B2B PPC agencies sell the same platforms as every other paid search shop and are judged on a completely different problem. In B2B the conversion the platform can see is a form fill; the conversion that pays the bills is an opportunity that closes months later after several meetings no ad platform ever observes. Everything that goes wrong in these engagements follows from that gap. This page covers why the standard agency report misleads in B2B, what to inspect inside the account before you renew, how the three common fee models change an agency's behaviour, and the one contract term that costs the most to get wrong.
Why B2B paid search breaks the standard report
In consumer paid search the conversion is the sale, it happens the same day, and the platform can see it. In B2B the conversion is a form fill that may become an opportunity months later and close, or not, after a process the platform never observes. Agencies optimise towards what they can measure, so a campaign tuned to cost per lead will reliably find the cheapest leads, and in B2B the cheapest leads are students, competitors, job seekers and companies far too small to buy. The fix is not a better dashboard. It is importing outcomes from your CRM back into the ad platform so the bidding learns from real opportunities, and agreeing at the outset that the headline number on the report is qualified opportunities or pipeline rather than form fills. An agency that resists that change is telling you which number it expects to look good on.
What the account should show before you renew
Ask to see the search terms report rather than the keyword list, because it shows what people actually typed and it is where wasted spend hides. Ask what share of spend went to broad match and what the negative keyword list looks like, since in B2B the negatives do much of the work. Ask which conversion actions are configured and which are counted as primary, because counting every PDF download as a conversion makes any cost per conversion figure meaningless. On quality, remember Google's own position: Quality Score is a diagnostic on a scale of 1 to 10, built from expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance and landing page experience, and Google states it is not a key performance indicator and is not an input in the ad auction. An agency presenting Quality Score as a headline result is reporting the wrong thing, however good the number looks.
Fee models and the incentives they create
Three models dominate. A percentage of media spend is simple and gives the agency a direct reason to recommend more spend. A flat retainer is predictable and gives the agency a reason to spend less time as the account matures. Performance fees sound aligned but depend on attribution both sides can argue about and on a sales process the agency does not control. None of the three is wrong; what matters is that you can see the incentive and price against it. Ask for the fee, the media budget and any production costs as three separate lines. Ask how many hours of which people the fee buys. Then ask what happens to the fee if you halve the media budget: the answer to that question tells you what you are really buying, and it is the question agencies answer least comfortably.
Ownership, access and the exit
Insist that the ad accounts are created under your own billing and ownership, with the agency granted access through its manager account. This is the single most consequential term in the contract, because agency-owned accounts take the campaign history, the conversion data and the audience lists with them when the relationship ends, and rebuilding that history costs months of performance. Get the same clarity on tracking implementation, landing pages and creative assets. Then apply the general vetting discipline that Google's own guidance on hiring search help recommends: ask for examples of comparable work and the outcomes, ask what results they expect and in what timeframe, be sceptical of unsolicited pitches and of anyone unwilling to explain their methods. Where an agency quotes client testimonials, the Federal Trade Commission expects endorsements to reflect genuine experience and material connections to be disclosed. Buyers running paid alongside earned coverage should note that the second is bought on a completely different evidence base.
Questions people ask about b2b ppc agencies
What should a B2B PPC agency be measured on?
Qualified opportunities and pipeline from your CRM, with cost per opportunity as the headline. Form fills are a leading indicator, useful for pacing but not for judging. Agree the qualification definition with sales before the campaign starts, or the review becomes a debate about lead quality.
How much media budget makes an agency worthwhile?
Enough that the fee is a sensible fraction of the spend and the account generates data worth optimising against. Below that, a competent in-house operator with occasional consulting usually beats a retainer, because you are paying agency overhead to manage a budget too small to learn from.
Should the agency own our ad accounts?
No. Create the accounts under your ownership and billing and grant the agency access. Agency-owned accounts take your campaign history, conversion data and audiences with them at the end of the contract, which is a real, expensive and entirely avoidable switching cost.
Is LinkedIn or Google better for B2B?
They do different jobs. Google captures people already searching for a solution; LinkedIn reaches a defined set of companies and titles who are not searching yet. Most programmes need capture first and demand creation second. Judge each on cost per qualified opportunity separately rather than on a blended cost per lead.