You don't need a marketing degree to run this test, just five minutes, your phone, and the willingness to ask a few direct questions. Work through the five checks below in order, and you'll have a clear, honest picture of whether your agency is earning its retainer.
Test 1: Can You Log Into Your Own Account?
Open Google Ads, or whichever platform your budget runs through, and check who owns the account. Go to Admin, then Access and Security, and look at who's listed and what permission level they hold.
Good sign: you, or someone at your business, hold admin-level access to your own account, and your agency works inside it as a manager rather than the sole owner.
Red flag: the account was created under the agency's own login, they're reluctant to add you as an admin, or you're told access “isn't necessary.” A paid search agency that won't let you into your own account is protecting its own leverage, not your business, and you should always be free to take your data with you if you leave.
Test 2: Ask for Three Numbers, Not Thirty
Message or call your account manager and ask three things: what's your cost per lead (or cost per sale) this month, what's your return on ad spend, and how does that compare with last month?
Good sign: a confident, specific reply within the hour, ideally from memory. A skilled digital marketing specialist who manages your account daily shouldn't need to “pull a report” to tell you your own numbers.
Red flag: a vague answer, a long delay, or a reply stuffed with clicks and impressions instead of the numbers you actually asked for. If they can't tell you what your budget is returning, it's fair to wonder whether anyone is watching closely enough to know.
Test 3: Compare Their Leads With Your Sales Team's Reality
This is the check that catches the most problems. Ask your agency how many leads or conversions they recorded last month, then ask your own sales team, inbox, or call log how many genuine enquiries actually came in.
Good sign: the two numbers are reasonably close. Small gaps are normal, since some leads get logged slightly differently, but the figures should tell the same basic story.
Red flag: your dashboard says forty leads, but your sales team can only find eight real ones. This usually means conversion tracking is broken, counting things like page refreshes, spam submissions, or calls that never connected. A dependable paid media agency checks this regularly, because reporting that doesn't match reality is the fastest way to waste a budget without anyone noticing.
Test 4: Ask What They'd Change Right Now
Ask your account manager one simple question: if you could change one thing about our account today, what would it be, and why?
Good sign: something specific. A keyword burning budget without converting. An ad that's started to fatigue. A landing page losing people on mobile. Good PPC campaign management is a constant process of small adjustments, not a campaign that's built once and left alone.
Red flag: “everything's running well, we'll keep monitoring it.” That might sound reassuring, but it usually means nobody's looked closely at your account in a while. Paid search accounts that aren't actively adjusted tend to quietly lose efficiency over time, even when the topline numbers look stable.
Test 5: Ask About a Test That Didn't Work
Finally, ask: what's something you tried recently that didn't work, and what did you learn from it?
Good sign: a real example, told plainly. Good agencies test new audiences, ad formats, and bidding strategies, and not every test wins. Being open about that is a sign of a team that's genuinely experimenting on your behalf.
Red flag: a long pause, a deflection, or a claim that everything they've tried has worked. No honest paid search agency wins every single test. If yours claims otherwise, they're either not testing enough, or not telling you the whole story.
Your 5-Minute Scorecard at a Glance
Keep this open next time you're on a call with your agency. Here's the whole test in one place.
# | The Check | Good Sign | Red Flag |
|---|
1 | Account access | You hold admin rights on your account | Agency owns the account and resists sharing access |
2 | The real numbers | Fast, specific answer on CPA and ROAS | Vague, delayed, or leads with clicks and impressions |
3 | Leads vs sales reality | Reported leads roughly match your sales log | A big gap between reported and real enquiries |
4 | What they'd change | Names something specific and current | “Everything's fine, we're monitoring it” |
5 | A test that failed | Shares a real example and a lesson learned | Claims everything they try succeeds |
The five-minute test is a great snapshot, but the differences between a strong paid media agency and a struggling one also show up in broader patterns over time. Here's what to watch for.
Area | A Good Paid Media Agency | A Struggling One |
|---|
Reporting | Plain English, tied to revenue and leads | Heavy on jargon, light on outcomes |
Communication | Proactive updates, replies within a day | Silence unless you chase them |
Account ownership | You own and control your account | Agency retains ownership and access |
Strategy | Reviewed and adjusted monthly | Same campaigns running unchanged for months |
Testing | Runs and shares A/B tests regularly | Rarely tests, or doesn't share results |
Goals | Tied to your CPA, ROAS, or revenue targets | Tied to clicks, impressions, or “visibility” |
Red Flags That Mean It's Time to Switch Your Paid Search Agency
Beyond the five-minute test, a few warning signs are serious enough to act on immediately, even if everything else looks fine:
Guaranteed rankings or a guaranteed return on ad spend. Nobody can honestly promise this; Google's auction has too many moving parts to guarantee an outcome.
