How to Choose a Google Ads Agency Without Burning Your Budget
Jakub Pytlik
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April 21, 2026
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6 min read
Before I begin: I'm a freelancer, not an agency. This may look like selling my offering — but the article makes sense for anyone picking a PPC vendor, regardless of whether they hire an agency, a freelancer or an in-house person. The advice works the same way.
Five red flags
1. The Google Ads account is on the agency's details, not yours
A classic trap. The agency creates an account "for itself" and runs your campaigns inside it. You end the relationship — you don't take the account. You lose conversion history, remarketing data, the algorithm's learning (3–6 months of building), audit trails. The next agency starts from scratch.
It should be like this: a Google Ads account registered to you (your tax ID, your owner email). The agency is just an added user with access. After the notice period — you remove their access and continue working with whoever you want.
2. Annual contract or termination penalty
If results are good, the client stays on their own. Annual contracts exist to keep clients when results are weak. Monthly notice forces the vendor to maintain quality every month.
3. "All-in" price with no split between budget and management
"5,000 PLN per month all-inclusive" looks simple, but you don't know how much actually goes to clicks on Google and how much goes to the agency. It can be that out of 5,000 PLN only 2,000 PLN reaches Google and 3,000 PLN stays with the agency — your real budget is much lower than you think. It should be split: ad budget 3,500 PLN + management 1,500 PLN = 5,000 PLN. For reference: in Poland account management by an agency is typically 800–3,000 PLN per month at a 2,000–20,000 PLN budget, or a percentage of budget (10–20%).
4. Result guarantees and "miracles"
"We guarantee a 3× ROAS lift in 30 days". No serious vendor promises this, because results depend on margin, the website, the season, the competition — things outside the vendor's control. A professional says "from my experience in your industry it usually works out at X" — without a guarantee, but with a concrete number.
5. Junior runs the account, senior negotiates
The classic big-agency model: a senior shows up at the first meeting with a deck. After signing, the account is taken over by a junior whom the senior sees once a month. Ask directly who will physically work on your account every day — and demand contact with that person before signing.
Five green flags (what to look for)
- Google Ads account registered to your details — agency as an added user, not the owner.
- Monthly notice — no penalties, no "lock-in", no 12-month commitments.
- Split price list — you know exactly how much goes to Google and how much to the agency.
- Case studies with numbers from your industry — concrete ROAS, CPL, customer acquisition cost, not just client logos on a slide.
- Direct contact with the person running the account — not just an account manager passing messages between you and the specialist.
Five questions before signing the contract
- "Will the Google Ads account be registered to my details?" — only YES is the right answer.
- "What's the notice period?" — monthly or shorter.
- "Will you show me two case studies from my industry with concrete numbers?" — not client logos, but ROAS, CPL, customer acquisition cost.
- "Who physically runs my account every day, and can I have direct contact with them?" — not an account manager passing messages.
- "What happens to the budget if results are weak — do you propose a strategy change or burn through to the end of the month?" — a good answer is: "we pause or change the strategy — we don't burn your budget just because the month hasn't ended".
What I see after 11 years
Three real situations from accounts I took over from other vendors — showing the consequences of skipping the rules above:
- An e-commerce client — taken over from a large agency. Account on the agency's details, 2 years of conversion history unavailable. We started from zero. Over the next 5 months, around 30,000 PLN of budget went to rebuilding results that the account had once already had — meaning the client paid twice for the same effectiveness, only because they didn't have the account on their own details.
- A local service — the agency was charging 1,500 PLN "all-in", but the real ad budget was 600 PLN. The client thought they had 1,500 PLN going to clicks, but most of it was disappearing into the management fee. After moving to a split model — for the same 1,500 PLN they had 1,500 PLN of real budget plus 600 PLN of management. Results jumped ~2.5×.
- A B2B services client — the agency guaranteed "at least 50 leads per month", but the contract had no definition of "lead". Each side counted differently: the agency counted every contact email (including unsolicited ones), the client counted only quote requests. After tightening the definition it turned out there were 12 real leads, not 50. The guarantee was fictional, not from bad intent but from a vague contract — but the effect for the client was the same.
About the sources: The article is based on observations from 11 years of running Google Ads campaigns at JP Ads + analyses of accounts taken over from other agencies. Numbers from my own practice are flagged "from my experience" — distinguish them from hard market research.