How to choose a Google Ads agency: the 9 questions to ask

The two things people check when choosing a Google Ads agency are usually the two least useful: certifications and case studies.

A Google Partner badge belongs to every agency that has cleared a spend threshold and passed an exam — it is a participation record, not a quality signal. Case studies are curated; nobody publishes the account that failed.

What separates agencies is the questions you ask in the first call. The ones below reveal how an agency works regardless of what the answer happens to be.

On measurement and handover

1. “Whose name will the accounts be in?”

There is one correct answer: yours, with the agency invited as a manager. A sub-account under the agency’s own umbrella means that the day you leave, you lose historical data, remarketing audiences and everything the algorithm learned. None of it transfers.

If the answer is vague, or “that’s just how our system works,” the meeting can end there.

2. “Which conversion will you optimise toward?”

The right answer is not “form fills.” A good agency asks about your sales cycle: how many steps sit between a form and a closed deal, and which of them you can measure.

The ad algorithm makes whatever event you report cheaper. Report form fills and it will find people who fill forms and never buy. An agency that raises this distinction unprompted knows how it intends to run the account. The full picture is in the GA4 measurement guide.

3. “What if measurement isn’t set up yet?”

The expected answer: we set up measurement before running ads. An agency that says “we’ll start now and look at it later” is about to spend two months of budget on an unmeasurable test.

On account management

4. “Who will actually touch my account?”

A senior person comes to the sales call; someone else usually runs the account. Ask directly: who does the day-to-day, how many accounts do they carry, how many years of experience, and can I meet them?

In setups where one specialist runs 25 accounts, your share of their week is about half an hour.

5. “What will you do in the first 30 days?”

A good answer is boring and looks like this: audit the existing account, verify conversion tracking, mine the search terms report for negatives, review landing pages, simplify campaign structure.

A bad answer is “we’ll build new campaigns and launch right away.” An agency that builds without looking at what exists repeats the same mistakes faster.

6. “Under what circumstances would you tell me to cut budget?”

This question tests the conflict of interest created by the pricing model. Working out your own threshold with the budget calculator before the call also lets you judge whether the answer is realistic. For an agency on percentage of spend, cutting budget is lost revenue.

An agency that answers with a concrete scenario — “if cost per acquisition crosses this threshold on that campaign, we switch it off” — is running the account on your behalf. We compared the models in ad agency pricing.

On reporting and expectations

7. “Which metrics will the report contain?”

Clicks, impressions and click-through rate say nothing about account health. What you need: cost per acquisition, qualified enquiry count, closed revenue and profitability by channel.

A report template that opens with impression counts was designed for the months when results aren’t good.

8. “When can I expect results?”

The honest answer: two weeks of data collection and learning, first signals from week four, a meaningful judgement by month three. An agency promising faster is trying to persuade you, not the statistics.

A meaningful judgement needs at least 30-50 conversions in the account. Anything before that is noise.

9. “What’s the contract term and how do I exit?”

Monthly, cancellable on notice, is healthiest. Ask long-commitment agencies why. There can be a legitimate reason — a substantial setup investment — but the answer should be explicit.

Red flags

• Guaranteed rankings or results. Advertising is an auction; nobody can guarantee outcomes. Whoever guarantees one is guaranteeing a loosely defined metric.
• Not sharing account access. A structure where you don’t even hold read-only access to your own account is not acceptable.
• “Success” made entirely of brand search. People searching your company name were already coming. Reports should separate brand from non-brand.
• One package for everybody. An agency that quotes without asking about your sector, sales cycle and customer value will manage the account with the same care.
• Never mentioning landing pages. If the page the ad points to doesn’t convert, account management alone cannot rescue the result.

What to weigh at the end

Rank the proposals not by price but by their answers to questions one and six. An agency that leaves ownership with you and builds a structure where it can recommend cutting spend is cheaper overall, even at a higher monthly fee.

Google Ads is one channel; the rest of what an agency does, and how the agency types differ, is in what a digital marketing agency does.

If you’d like to see where your own account stands, we start with an account review — what the current setup actually measures is usually the first thing that surfaces.