Hiring Ads Help: Questions That Separate Pros from Pitches

At some point most owners decide the ads need someone who does this all day. The market then presents two kinds of help that look alike from the outside: people who run accounts for a living, and people who sell the idea of running accounts. The proposals use the same words, the decks show the same logos, and the difference only shows up months later on the lead sheet. A few questions asked before signing separate the two reliably, and this article is written by an agency, so read it as the questions we would want to be asked.

Questions about how they would start

Ask what they would do in the first two weeks. A real operator talks about tracking first: verifying what a conversion is, checking call reporting, reading the search terms report, looking at the location and schedule settings. A pitch talks about "strategy", "creatives" and launching fast. The setup articles in this series explain why the boring first fortnight decides the next six months; anyone who skips it is going to learn the account's lessons with your money.

Ask which accounts they would refuse. Someone who has run enough accounts knows when ads are the wrong answer: a business with no capacity to answer the phone, a service with no search demand, a landing page that cannot convert. "We can help anyone" is a sales answer; "not until you fix X" is an operator's.

Questions about ownership and access

Who will own the ad accounts, the Pixel and the conversion data? The only right answer is you, with the agency added as a partner or user, as the ownership article laid out. Ask how access ends when the engagement does. If any part of the answer involves accounts created "on our side for convenience", walk away or insist otherwise in writing.

Ask whether you will have full read access to Ads Manager and Google Ads throughout. Reporting dashboards built by the agency are fine as a summary, but the raw account is the truth, and a helper who resists you seeing it has a reason.

Questions about how they will report

Ask which number they will report as the main result. Clicks, impressions and "engagement" are the wrong answers for a service business. Cost per qualified conversation, and cost per booking once the lead sheet feeds back, are the right ones. Ask whether they will use your lead sheet as the referee, as the attribution article described, rather than the platforms' own counts. An operator will be glad; a pitch will explain why the dashboards are more accurate.

Ask what a bad month looks like in their report. Real accounts have bad months. A helper who has never had one either has not run accounts long or is not planning to tell you.

Questions about money

Ask how they charge and whether it changes with your spend. A percentage of ad spend rewards spending more; a flat fee rewards nothing in particular; a fee with a small performance element tied to bookings you verify is the cleanest, and rare. None is wrong by itself, but you should know which way the incentive points.

Ask for the minimum term and the notice period. Long lock-ins on a small account exist to protect the agency, not the results.

Warning signs that end the conversation

• Guaranteed results, guaranteed rankings, or a promised cost per lead before they have seen your account
• Case studies with no names and numbers that are all round
• Reluctance to give you admin access to your own accounts
• A plan that starts with spending and never mentions tracking
• Pressure to sign this week because a "slot" is closing

What a good engagement looks like from your side

You still do fifteen minutes a week: read the summary, check the lead sheet, and ask one question about anything that moved. The helper handles the account, but the business keeps the record and the ownership. The pattern we see in relationships that last is that the owner understands enough to ask good questions, and the operator is happy to answer them. That is what this whole series is for.

FAQ

Should I hire a freelancer or an agency?

The questions above matter more than the label. A good freelancer with a few accounts can outperform a large agency where a junior handles yours. Ask who exactly will work on the account and how many others they manage.

How long before I can judge whether the help is working?

Three months for a fair verdict, with the first month treated as setup and learning. Judge on cost per booking from the lead sheet, compared to the months before, not on the agency's own dashboard.

Can I keep running some ads myself alongside an agency?

Yes, but keep them in separate campaigns and agree on who touches what. Two people editing the same campaign produces results nobody can explain, which the diagnosis article warned about even for one person.