How to Choose a Google Ads Agency: Seven Questions on Account, Measurement and Cost per Result

Clicks arrive, leads do not

The most common disappointment in Google Ads is this: the budget is spent, the report arrives full of clicks and impressions, but no lead or sale reaches the business. And the ad account was opened in the agency's name; when the agency changes, years of data and learning go with it.

The right agency sets up advertising not as spending but as an investment that pays back. The seven questions below are asked in the first meeting; get the answers in writing.

1. Whose name is the ad account in, and who pays the platform?

The Google Ads account should be opened in the business's name and the platform should be paid directly by the business; the agency manages the campaigns inside the account, it does not own it. That way budget and data control stay with you; even if the agency changes, conversion history, audiences and learning stay in the account.

An agency that says "we open the account and invoice you" is adding your ad budget to its own revenue and making you dependent on its account. This should be clear in the first meeting.

2. Is conversion tracking set up, or are clicks being counted?

The first step of ad management is not the campaign but measurement: form submissions, phone calls, WhatsApp clicks and sales should each be defined as a conversion, and analytics and the ad account should be connected. Optimising on bad data burns the budget faster; a campaign optimised for the wrong goal finds cheap clicks and loses expensive customers.

Ask the agency: "Which conversions will you set up, and how, before the campaign starts?" If there is no measurement plan in the answer, the proposal is incomplete.

3. What is the target metric: clicks or cost per result?

A good agency builds the campaign around a defined cost per result: what should a lead, a call or a sale cost you? That number derives from your margin; the agency targets the profitable searches instead of scattering keywords.

Promises such as "we will increase reach and raise click numbers" are not targets. A target is a result metric that can be tied to revenue.

4. Which campaign types, and why?

Search, Performance Max, Shopping and YouTube do different jobs. Search campaigns catch users with purchase intent; Shopping is for stores with a product catalogue; YouTube and Performance Max are used when they fit the goal, not handed to every business as the same package. Remarketing brings back visitors who did not convert.

Ask the agency: "Which campaign types will you open for my goal, in what order, and why?" An agency that says "all of them" without reasoning is spreading the budget.

5. Are they honest about budget?

There is no fixed minimum ad budget; it depends on your market, competition and goal. An honest agency tells you before any commitment whether paid search is worth it for your numbers; sometimes the right answer is "not yet, let's fix the site and measurement first".

An agency that says "yes" to every budget is thinking about its management fee, not your result.

6. What does the report show?

The right report shows cost per result and the line tied to revenue: spend, conversions, cost per conversion, revenue and return where possible, with an explanation of what moved and why. A table of impressions and clicks alone is not a report.

The source of the report should be your own Google Ads and analytics accounts; do not trust a number you cannot verify from your own account. The weekly or monthly rhythm should be in writing from the start.

7. Fee model and exit

Is the management fee fixed, a percentage of budget, or tied to results? Each model has a different incentive: a percentage of budget rewards growing the budget; a fixed fee and a result target are more transparent. What the fee covers (setup, measurement, creative, reporting) and how the account is handed over at exit should be in the contract.

Piküp Medya runs Google Ads not to spend but with a defined cost-per-result target: conversion tracking and flows are set up first, Search, Performance Max, Shopping and YouTube are opened when they fit the goal, and reporting is tied to cost per result and revenue. The ad account stays with you and you pay the platform directly. Because web, SEO and ads are under one roof, the landing page is improved together with the ads. Our offices are in Istanbul and Dubai; in a free introductory meeting we will tell you honestly whether it is worth it for your numbers.