15 questions to ask a PPC agency
before you hire them.

01. Who owns the ad account?

Good answer: you do, from day one, with full admin access. Bad answer: anything else. If the agency owns the account, they own your history, your data, and your leverage. This is the line between a partner and a hostage situation.

02. Is your fee flat or a percentage of my ad spend?

Good answer: a flat fee tied to scope, or a fee tied to performance. A percentage of spend means the agency earns more when you spend more, whether or not you profit more. If they charge on spend, ask how they prove the extra spend is earning, not just spending.

03. What does your reporting actually show me?

Good answer: revenue, cost per acquisition, and the actions they took, in plain language you can verify. Bad answer: impressions, clicks, and "brand awareness." If a report cannot connect spend to money, it is a brochure, not a report.

04. What tracking do you set up, and how do you verify it?

Good answer: they name the specific conversion actions, how each one is measured, and how they test that it fires correctly before spending. Most accounts we audit are making decisions on broken tracking. If they cannot explain verification, assume it is broken.

05. What happens to my data if I leave?

Good answer: you keep everything, the account, the history, the audiences, the negative lists, because it is all in your account. This is the enforcement mechanism for question one. Get it in writing.

06. Do you run ads for your own business?

Good answer: yes, and they can talk about what they learned from their own money on the line. An agency that spends its own money thinks differently about waste. One that only spends client money has never felt a bad click.

07. How many accounts does each strategist manage?

Good answer: a number small enough that your account gets real attention, and they can name your strategist. Bad answer: deflection. If one person manages 40 accounts, yours gets a checklist, not a brain.

08. How do you handle search terms and negatives?

Good answer: regular search term reviews, a maintained negative list, and examples of waste they found recently. This is where most local accounts bleed. If they do not have a process here, they are not managing, they are babysitting.

09. What is your landing page policy?

Good answer: they review or build the landing experience because it decides the cost per lead as much as the bidding does. An agency that takes your website as given and only touches bids is optimizing half the equation.

10. How do you choose bidding strategy?

Good answer: it depends on your data volume, your tracking quality, and your economics, and they can explain why a given strategy fits your account. "We use smart bidding" is not a strategy, it is a default.

11. How do we communicate, and how often?

Good answer: a named human, a regular cadence, and straight answers when performance drops. Bad answer: a quarterly PDF and a support ticket queue. You are buying judgment, not just labor. Judgment requires conversation.

12. What is your minimum budget to work with you, and why?

Good answer: a number justified by the math of buying enough data to learn, not by their revenue targets. This tells you whether they understand the test-budget concept or just want bigger retainers.

13. Can I see real accounts you have managed?

Good answer: yes, redacted if necessary, with real numbers and an honest discussion of what went wrong along the way. Screenshots of one good month are marketing. A walkthrough of a full account, warts included, is proof.

14. What do you do when performance drops?

Good answer: a specific diagnostic sequence, starting with tracking verification and auction changes before touching bids. Bad answer: "we increase the budget" or "we wait for the algorithm." Panic and passivity are the two failure modes. You want a process.

15. What won't you do?

Good answer: they have red lines. Agencies that will do anything for a signature will do nothing well. A good agency tells you what they refuse, because it tells you what they actually stand for.

• You own the ad account. Built in your name, full admin access from day one. Always.
• We do not take a percentage of your ad spend. Our incentives point at your profit, not your budget.
• Reporting connects spend to revenue. Cost per acquisition, the actions we took, and plain language. No vanity metrics.
• Tracking is verified before we spend. Every conversion action is named, measured, and test-fired. Our audit exists because we keep finding this broken elsewhere.
• If you leave, you keep everything. The account, the history, the audiences, the negative lists. All yours.
• Yes, we run ads with our own capital. We operate businesses, we do not just advise them. Every click we manage for you is a click we have felt ourselves.
• Small strategist load, named humans. You will know exactly who works on your account.
• Search terms reviewed on a real cadence. Negative lists maintained, waste hunted. It is in our audit checklist for a reason.
• Landing pages are part of the job. We review and fix the experience because it decides the cost per lead.
• Bidding strategy follows your data and economics. Never a default, always a reason.
• You get a named human and a real cadence. Straight answers, especially when numbers drop.
• Minimums are justified by learning math. We will tell you when your budget cannot buy a verdict, and we will say no to the engagement.
• Real accounts, real numbers, warts included. Ask us on the call.
• Performance drops get a diagnostic sequence. Tracking first, auction second, bids last. No panic, no passivity.
• What we won't do: run ads where the math doesn't work, take a percentage of spend, or hold your account hostage. Those are our red lines.