Paid search is the one marketing channel where the agency spends your money daily, which makes the buying decision less about creative taste and more about governance. Two questions decide most of the outcome and both are answered before any campaign launches: how is the agency paid, and who owns the account. Boston's agency market runs from two person paid media specialists through to full service shops with a media team, and the fee structures differ more than the capability does. This page covers the fee models and what each one incentivises, the ownership terms worth insisting on, the advertising disclosure rules that apply to what runs, and the reporting shape that lets you tell a good month from a lucky one.
Fee models and what each one quietly encourages
There are four common shapes. A percentage of ad spend is simple and aligns the agency with growing your budget, which is fine while growth is the goal and awkward when efficiency is. A flat monthly retainer is predictable and rewards efficiency, but can leave a small account under serviced if the agency's costs rise. Hourly billing suits project work and audits and is rare for ongoing management. Performance based pricing sounds ideal and is the hardest to write fairly, because the agency controls only part of the funnel and disputes about attribution get expensive. None is wrong. What matters is that you can name the incentive your chosen model creates and check for it in the monthly review.
Own the account, always
The ad account should be created under your business, with the agency granted management access, and the same goes for your analytics, tag manager, conversion tracking and any remarketing audiences built along the way. Agencies that run clients inside their own manager account are not necessarily acting badly, but if the relationship ends you may lose the account history, and that history is what makes future bidding efficient. Ask the question directly in the first call and get the answer in the contract. Ask also who holds the billing relationship with the platform, because an agency paying the platform and invoicing you adds a layer between you and the actual spend figures, and you should be able to see the raw platform invoices either way.
What the ads themselves have to comply with
Ad copy is advertising, and the FTC's online advertising guidance holds it to the same standard as any other claim: truthful, not misleading, and substantiated before it runs. The disclosure rules matter most in paid search, because the format is small and the temptation is to bury conditions on the landing page. The FTC's guidance on digital disclosures is explicit that a disclosure must be clear and conspicuous, close to the claim it qualifies, and not hidden behind a hyperlink where a reasonable consumer would miss it. Free trials with automatic renewal, financing offers, discount claims and comparative superiority claims all need this attention. Ask a prospective agency who reviews copy for compliance, because in many shops the honest answer is nobody.
Reporting that shows the work, not just the numbers
Insist on three things monthly. A change log listing what was actually done in the account, which is the fastest way to spot a retainer being collected for autopilot management. Performance by campaign against the goal you agreed, expressed in cost per qualified lead or return on ad spend rather than clicks and impressions. And a wasted spend view: search terms that triggered ads and should not have, with the negatives added. Where paid and organic are bought together, ask for the search terms report to feed the content plan, because the queries that convert in paid are the strongest evidence available for what the organic pages should cover, and that overlap is the main argument for buying SEO and PPC services from one provider.
Questions people ask about ppc agency boston
Is a percentage of ad spend a fair way to pay a PPC agency?
It is common and workable, but understand the incentive: the agency earns more as your budget grows, which is aligned during expansion and misaligned when the goal is efficiency. A flat retainer or a hybrid with a spend band avoids that tension. Whichever you choose, review it annually.
Who should own the Google Ads account?
You should. Create it under your business and grant the agency access. Account history informs future bidding, so losing it at the end of a relationship is a real cost, not an administrative detail. Confirm this in the contract before work starts.
How long before paid search results are readable?
Paid search produces data immediately but takes weeks to reach a readable sample, and low volume or high value accounts take longer. Agree the minimum conversion count needed before drawing conclusions, so neither side is judging a campaign on a handful of leads.
Do disclosure rules really apply to a short text ad?
Yes. The FTC's digital disclosure guidance requires that qualifying information be clear, conspicuous and close to the claim, and space constraints in an ad format do not remove the obligation. If a claim cannot be qualified honestly in the space available, the claim needs changing.