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What follows is what the agency actually does that the in-platform recommendations do not, what a real first 90 days looks like, the fee models and which one works against you, and the seven questions that separate an operator from a reseller. It sits inside paid media across Meta, Google, and TikTok, and if the channel itself is still an open question, start with Facebook ads versus Google Ads.

What an agency does that the platform will not do for you

Google is happy to run your account. It will suggest budgets, apply "recommendations" automatically if you let it, and expand your match types. None of that is neutral advice, because Google is paid on spend.

The work an agency owes you is the work that runs against that grain.

Account structure. Campaigns split by intent and margin, not by whatever was easiest to build. High-intent bottom-funnel searches do not belong in the same campaign as broad research queries competing for the same budget.

Conversion definition. This is the most valuable hour anyone spends in an account, and it is usually wrong. If a conversion counts a page view, an unanswered phone click, or the same lead twice, then the reported cost per lead is fiction and Smart Bidding is optimising toward the fiction. Fix the definition before optimising anything.

Search term control. Reading what people actually typed, promoting the queries that convert, and adding negatives for the ones that never will. Broad match with no maintained negative list is the fastest budget leak in Google Ads.

Performance Max supervision. PMax hides placements and mixes brand traffic into the results, which flatters the report. The controls that exist are brand exclusions, account-level negatives, separate asset groups per product line, and feed hygiene for Shopping. An account with one asset group and no exclusions is not being managed, it is being fed.

Landing pages. Most underperforming accounts have a page problem, not an ads problem. Traffic can be perfect and the form still converts at nothing. The job is making sure the page converts, not just the click. On our retainers above $2,500 a month, hand-coded landing pages are included rather than billed as an extra.

Attribution health. GA4, server-side tagging, and offline conversion imports break silently when the site changes. Somebody has to check.

What the first 90 days should look like

Ask any agency to describe this. The good ones have a specific answer.

Days 1 to 5, audit. Pull the account, read the search terms, trace where spend went, check every conversion action, and identify the waste down to the keyword. Ours is free, it comes back inside 24 hours, and it includes a written 90 day plan that is yours to keep whether or not you hire us. No call required to get it. That audit is the first step in Calgary Google Ads management on our side.

Days 5 to 14, rebuild. Most inherited accounts are worth rebuilding rather than patching. Layered edits, orphaned campaigns, and conversion actions nobody can explain make a clean build faster than an untangle. The old account stays paused for reference so the history is not lost.

Days 14 to 45, learning and cleanup. Any new bid strategy has a learning period where performance is noisy and should be left alone. In parallel, the search terms report gets read weekly and the negative list grows fast.

Days 45 to 90, stabilisation. Bidding settles on cleaner conversion data, budget shifts toward what is working, and creative that carries the account goes into test alongside the landing pages. Weekly readouts throughout, and a monthly session about where to push and where to pull back, which is where when to scale spend gets decided.

Nobody can promise you a cost per lead or a return by a given date. The auction, your competitors, your close rate, and your seasonality are not the agency's to control. What can be promised is the process and the reporting.

Fee models, and the one to be careful with

Fixed monthly fee. A flat number quoted after the audit. Most accounts land at $1,500 to $3,500 a month. Your bill does not change because your budget did, which keeps the advice honest when the right call is to spend less.

Percentage of spend. Typically 10% to 20%. It sounds proportional and it aligns the agency with spending more, not with performing better. It also spikes your bill in your heaviest month.

Fee plus performance bonus. Workable if the bonus is tied to something you both trust, like qualified leads or revenue, and if the base fee is low enough that the bonus is real. It fails when the bonus is tied to a platform-reported metric the agency also configures.

The work behind every one of those models is the same, and it is itemised in what PPC campaign management covers. For the local picture across services, this is what a Calgary retainer costs.

Whichever model, two rules do not bend. Ad spend goes directly to Google on your billing, with no agency markup. And you own the account, with the agency added as a user, so the history stays yours when the relationship ends.

What goes wrong

The agency owns the account. When the relationship ends, the conversion history, the negative lists, and the learning go with them, and the next agency starts from zero. This is the most expensive mistake on this page and it costs nothing to avoid on day one.

Reporting is impressions and clicks. Both go up in almost every account. Ask for cost per qualified lead, lead-to-sale rate, and revenue. If the monthly report does not connect spend to something your accountant recognises, it is a slide deck, not a report.

Brand traffic is counted as a win. People searching your company name were going to find you anyway. If brand campaigns are folded into the account average, the reported cost per acquisition looks far better than the acquisition actually is. Ask to see performance with brand excluded.

Nobody has opened the search terms report. Check the date of the most recent negative keyword. If it is months old, the weekly loop is not happening.

One person managing forty accounts. Ask how many accounts your day-to-day contact carries. Paid search is a weekly craft, and past a certain load it becomes a monthly glance.

Seven questions that expose a bad Google Ads agency

1. Who owns the Google Ads account and the billing profile?
2. What would you change in week one, based on what you can already see?
3. Can you show me a redacted search terms report from a live account?
4. How do you control Performance Max, specifically?
5. Which conversion actions would you keep, and which would you delete?
6. Who works on my account by name, and how many other accounts do they have?
7. What is the contract length, and what happens to the account if I leave?

Month to month is the honest default. A twelve month lock on a service that should demonstrate its process inside 60 days is protecting the agency.

If the budget question underneath all of this is really paid versus organic, that is how paid and SEO split a budget.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a Google Ads agency cost?

Most accounts pay $1,500 to $3,500 a month for management, quoted as a fixed fee after an audit. Ad spend is separate and goes directly to Google on your own billing profile. Some agencies charge 10% to 20% of ad spend instead, which ties their revenue to your budget rather than to the work.

Is a Google Ads agency worth it for a small budget?

Below about $1,000 a month in ad spend, usually not. The management fee takes too large a share of the total, and automated bidding does not gather enough conversion data to optimise against. At that level, a one-time audit and setup, then self-management, is the better trade.

Should I use a Google Partner agency?

Partner status confirms an agency manages a certain amount of spend and has passed Google's certifications. It is a floor, not a signal of quality, and it is awarded by the platform whose spend the agency is recommending. Judge on the account questions above instead.

Can a Google Ads agency guarantee results?

No. The auction is live, competitors change bids, and your close rate is yours. Any guarantee of a specific cost per lead, position, or return is a sales device. A real commitment covers the process: audit, rebuild, weekly search term work, and reporting you can read.

What is the difference between a Google Ads agency and a Google Ads consultant?

A consultant is one person, usually retained hourly or for a defined project, and works well for a single-channel account with steady spend. An agency brings a team, which matters when creative has to be produced as well as bought, when several platforms run at once, or when you need coverage while someone is away.