Most businesses running Google Ads outsource the work and then feel vaguely uncertain about whether it’s going well. The reports look professional. The agency sounds confident on calls. But there’s a nagging sense that you’re not quite sure what you’re paying for.
That uncertainty is worth addressing. Here’s how to actually evaluate whether your agency is doing good work – based on what the numbers should show, what the communication should look like, and what active management actually involves.
Start with the numbers that matter
Every Google Ads report will show you impressions, clicks, and spend. These are useful for context but they don’t tell you much on their own. The numbers that actually reveal performance quality are:
Cost per acquisition (CPA) – what it costs you to get one customer, lead, or sale. If your agency has never defined a target CPA with you, that’s a gap. Good agencies set a CPA goal at the start and track improvement against it every month.
Conversion rate – of all the people who clicked your ad and landed on your site, what percentage actually converted? Industry averages for Google Ads typically sit between 2-5% depending on the sector, but the number itself matters less than the direction it’s moving. A conversion rate that’s stayed flat for three months despite optimisations is a signal worth questioning.
Impression share and lost impression share – this tells you what percentage of available searches you’re appearing for, and why you’re missing the rest (budget or quality). A good agency will proactively surface this rather than wait for you to ask.
Search term reports – ask your agency to show you the actual search terms that triggered your ads last month. You want to see clean, relevant terms and evidence that negative keywords are being actively added. If you’re spending money on terms that have nothing to do with your business, that’s wasted budget and a sign the account isn’t being monitored closely enough.
What the reporting itself tells you
A report is one thing. The analysis that comes with it is another.
A good agency doesn’t just send you numbers – they tell you what changed, why it changed, and what they’re doing about it. If your monthly report is a screenshot of the dashboard with no written commentary, the account may not be getting much active attention.
Look for evidence of testing. Are ad copy variations being tested regularly? Are landing pages being flagged for improvement? Agencies doing active work will always have something they’re currently testing and something they recently learned from.
Also pay attention to how your agency handles a bad month. Any account has down periods. The agencies that do good work will come to you with an explanation and a plan. The ones phoning it in will either go quiet or blame external factors without specifics.
Signs of active management
Google Ads accounts need to be worked on regularly to stay healthy. Quality Scores drift, auction dynamics shift, competitor bids change. Here’s what regular management should look like:
Weekly tasks include bid adjustments, search term reviews, adding negative keywords, and checking for any sudden drops in performance. Monthly tasks include reviewing ad copy performance, testing new audience segments, and updating bid strategies if they’re not hitting targets.
Ask your agency: when did you last make a change to the account? If the answer is “we check it every couple of weeks” for an account spending a meaningful budget, that’s too infrequent.
Questions worth asking on your next call
You don’t need to be a Google Ads expert to hold an agency accountable. These questions tend to surface a lot quickly:
- What’s the one thing you’d change about our account structure if you could do it again from scratch?
- Which campaigns are underperforming and what’s the plan?
- What have we learned from the ad copy tests we’ve run this quarter?
- Are there search terms we should be targeting that we’re currently missing?
- What’s our Quality Score trend over the past 90 days?
Good agencies will answer these with specifics. Vague answers that circle back to “the account is performing well overall” without addressing the actual question are a flag.
The communication question
Beyond the numbers, how an agency communicates tells you a lot. Are they proactive – reaching out when something’s wrong before you notice? Do they explain their decisions or just execute them? When you ask a question, do you get a direct answer or a lot of hedging?
Frequency matters too. Monthly reporting is the minimum. For accounts spending above a certain threshold, bi-weekly check-ins should be the standard. If you’re the one always initiating contact, the relationship is probably more one-sided than it should be.
When to seriously reconsider
If CPA has been rising for three or more months with no corrective action from the agency, that warrants a direct conversation. If you’ve never seen a negative keyword list or a search term report, ask for one. If your agency can’t tell you what your Quality Scores look like or hasn’t mentioned them at all, the account management is likely surface-level.
Switching agencies is disruptive, so it’s worth having a direct conversation first. Most agencies will respond to specific, numbers-based feedback. Staying vague – “I’m not sure it’s going well” – doesn’t give an agency much to improve against, but “our CPA has gone from X to Y over six months and I want to understand why” does.
Running good Google Ads is genuinely difficult work. The agencies that do it well can show you exactly what they’ve done and why. The ones who can’t may not be doing much at all.