What to check before hiring a Google Ads agency

Before hiring a Google Ads agency, establish who can access the account, what the budget covers, which customer actions will be measured, and who handles the inquiries. Ask the agency to show how those pieces will work together. A proposal should make the responsibilities clear enough that you can compare it with another proposal.

Use the questions below during a discovery call, then request the answers in writing before committing.

What proof should a Google Ads agency provide before you hire them?

Ask for a relevant campaign example, a report you can question and a written scope. Use these checks to decide how much the evidence tells you:

• Match the example to your business. Ask what service was advertised, where, over which dates and at what budget. Establish what the agency actually handled: managing ads, making the creative, building the page or some combination.
• Check what the headline number counts. Ask to see spend and results for the same reporting period. If the report says “leads,” find out whether that means button clicks, submitted inquiries or people the business confirmed were a good fit. Ask how duplicates and spam were handled.
• Follow a claimed sale back to its records. A client-approved, redacted walkthrough should explain how an inquiry was connected to the campaign and how the business recorded the sale. Ask whether revenue means quoted work, signed contracts or money collected, and what could not be traced.
• Get the scope for your business in writing. Confirm the work, fees, account access, approvals and handover. A strong past result does not tell you what your own agreement includes.

An ad design shows creative work; a working website shows website work. Neither establishes that a campaign won customers. If an agency cannot share performance evidence, ask it to say so and explain what it can demonstrate. Past results are context, not a forecast for your business.

Considering Rushes? Review our campaign services and the website we built for our own business. Our site is an example of website work, not a client advertising case study. Use “Send an inquiry” below to tell us which service you want to promote and where.

1. Confirm account access and the exit plan

Ask: “Will our business have its own administrative access, and what happens to the account if we stop working together?”

An agency can manage your Google Ads account through a manager account. That arrangement does not, by itself, mean the agency takes your data or that you lose campaign history when you leave. Google explains that a client account retains its data and that unlinking a manager does not remove the account’s own campaign history. See Google’s guidance on manager ownership and what happens when accounts are unlinked.

The practical questions are about access and dependencies:

• Can someone at your business sign in directly with administrative access?
• Who controls billing, and whose payment method is charged?
• Who can edit the website, analytics property, tags and landing pages?
• Does measurement depend on agency-managed conversion actions or other shared assets?
• What will be transferred, retained or replaced when the engagement ends?

Get an inventory of those systems and responsibilities. A dashboard screenshot is useful for discussion, but it is not a substitute for knowing which accounts your business can access.

2. Define a useful result before discussing a target cost

Ask: “What will count as a conversion, and how will we distinguish a useful inquiry from an irrelevant one?”

A click on a phone number, a connected call, a submitted form, a confirmed booking and an attended appointment are different events. An owner needs to know which of them a report counts. Otherwise, two agencies can quote a cost per lead while measuring different things.

Agree on a reporting chain that matches your business:

1. Ad spend and the traffic it brought to the site.
2. Inquiries captured, with a clear definition of each event.
3. Qualified inquiries that fit your service and capacity.
4. Appointments or sales conversations that actually happened.
5. Customer outcomes, where the business can supply reliable records.

Ask what the tracking can establish today and what remains a manual check. Revenue attribution should be described with its limitations, rather than presented as exact when the records do not support it.

Hypothetical example: two campaigns each generate ten form submissions. One brings eight relevant inquiries; the other brings two. Equal form totals would conceal an important difference. You need a qualification process as well as a form counter to see it.

3. Separate ad spend from the work you are buying

Ask: “Which costs go to Google, which go to your agency, and what work is included?”

Request a written breakdown of management, setup, copy, creative production, landing-page work and any third-party tools. Clarify which are included, optional or charged separately. Ask who authorizes budget changes and what conditions would trigger a pause or a review.

At Rushes, ad spend stays on the client’s account and card, with creative, structure and management scoped separately. The campaigns page explains the work and the checks before activation. When comparing providers, use the same scope so a lower headline fee does not hide a different service.

The management fee pays for the agency’s work running your campaigns; it is separate from the money spent showing ads. Ask how that fee is calculated: a fixed amount, a percentage of ad spend, a combination, or a payment tied to agreed results. Request the total cost at your proposed budget and an explanation of what changes if spending increases or decreases.

Check whether there is a minimum fee, what work is included, and which changes require your approval. If payment depends on results, define the result precisely: a submitted form, a qualified inquiry and a paying customer are different outcomes. Compare the work and responsibilities alongside the fee.

How to compare a fixed fee with revenue share

Compare the total bill at the same ad spend and customer outcome. A percentage alone does not tell you what you will pay.

Hypothetical example, not Rushes pricing or a market benchmark: assume $2,000 in monthly ad spend, with no refunds or cancellations. A $600 fixed management fee brings the total to $2,600. An alternative charging 3% of $20,000 in eligible, collected customer revenue also brings the total to $2,600: $2,000 for ads plus $600 for the agency.

If eligible revenue rises to $40,000 at the same ad spend, the revenue-share total becomes $3,200. The fixed-fee example remains $2,600. These examples exclude setup, creative, tools, taxes and any other charges; include those when comparing actual proposals. The revenue figures are illustrations, not forecasts.

