Most of what goes wrong in a paid search engagement is settled before anyone touches a campaign. Whether you own the account and its history, whether the fee rewards spending more or doing better, and whether the conversion the system optimises toward is something your business values. Get those three right and an adequate agency will do useful work; get them wrong and an excellent one will still produce a report you cannot act on.
Own the account, the tracking and the history
The advertising account, conversion setup, audience lists and historical data should sit in your own accounts with the agency granted access. Years of learning is genuinely hard to rebuild, and agencies that run clients inside their own manager account can rarely hand it back intact. Settle this at contract, not at the point of leaving, when your leverage is gone.
Understand what each fee shape rewards
Percentage of spend pays more when budgets rise, whether or not the work did. A flat retainer is predictable and can leave a small account under-serviced. Performance fees align best and turn on definitions. Ask for the same scope priced all three ways; the comparison is informative regardless of which you choose.
Define the conversion before the first campaign
Automated bidding optimises toward whatever you report, so a badly chosen conversion produces an account that is efficient at the wrong thing. Decide whether it is a form, a call of a certain length, a booked appointment or a qualified opportunity from your CRM, and agree who is responsible for getting that signal back into the platform.
The pitch signals worth noticing
Confidence about your cost per lead before seeing your numbers, an audit produced from a tool with no reference to your business, reluctance to name the person who will run the account, and reporting available only through their dashboard. None is disqualifying on its own; together they describe a supplier optimised for winning pitches.
Questions people ask about hire ppc agency
How much should a PPC agency cost?
Compare fees as hours of named people at your expected budget rather than as percentages. A low percentage of a large budget can still be a poorly serviced account if one person carries twenty of them, and a flat fee on a small account may be the only structure that funds real attention.
Should we run a paid trial?
A paid audit of your existing account with a fixed fee and defined deliverable is the best first purchase. It shows how they think, what they would change and whether they understood your business, and it is useful even if you hire someone else.
How long before we judge them?
Structural improvements to geography, negatives and tracking should be visible within weeks. Genuine efficiency gains take a quarter or more, and any significant change resets the automated bidding learning period. Agree the review date and the measures at the start.
Freelancer, agency or in-house?
A senior freelancer often gives more attention per dollar on a modest account. An agency brings capacity, cover and specialisms. In-house becomes sensible once the spend is large and continuous. Many businesses do best in-house with an external specialist reviewing monthly.