TL;DR
A PPC agency earns trust in the discovery call, before the pitch deck arrives. A strong agency shouldn’t suggest channels or solutions until it has asked about your sales goals, best customers, follow-up, margins, tracking, and past results.
That work can take longer, but it shows whether the team is trying to solve your actual problem. A proposal should name the issue, set out what it’ll test in the first 90 days, and explain what could slow progress, from weak tracking to a sales team that cannot take more leads. You should also keep admin access to your ad account, analytics, data, and the people doing the work.
Slides are the easy part. Download the PPC Drift Checklist to see whether your current agency has a real strategy or a standard plan.
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A fresh agency proposal can feel like a relief, especially if you’ve been burned before. The slides look sharp. The forecast sounds specific. The plan names familiar channels: Google Search, Performance Max, paid social, and a landing-page review.
None of that proves the plan fits your business.
Before an agency can recommend where to spend, it needs to know what needs to change. Do you need more sales, better leads, stronger margins, or a quicker route into a new market? Who buys from you? What happens after someone clicks? What has already worked, and what has wasted the budget?
Without those answers, the agency hasn’t built a strategy. They’ve picked a package.
Cookie-cutter agencies rarely look careless. They often look fast, organised, and sure of themselves. While that by itself is not a warning flag, but it is also not a good enough reason to stick with your agency. If they can tell you exactly what to do before they understand your goals, customers, and limits, they’re selling a standardised plan.
When you assess a PPC agency, listen to the questions before you weigh the promises. Good questions show that the agency is working out the problem. Quick answers may show that it has already been decided.
A template isn’t automatically the problem
Good PPC agencies use repeatable processes. They should have a clear way to audit an account, set up tracking, report performance, and decide what to test next. That saves time and helps avoid basic human errors.
The problem starts when the process becomes “the answer” and not “the way to find the answer”.
Your business may need Google Search, Performance Max, paid social, or something else entirely. The right mix depends on what you sell, how people buy, your margins, the quality of your existing data, and what needs to improve first.
For example, a company with plenty of leads but weak sales follow-up has a different problem from one that needs to create demand in a new market. Giving both the same channel plan isn’t efficient. It’s a classic template solution scenario.
You want an agency with a method. You don’t want one that mistakes its method for your strategy.
The clearest tell: the questions they ask
On a discovery call, budget and start dates need a mention. They affect scale and timing. They don’t tell an agency what PPC needs to do for the business.
The useful part comes when the agency starts pulling at the problem. Does the company need more enquiries or fewer poor-fit leads? A good agency will ask where customers first find you, what happens between the first Google Ads click and a sale, and who follows up on leads. It will ask what has already been tried, where spend went wrong, and whether the CRM can show which leads turned into sales.
Those questions can make the first call feel slower. That’s fair. An agency can’t choose the right campaign, message, or landing page until it knows what is getting in the way. A company with plenty of leads and weak sales follow-up needs a very different plan from one with sales capacity but almost no demand.
Listen for that work. A real partner is trying to find where PPC fits in your sales process, which part it can fix, and what sits outside its control. If the call stays on platforms and packages, the agency may have made up its mind before the call ends.
The questions a real strategy partner asks
A real PPC agency does not arrive with a channel list and work backwards. It starts by finding out what the business needs to change.
Questions about the business goal
“What would success look like in six months?”
That answer should go beyond “more leads.” You may need higher-value enquiries, profitable revenue growth, better conversion rates, or support for a new market. Each goal calls for different decisions about targeting, budget, offers, and measurement.
A good agency will also ask what the business can handle. There is little value in doubling lead volume if the sales team cannot follow up quickly enough.
Questions about customers and the buying journey
“Who is your best customer, and who do you want to avoid attracting?”
This question helps separate useful traffic from expensive noise. The agency should want to know what a buyer searches for, what makes them hesitate, who influences the decision, and what happens after the first click.
PPC does not end at the ad. A strong campaign connects the search term, ad message, landing page, and sales follow-up. If any part of that chain breaks, more traffic will not solve the problem.
Questions about economics and measurement
“What is a qualified lead worth to you?”
Without a clear answer, an agency may optimise for cheap form fills that never turn into revenue. It should ask about margins, average order value, customer lifetime value, and the difference between an enquiry and a sales-ready lead.
It should also ask whether your CRM can show which leads become customers. That data gives PPC campaigns something far more useful than a cost-per-lead target: a view of what drives real commercial value.
Questions about the current account and what came before
“What have you already tested, and what did you learn?”