Matching totals do not mean matching services. Ask what each fee buys and whether the calculation has a minimum, a cap or an additional fixed charge.

Before agreeing to revenue share, ask:

• What revenue counts? Signed contracts, deposits or payments actually collected? Which customers and services are included?
• How is the sale connected to the campaign? Agree how existing customers, referrals and inquiries touched by several channels are handled, and how long a sale remains eligible.
• What happens when the sale changes? Define how cancellations, refunds and unpaid balances affect the fee.
• Who checks the calculation? Agree which records both sides will use, when the fee is due and how disagreements are resolved.
• What happens after the engagement ends? Establish whether later sales from earlier inquiries still carry a fee, and for how long.

For a per-appointment quote, define what makes an appointment eligible for payment: the service, location and other agreed qualification criteria, whether it must be attended or merely booked, and how duplicate inquiries, cancellations and no-shows are handled. Ask about credits or replacements before comparing the headline price.

Request a sample invoice using the same hypothetical month for each proposal. That gives you a concrete way to compare costs and responsibilities without relying on a claim that one pricing model is always better.

4. Understand who does the work and how decisions reach you

Ask: “Who manages the account, who covers absences, and what will you show us when you recommend a change?”

A named point of contact helps, but a particular job title or client count does not prove the quality of the service. Ask how the team reviews campaigns, escalates problems and records decisions.

Request a redacted example of a useful update. Look for the question being tested, the change made, the evidence collected and the next decision. A long list of account edits is not enough on its own; you should understand why the edits were made.

Set expectations for meeting frequency, response times and urgent budget issues in the agreement. Do not assume those details are included because the proposal says “ongoing optimization.”

What should you ask an AI-powered Google Ads agency?

Ask what the agency does beyond the tools already available in Google Ads. For example, Smart Bidding uses Google’s AI to adjust bids toward conversion goals. Using it does not, by itself, tell you what an agency contributes.

• Which tasks use AI? Ask whether it supports bidding, research, ad writing or reporting, and what the agency reviews before work goes live.
• What can change automatically? Ask which tools and settings can make account changes, which changes require your approval and who can stop them. Google documents how to review enabled auto-apply recommendations and their history.
• What information goes into additional tools? Ask which business or customer information the agency shares, with which providers, and what access and handling terms apply.
• What demonstrates useful work? Request one example showing the task, the AI output, the agency’s corrections and the final decision. An automated report alone does not establish that a campaign produced qualified inquiries or sales.

Use the same proof and scope checks elsewhere in this guide. The agency should explain its contribution and responsibilities clearly, whether it uses AI or not.

5. Inspect the destination as carefully as the ad

Ask: “Where will each campaign send people, and does that page continue the offer in the ad?”

Read a proposed ad alongside its destination. Can a visitor identify the service, understand who it is for, see appropriate evidence and take a clear next step? Check the same journey on a phone.

Clarify who will write and build the page, who approves its claims, and who repairs a broken form or booking link. Our Web & Landing service covers this part of the journey when the existing destination needs work.

The creative requirements depend on the campaign format. Search ad copy, display images and video assets have different jobs. Ask which formats are in scope and how the agency will decide whether new creative is worth producing. Original brand photography and video can supply material for those placements, but production quality alone does not guarantee performance.

6. Assign an owner to the inquiry

Ask: “What happens after someone contacts us, and who checks that the next step happened?”

Walk through one example from submission to response. Identify where the inquiry lands, who sees it, what happens outside business hours and how unanswered inquiries are found again.

You do not need to promise an instant response around the clock. You do need an achievable process that your team understands. If inquiry handling is part of the problem, discuss the follow-up and business systems alongside the campaign rather than discovering the gap after launch.

Keep a submitted inquiry distinct from a booked or attended appointment. This makes it easier to identify whether the next improvement belongs in the ads, the landing page or the response process.

For a practical way to assign responsibilities and keep track of next steps, see how to build a lead follow-up process your team can run.

7. Read the commitment and handover terms

Ask: “What are we committing to, how do we end the engagement, and what will be handed over?”

There is no single contract length that proves an agency is good or bad. Compare the proposed term with the work being done, your budget and the information available to judge progress.

Before signing, establish the minimum term, cancellation notice, any early-exit charges, deliverable ownership and the handover process. Include landing pages, creative source files, reporting access and measurement dependencies in that discussion. Resolve unclear terms before they become an exit problem.

A checklist to take into the meeting

For each item, record the answer, the evidence shown and anything still unresolved:

• Access: our business can sign into the relevant accounts, and administrative responsibilities are documented.
• Budget: ad spend, service fees and optional costs are separate; budget-change authority is clear.
• Measurement: clicks, inquiries, qualified leads and bookings are defined separately.
• Reporting: the report explains decisions and acknowledges missing outcome data.
• People: management, communication and absence coverage have named owners.
• Destination: the offer, page and contact action work together on mobile.
• Response: each inquiry reaches someone responsible for the next step.
• Exit: cancellation, deliverables, access and measurement handover are documented.

You are looking for an arrangement you can understand and verify. If an answer is vague, ask for a demonstration or a written explanation. That gives you a stronger basis for choosing a partner than a confident forecast alone.