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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.