A PPC consultant is the person who decides where your paid search money goes: which queries you bid on, what the ads say, where the click lands, and which conversions count. Unlike an agency retainer, the engagement is usually one named practitioner doing the work, which is the whole appeal and also the whole risk, because the quality of the account is the quality of that one person. This page sets out what the role actually covers, how the money is normally structured, and how to test a candidate before you hand over an account that spends every day whether anyone is watching it or not.
What the work is, week to week
Most of a consultant's value shows up in unglamorous places. Search term reports get read and irrelevant queries get excluded, so the budget stops paying for traffic that was never going to buy. Bids and budgets get moved toward the campaigns that produce enquiries rather than the ones that produce impressions. Landing pages get tested against each other, because the ad is only half of the transaction and the page is where the money is won or lost. Conversion tracking gets audited, since an account optimising toward a mis-fired tag is optimising toward nothing. Ask a candidate to describe their last four weeks on a live account in that kind of detail. Someone who can only talk in terms of strategy and growth has not been in an account recently.
How consultants price, and what each model rewards
Three structures dominate. A flat monthly fee is the simplest to compare and the easiest to budget, and it rewards efficiency because the consultant earns the same whether your spend rises or falls. A share of ad spend scales with your budget, which is fine for a growing account but quietly rewards spending more rather than spending better, so ask what happens to the fee if the right answer is to cut spend in half. Hourly work suits audits, rebuilds and second opinions rather than ongoing management. Whichever model you pick, insist that the media spend is billed to your own card on your own account. When the consultant owns the account and the billing, you cannot leave with your history, and the switching cost is doing the last few years again from scratch.
The vetting questions that actually discriminate
Google's own guidance on hiring search help is written for organic work but the warning signs transfer intact: be skeptical of unsolicited pitches, of anyone claiming a special relationship with Google, and of anyone unwilling to explain their methods, and remember that no one can guarantee a position in results. For paid specifically, ask three concrete things. Which accounts have you run in a category like mine, and what did the cost per enquiry do over the first quarter? What would you turn off in my account in week one, and why? How will I see what you did without asking you? A consultant who answers those in specifics has run accounts. One who answers with case study slides and no numbers you can check is selling a narrative. Many buyers ultimately want SEO and PPC services from one supplier, and that decision is worth making deliberately rather than arriving at it by drift.
Ownership, access and the exit
Set the ownership terms before the first campaign runs, because they are almost impossible to renegotiate later. You own the Google Ads account, the analytics property, the tag container and the conversion definitions. The consultant gets access, not title. Agree what reporting looks like and how often, and make sure at least one report ties spend to enquiries rather than to clicks, since clicks are the number every under-performing account leads with. Agree a notice period you could actually survive, and ask what handover includes: account access, naming conventions, the current negative keyword lists, and a written note of what was being tested and why. A good consultant will have this conversation happily. Reluctance here is the most reliable signal you will get before signing.
Questions people ask about ppc consultant
Is a PPC consultant cheaper than an agency?
Usually the fee is lower, because you are buying one person rather than a team, an account manager and an overhead line. What you give up is bench depth: no cover during holidays or illness, and no in-house designer or developer when the landing page needs rebuilding. For a single-channel account under moderate spend, a consultant is often the better buy; for multi-channel programmes with creative needs, the agency structure earns its margin.
Should the consultant's fee be a share of my ad spend?
It is a common model and not automatically wrong, but understand the incentive it creates: the fee rises when spend rises, including when the right recommendation would be to spend less. If you use it, cap it, review it quarterly, and ask directly what the consultant would earn in a quarter where they cut your budget and held enquiries flat.
Can a PPC consultant guarantee a cost per lead?
No one can guarantee an outcome that depends on auction competition, seasonality and your own sales follow-up. Google's hiring guidance makes the same point about ranking guarantees in organic search: nobody can promise a position. Treat a guaranteed cost per lead as a sales device, and ask instead for a forecast range with the assumptions written down so you can check them at ninety days.
Who should own the Google Ads account?
You should, in every case. Pay for media on your own billing profile and grant the consultant access to your account rather than working inside theirs. That way the spend history, the conversion data and the learning stay with your business when the engagement ends, which is the single most valuable asset the relationship creates.