Long silences. Weeks with no updates, chasing them for a reply, isn't a communication style; it's a resourcing problem.
Pricing you can't explain. You should always know whether you're paying a flat fee, a percentage of spend, or a mix, and exactly what it covers.
The same strategy for six months straight. Search behaviour, competitors, and ad platforms change constantly, so an account that looks identical to January isn't being actively managed.
A “trust us” attitude instead of data. Confidence is good. Confidence with no evidence behind it isn't.
If two or more of these sound familiar, it's worth having a direct conversation with your agency before deciding anything. A good partner will welcome the scrutiny; a weaker one will get defensive.
What Good PPC Campaign Management Actually Looks Like
Once you strip away the jargon, good PPC campaign management is fairly simple to describe. It starts with a genuine understanding of your business, not just your budget: your margins, your sales cycle, and what a “good” customer looks like for you. From there, a skilled digital marketing strategist builds campaigns around measurable goals rather than vanity metrics, testing new keywords, audiences, and ad formats, and adjusting spend based on what the data shows, not what's easiest to leave alone.
Just as importantly, it looks like transparency you don't have to ask for: reports written in plain English, a named point of contact who knows your account without checking notes first, regular reviews of budget and not just results, and a willingness to say “this isn't working, here's what we're changing” instead of quietly hoping next month looks better.
This is the standard we hold ourselves to at GSS Tech Solutions. Our paid advertising team works across Google Ads, Google Shopping, remarketing, display, and social ads, with every campaign built around a structured process: audience analysis, keyword and competitor research, campaign setup, budget and bid management, and ongoing performance tracking with A/B testing. You keep ownership of your account and your data throughout, and reporting is built around the numbers that matter to your business.
Frequently Asked Questions
A paid media agency plans, builds, and manages advertising campaigns across platforms like Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising, and social media, so your budget reaches the people most likely to buy. This covers keyword research, ad creation, bid management, conversion tracking, and ongoing optimisation, reported back in a way that ties spend to real results.
How much does PPC campaign management cost in the UK?
Most UK agencies charge either a flat monthly fee or a percentage of ad spend, commonly between 10 and 20 percent, often falling as your budget grows. On top of that fee, you separately pay the ad platform itself, such as Google or Meta, for the clicks your campaigns generate. Always ask exactly what's included before signing.
What's the difference between a paid search agency and running PPC in-house?
A paid search agency brings dedicated tools, wider platform experience, and a team that isn't stretched across ten other jobs. Running PPC in-house can work well with a dedicated specialist, but many smaller businesses find outsourcing more cost-effective once you factor in software, training, and the time it takes to keep up with platform changes.
You should. A reputable paid media agency sets up or manages your account under your ownership, taking manager-level access rather than control of the account itself. Your campaign history, audience data, and conversion tracking stay with you if you ever switch agencies or bring PPC in-house.
Most businesses do well with a short monthly written report, plus informal updates when something significant changes in the account. Your digital marketing specialist should also be available for a call when you have questions, not just reachable once a month when the report lands.
Wasted spend usually turns up in a few consistent places: broad keywords with no negative keyword list, ads sending traffic to slow or irrelevant landing pages, and conversion tracking that doesn't match your real sales figures. Running the five-minute test above is a quick way to check without needing to be a PPC expert yourself.
Final Words
You don't need to become a PPC expert to know whether your agency is doing a good job. You need five minutes, five direct questions, and the confidence to expect real answers. If your paid media agency passes with clear, specific responses and numbers that match your own records, that's a genuinely good sign. If it doesn't, you now know exactly what to raise with them, or why it might be time to look elsewhere.
Either way, you're no longer guessing.
If the test left you with more questions than answers, just contact our team. GSS Tech Solutions offers a free, no-obligation review of your current PPC performance. We'll look at your account, tell you honestly what we find, and help you decide what to do next, whether that's fixing your current setup or building a paid media strategy from scratch.