Your existing account contains evidence. It may show wasted spend, strong search terms, seasonal shifts, or problems with tracking. A real partner will want to inspect that evidence before proposing a new plan.
It should also ask who owns the accounts, whether tracking is reliable, and what limits apply. Stock levels, sales capacity, geography, compliance rules, and approval times can all change what makes sense.
These questions take time. That is the point. A strategy worth paying for begins with a clear view of the business it needs to support.
Signs you’re being sold a pre-built plan
You can spot a recycled plan before the contract is signed. Watch how quickly the agency moves from a few basic questions to a fixed list of channels, deliverables, and results. If Google Search, Performance Max, paid social, and a landing-page refresh appear before anyone has looked at your sales process or account data, ask why those choices fit your business.
Platform knowledge matters. It just isn’t enough.
An agency may know how to bid, build audiences, and use automation, yet still miss the part that matters. Does it ask what a good lead is worth? It should also find out who calls that lead, how soon they call, and where likely buyers give up. If those answers never come up, the agency may chase cheap form fills rather than sales. That is how a campaign can look good in a monthly report while the sales team keeps saying the leads are poor.
Listen for trade-offs, too. A real plan should set a clear order of work, explaining whether it needs to fix tracking, improve lead quality, or increase volume first. That order depends on the facts of the account, including the site, approval process, sales follow-up, rival bids, and available stock or service capacity. An agency that promises every result at once without discussing those limits is offering certainty it has not earned.
And if you want to be extra sure, meet the people who will run the account. If the salesperson knows your business well but the delivery team is vague, unnamed, or absent, that handover can undo the work from the first call. You need the people making decisions on the account to understand what they are trying to fix.
Put the proposal under a microscope
The cover isn’t the test. Put the proposal aside for a minute and look at the first page with your business name on it.
Check whether it names the problem you need PPC to solve or opens with the agency’s standard service list. A useful proposal should show the link between your goal, the customer you want to reach, and the work the agency plans to do. If lead quality is the issue, for example, it should say how it will tell a sales-ready enquiry from a cheap form fill. If you are moving into a new market, it should explain what it needs to learn before it puts more budget behind ads.
Look for hypotheses, not headlines. “We will test search terms that signal high purchase intent” is more useful than “we will maximise your Google Ads performance,” because you can see what is being tested and why. The proposal should also name the conversion that matters, whether that is a booked call, a qualified lead, or revenue recorded in the CRM.
Then check the first 90 days. You should be able to see the account audit, the first tests, the learning they should produce, and the things that could hold the work up (tracking gaps, slow approvals, stock limits, or a sales team that cannot take more leads yet). A channel recommendation without that context is only a preference.
Ownership and access: the test after you sign
The sales call is only the first check. Once the work starts, the account should still be yours. That is basic.
Ask a plain question before you sign: which logins will we have on day one? Your team should have admin access to Google Ads, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, the audiences and data built during the work, plus the CRM data used to judge lead quality. An agency can manage those systems without being the only one able to see them.
Access matters because it lets you check the work. You should be able to see what changed, which tests ran, what the team learned, and what it plans to try next. A monthly report with a few neat charts won’t do that on its own.
Meet your Account Manager regularly. You need a named contact who can explain the numbers in plain English and talk through the next decision. If an agency avoids that conversation or keeps the logins in its own name, treat it as a risk before the contract makes it your problem.
A simple way to compare agencies
After each agency call, take five minutes to write down what you heard. First, note whether they asked questions your team had not considered. Those questions can uncover a gap in your tracking, sales follow-up, or offer. Write it down.
Next, ask whether they linked PPC to revenue rather than stopping at clicks and cost per lead. Check whether their plan fits your goals, limits, and sales process. Then look for a clear order of work: what will they tackle in the first 90 days, what will wait, and why, given the data they have and the changes your team can realistically make?
Finally, confirm that you’ll keep access to the accounts, data, and people doing the work. You do not need a perfect scorecard, because every agency call will have unknowns. You need enough evidence to separate a team that understands your business from one that has already chosen its answer. Compare your notes side by side (not just the slide decks) and see whose thinking still makes sense when you ask for specifics. Here is a guide on some more considerations on how to pick the right marketing agency for your brand.
Here are what client reviews would look like for such an agency
Conclusion
The right PPC agency won’t claim to know everything on the first call. It earns your confidence by asking useful questions, stating what it needs to test, and showing how its plan connects to the result your business needs.
That takes a little longer than a ready-made proposal. It also gives you a better chance of avoiding another expensive reset six months from now.
If you suspect your current agency has been doing this, checkout our PPC Drift Checklist to find out.