How to Choose a Google Ads Agency: 7 Questions on Accounts and Fees

When choosing a Google Ads agency, look past the pitch at three things: is the ad account opened in your name, is conversion tracking set up before campaigns start, and are the agency's fee and the amount paid to Google shown separately and in writing? Google publishes a Third-party policy for agencies that manage ads on behalf of clients. The seven questions below are based on that policy and on problems we often find when taking over accounts; ask them in the first meeting and get the answers in writing.

What does a Google Ads agency do?

In Google's terms, an agency is a "third-party partner" that buys or manages Google ads on behalf of an advertiser. Its daily work is building campaigns, choosing keywords and audiences, managing bid strategies, preparing ad copy and visuals, setting up conversion tracking and reporting results. A good agency adds one more thing: it checks whether the page the ad sends people to actually produces leads or sales.

Google's guide for advertisers notes that agencies usually charge a fee on top of ad costs, and that you need to know the total cost including the agency fee to calculate your return on investment. The same guide recommends testing agencies one at a time rather than trying several at once; because Google does not show more than one ad from the same business on a search results page, a side-by-side comparison does not give reliable results.

1. In whose name will the ad account be opened, and who will pay?

Google's Third-party policy requires agencies to use a separate account for each advertiser they manage, because account history is a key component of Quality Score. For you this means that the account's history, conversion data and audiences gain value over the years. The account should be opened in your business's name, the payment profile should be yours, and the agency should link to it from its own manager account.

Google Ads defines five access levels: Email only, Billing, Read only, Standard and Admin. Make sure at least one person from your business has Admin access. When you part ways with the agency, you remove the link, and the account and its history stay where they are. In a "we open the account and invoice you" setup, that history can stay with the agency; if you accept it, write the handover terms into the contract.

2. Which conversions will be tracked, and how, before the campaign starts?

A campaign launched without tracking can never tell you what the budget actually brought in. Form submissions, phone calls, WhatsApp clicks, appointments and purchases should each be defined as separate conversions. Google's conversion tracking documentation recommends verifying that tags work correctly with Tag Assistant, and notes that it is normal for a new conversion action to show as "Unverified" until the first conversion is recorded.

Ask the agency: "Which conversions will you set up in the first week, and how will you show me they are verified?" If your business collects quote requests, add one more question: how will you feed back to the ad side which requests turned into sales? A campaign that optimizes for clicks or cheap form fills can miss the valuable customer.

3. Which number will define success?

The number of clicks is not a goal. The goal is a result metric you can tie to revenue: cost per lead, cost per sale or return on ad spend. This number comes from your margin, not the agency's. A simple approach: if two out of ten leads turn into sales, the most you can pay for one lead should not exceed one fifth of the profit a sale leaves you.

A good agency works out this calculation with you and sometimes says "with these numbers, paid search will not be profitable right now." A proposal that says "yes" to every budget with the same enthusiasm may be focused more on the management fee than on results.

4. Which campaign types, in which order, and why?

In Google Ads, campaign types such as Search, Performance Max, Shopping, video (YouTube) and Demand Gen do different jobs. A Search campaign captures people looking for a solution right now; Shopping is for stores with a product catalog; video and Demand Gen mainly create demand. Performance Max spreads across many inventories at once, so without solid conversion data it runs blind.

The question to ask: "Which types will you start with for my goal, which will you add and when, and why?" An unexplained "let's turn them all on" splits a small budget so thinly that no channel can learn.

5. How is the fee set, and is it in writing?

Google's policy is clear here: if the agency charges a management fee on top of Google Ads costs, it must disclose this to a new client in writing, no later than before the first sale. When costs are reported, they must be shown as the full amount charged by Google, excluding agency fees. The agency must also give you your account's Google Ads customer ID when you ask; with that ID you can raise an issue directly with Google.

Fee models create different incentives. A fee taken as a percentage of budget rewards growing the budget. A fixed fee is more predictable. A results-based fee looks attractive, but if the contract does not clearly define "result," disputes follow. Whichever you choose, put in writing which of setup, tracking, ad copy, visuals and reporting the fee covers.

6. What will the report show, and can you see the data yourself?

According to Google's advertiser guide, you are entitled to know at least your clicks, impressions and costs. The policy says the agency can share this data through reports or by giving you access to log in to the account. The second option is healthier: do not base decisions on a number you cannot verify in your own account.

A useful report goes further: spend, conversions, cost per result, wasted spend identified from the search terms report, and what will change next month. Agree on the reporting rhythm (weekly or monthly) and who presents it from the start.

7. Which promises are warning signs?

In its Third-party policy, Google lists misleading claims one by one: guaranteeing top placement on Google, claiming ads will always be shown, offering unlimited clicks, claiming a relationship with Google that does not exist, and selling free Google products as if they were paid. The guide also stresses that the claim that advertising affects organic ranking is false; the two are entirely separate.

If you are speaking with someone who says "we are calling from Google," follow the guide's advice: ask for their name and ask them to email you from an @google.com address. If an agency shows a Google Partner badge, click the badge and check its profile. The badge shows that the manager account has an optimization score of at least 70%, that 90-day spend across managed accounts does not fall below USD 10,000, and that a certain share of staff are certified. In other words, it proves the agency's scale and training; on its own it does not prove the agency will deliver results in your sector.

Proposal comparison checklist

• Are the account and payment profile in your business's name, and do you have Admin access?
• Will conversions be set up and verified before the campaign?
• Is the target metric a cost per result derived from your margin?
• Are the campaign types justified and sequenced?
• Are the management fee and Google costs separate and in writing?
• Will you be able to see the data in your own account?
• Does the proposal promise guarantees, unlimited clicks or a "special relationship with Google"?

Whether ads work also depends on whether the page they lead to converts, so ask what the agency will do about landing pages and site speed too. If you would like to ask us the same questions, our Google Ads service page explains how we work; if you are considering giving several channels to one agency, our guide on how to choose a digital marketing agency will also help.