When you ask this question, they should ideally respond with a list of diagnostic points they would look into to work out why a month was low performing… but also what they would be doing to avoid that happening in the first place. 

 

What’s your strategy for scaling profitable campaigns?

They should articulate clear growth levers, not just vague promises. Healthy scaling is done in increments, and based on specific goals you have set and agreed with your agency. Ideally, they should always reach out to you when they believe it is in your benefit to increase spend and scale your campaigns. It should not be left to you to push the agency when you want to spend more.

 

How often will we communicate and what will I receive monthly?

A good agency will work with you regarding how often to communicate effectively, and also ask you for feedback on a regular basis. Every business is different, and a lot of busy business owners wouldn’t find it practical to be on catch up calls every week. But you should expect thorough communication and regular updates, with detailed reports delivered to you at least once a month. 

 

How do you prevent wasted spend?

Experienced agencies know how to reduce wasted spend before it happens, they should reference the following:

 

• • Negative keyword strategy

• • Feed/product exclusions based on what sells well/is higher profit etc.

• • Product level reporting and analysis

• • Proper targeting set up to avoid poor quality, broad traffic.

• • Regularly reviewing performance on multiple levels. 

• • Understanding your profit margins, setting campaign level ROAS targets. 

What a Proper Onboarding Process Should Include

What you experience during onboarding will give you a clear idea of what to expect from the rest of your time with an agency. Here is a breakdown of what that first month or so should look like:

 

Full audit and strategy roadmap

Your agency should begin by reviewing your:

 

• • Top level strategy

• • Tracking

• • How this is implemented via campaign structure

• • Product feed health

• • Budget allocation

• • Historical performance

• • Performance expectations

And from that, build a 30-90 day roadmap for you. Although this might change based on a variety of factors, the core strategic decisions should make sense for your business, and any big changes should be agreed with you in advance. 

 

Conversion tracking validation

Before spend begins, reporting should be checked thoroughly for accuracy, as it is this data that will be the basis for all the decisions made in your account. Inaccurate data means poor choices and optimisation. I.e. more money wasted! Be very wary of an agency that doesn’t have an in-depth discussion with you about your tracking and reporting set up very early on. 

 

Performance benchmarking

Setting baseline goals helps measure real improvement. An experienced PPC agency will make sure that the results you’re expecting are realistic, and work with you to set goals for the coming weeks and months that can be reported on clearly.

Setting goals to high is often a cause for poor growth and performance, as ROAS goals set too high can strangle an account and slow growth. A truly excellent agency will take the time to explain budget scaling, ROAS vs Revenue goals, and diminishing returns with you. 

 

How to Set Yourself Up for a Successful Partnership

A last few pointers for how to get the most out of your PPC agency partnership, on both sides:

 

Learning phase & timescale expectations

Although the best agencies will take time to explain learning phases to you, it’s good to go in with this knowledge. PPC campaigns take time to learn through smart bidding if this is being used in your account (highly likely). Learning phases can last from 1 – 6 weeks depending on the set up. It’s normal to not see results overnight. 

It is also completely normal, for it to take even a good agency 3-6 months to deliver on your set set of agreed goals. Giving up too soon is another common reason for businesses to jump from agency to agency and struggle with growth. So try to avoid this, choose your agency well and then allow them to time to do what they do best. 

 

How to evaluate whether the agency is performing well

Assess whether you are moving closer to your goals, how your agency is communicating with you both on wins and losses, and how you are feeling about the quality of service as well as results. 

Are they taking the time to provide you with valuable insights, clear explanations and being proactive? Are they clearly showing you performance improvements by months 3 and 4? 

Great agencies will be able to offer good support and insights, even when things aren’t going well, and provide clear explanations on the cause. 

 

Understand your own role in success

Finally, make sure to keep in mind that you have a large role in the success of your agency. Provide them with all the information and access they ask for in order to help them deliver the best results for you. Engage with them, and don’t disappear for months on end. Read the reports they send, or alternatively ask for catch up calls if reading reports is less workable for you. It is up to you to remain engaged with your agency. Even the best agencies will begin to struggle if they never receive any feedback from you. And if you want a very hands off relationship, let them know this upfront so they can cater to this and only ask for essential things from you when they really need it. 

That’s it for this article! We hope it offered you some value tips on hiring a Google Ads agency that truly delivers next level results. And of course… we are proud to step up to all of the standards we have set out here. So if you are looking for an agency – get in touch!