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Choose the PPC agency that fixes your conversion tracking before it spends your money, keeps your ad accounts in your name, and reports results in leads and revenue. Everything else in the pitch matters less.
Nearly every agency says it works that way. The questions below, each with what a good answer sounds like, help you find the ones that do.
What questions should you ask a PPC agency before you sign?
Ask about account ownership, tracking, reporting, staffing, day-to-day account work, testing, fees, and what happens when the relationship ends. Good agencies answer each one specifically.
1. Who owns the ad accounts?
A good answer: “You do.” The Google Ads, Meta, and Microsoft Advertising accounts sit under your business, billed to your card, and the agency gets manager access. The same goes for GA4, your tag manager, and the Meta Pixel. If an agency builds everything inside its own account, your campaign history leaves when they do.
2. How will you set up and verify conversion tracking?
A good answer: they check tracking before touching bids, and they get specific. Phone calls and form fills counted as conversions. Meta’s Conversions API deduplicated with the Pixel. Microsoft’s UET tag installed. A monthly check of platform numbers against your CRM or store, because ad platforms tend to over-credit themselves (our post on numbers your team can trust explains why).
3. What will you report, and how often?
A good answer: leads, cost per lead, and revenue or return on ad spend, in plain language, at least monthly, with live dashboard access in between. Clicks and impressions belong in the appendix. Ask to see a sample report, and if page one doesn’t tell you whether the ads made money, keep asking.
4. Who works on my account day to day?
A good answer: a name, and ideally a conversation with that person before you sign. The senior strategist on the sales call isn’t always the one in your account each week. Ask how many accounts that person manages, how fast they reply, and who covers when they’re out.
5. How do you handle search terms and negative keywords?
A good answer: weekly search-term reviews and a negative keyword list someone actually maintains. It matters more as Google automates matching: AI Max for Search adds broad and keywordless matching to existing Search campaigns. Automation can find good searches, but someone still has to cut the bad ones.
6. When would you recommend spending less?
A good answer: they can name the conditions. Cost per lead above your break-even point, tracking that can’t be trusted, a landing page that doesn’t convert, or a market tapped out at your current offer. An agency that has never told a client to cut spend is selling media.
7. How will you test new channels like Microsoft Ads or ChatGPT ads?
A good answer: with a set test budget, a success metric agreed up front, and a date to decide. Microsoft Advertising reaches searchers on Bing, Yahoo, AOL, DuckDuckGo, and Ecosia. ChatGPT ads began showing to logged-in US adults on the Free and Go plans in February 2026, with a $25 minimum daily budget. A good agency also tells you what it can’t measure yet: Microsoft gives no separate metrics for its ads in Copilot, and Google offers no separate reporting for ads inside AI Overviews.
8. How are you paid, and what’s in the contract?
A good answer: a fee written in plain terms, ad spend billed by the platforms directly to you, and a contract you can leave without a fight. If there’s a long lock-in, ask what it protects.
9. What happens to my campaigns if we part ways?
A good answer: you keep everything: accounts, campaigns, creative, audiences, tracking, and past reports. The agency removes its access and hands over notes on what worked. Get it in writing.
10. What will the first 90 days look like?
A good answer: a plan with an order to it. Month one covers the audit, tracking fixes, and launch or restructure. Month two is cutting wasted spend and testing ads and landing pages. By month three you should see a real cost per lead and a budget recommendation.
What are the red flags when hiring a PPC agency?
The biggest red flags are an agency that keeps your ad accounts in its own name, reports vanity metrics in place of revenue, guarantees results, or never recommends spending less. Any one of them is reason to keep looking.
- They own your accounts or won’t show you the platform invoices, which can hide markups on spend.
- Vanity metrics up front. Reports that lead with impressions, reach, or click-through rate measure activity, and you’re paying for customers.
- Guarantees. No one controls the auctions, so a guaranteed lead count is a sales line.
- Every recommendation is “spend more.” Budget increases should follow results.
How do PPC agencies charge?
Most PPC agencies charge one of three ways: a percentage of ad spend, a flat monthly fee, or a hybrid of a base fee plus a percentage. Each can be fair. What matters is that the fee is written down, the ad spend runs through accounts in your name, and you know what’s included.
A percentage of spend can quietly reward bigger budgets, and a flat fee should come with a defined scope. Ask whether creative, landing pages, and tracking setup are included, since that’s where similar quotes stop being comparable.
Should you get an audit before choosing an agency?
Yes, if you already run ads. An audit of your current account shows where money is leaking and whether your tracking works, and it shows you how a prospective agency thinks before you commit.
We offer a free ads audit for Google, Meta, or Microsoft accounts, with the top five fixes delivered within three business days of getting read-only access. Use it as a second opinion whether or not you hire us.
Does it matter whether your PPC agency is local?
Location matters less than the answers to the questions above, and plenty of strong agencies work remotely. A local agency does add two things: in-person meetings when you want them, and a feel for the market your ads run in.
In Tampa Bay, that means knowing a Brandon service area and a St. Pete one behave like different markets, and that snowbird and hurricane seasons move demand. It also means someone can sit in your office and hear how your team handles the calls the ads produce. Many “bad lead” complaints turn out to be follow-up problems. We work with clients across the country and are glad to meet in person with the ones here in Tampa Bay.
If you’re interviewing agencies, ask us the same ten questions. Our paid media work covers Google, Meta, Microsoft, and ChatGPT ads, with tracking fixed first and monthly reporting in plain language.
Common questions about hiring a PPC agency
How long should a PPC agency contract be? Long enough for a fair test and short enough to leave if results don’t come. An account needs roughly three months to show its real cost per lead, so ask how the contract lines up with that, and be wary of long lock-ins that have no performance review built in.
Can I switch PPC agencies without losing my campaign history? Yes, if the accounts are in your name. Give the new agency access, remove the old one, and your history stays put. If the old agency created the account, ask for admin access before you announce the switch.
How much ad spend do you need before hiring an agency? Enough to fund a real test for at least three months, on top of the management fee. If your ad budget is small, the fee becomes a large share of the total, and you may get more from fixing your website and tracking first.