How to Work With a PPC Agency (and Get Better Results)

If you’re new to pay-per-click advertising (PPC), it’s easy to assume your agency can handle everything. But the truth is, digital advertising works best when it’s a partnership.

Your agency can see what happens up to the click (impressions, clicks, on-site actions). What they can’t see is what happens after: which leads were good, what your sales team heard on calls, whether you were booked solid for three weeks, or whether your store had to close due to a burst pipe. That’s why the most effective thing you can do for your paid advertising is simple: keep your agency in the loop.

This guide walks you through a beginner-friendly playbook to improve your PPC agency relationship to make sure you are getting the most out of your investment.

What your agency handles:

• Strategy: What to advertise, where to focus budget, what to test.
• Setup: Campaigns, keywords, ads, targeting, budgets, bidding.
• Optimization: Search term review, negative keywords, ad iteration, landing page alignment.
• Analytics and reporting: Setting up conversion tracking, creating reports, and translating performance into decisions and next steps.

Where you collaborate:

• Creative assets: You provide new photos, graphics, testimonials, and product images. Your agency determines how to use them effectively in ads.
• Competitor intelligence: You share what you’re seeing in the market or hearing from customers. Your agency shares what they’re seeing in auction insights.
• Landing page improvements: You know your business and customers. Your agency knows what converts. Together, you create pages that drive results.

What only you can provide:

• Business changes: New services, new CRM, promotions, seasonal changes, major website updates.
• Capacity updates: “We’re booked out,” “We’re hiring,” “Inventory is tight.”
• Customer intel: What customers call your services, common questions, pain points they mention.
• Lead quality feedback: What’s turning into real customers (and what isn’t).

PPC ads are not ‘set it and forget it’. We’ll never say no to any extra information or insight you want to give us into your business, even if it’s not marketing related! (If your agency doesn’t feel the same, then maybe that’s a sign to switch things up).

Close the visibility gap

Your PPC agency and your business are often looking at two different pictures of success.

Your agency sees the first half of the story. They can tell you how many people saw your ad, how many clicked, what they did on your website, and whether they filled out a form or called your number. They can optimize headlines, test landing pages, and refine targeting to get more of those clicks and conversions.

But most of the time that’s where their visibility ends.

What happens after someone submits that form or makes that call? Your agency has no idea. You see the second half. You know which leads turned into customers and which ones went nowhere.

Neither perspective is complete on its own. Bridging this gap is what separates campaigns that just “run” from campaigns that get better over time. The agencies that deliver the best results aren’t the ones with secret bidding strategies or special Google relationships—they’re the ones whose clients help them see the full picture.

Note: This gap is starting to close with the introduction of offline conversions, which allow you to send sales data back into your ad platforms. However, for most small and mid-sized businesses, this still isn’t a realistic option. You may not have a CRM, or the one you use might not integrate with ad platforms.

It’s also possible your current website platform doesn’t support the technical setup required. Even when offline conversions are technically possible and set up correctly, they still don’t tell the whole story as they can’t capture lead quality nuances, sales team feedback, or capacity constraints.

Lead quality feedback: how to do it right

“The leads aren’t good.”

If we had a dollar for every time we heard this without additional context, we could probably retire. And we get it: when you’re frustrated with lead quality, it feels obvious that something needs to change. But from your agency’s perspective, this feedback is almost impossible to act on.

A form submission looks the same in Google Ads whether it came from your ideal customer or someone completely wrong for your business. That’s where you come in.

What good feedback looks like

Instead of “leads are bad,” try something like:

• “We got three calls this week from people asking about residential service, but we only do commercial.”
• “We’re getting a lot of people who want free consultations but aren’t ready to commit.”
• “The leads from the ’emergency repair’ campaign have been great. Most of them booked within 24 hours.”
• “We’re getting calls from people 50+ miles outside our service area asking if we travel that far.”
• “Two people this week specifically mentioned our warranty as a reason they chose us.”

This type of feedback gives your agency something to work with. They can add negative keywords, adjust ad copy, or shift budget toward the campaigns that are working.

Things your agency would love to hear

• What people are asking about: If multiple leads mention the same thing—a service you don’t offer, a competitor they’re comparing you to, confusion about your process, tell your agency! It tells them what to clarify in the ads or what keywords might be attracting the wrong crowd.
• Quality patterns by campaign or source: “The Dallas campaign leads have been solid, but we’re not seeing much from Houston” is infinitely more useful than “leads are down.” Your agency can investigate and adjust.
• Conversion patterns: “People are filling out forms but not answering when we call back” might mean you need to adjust your follow-up timing or set expectations differently in the ad copy.
• Sales team feedback: What objections are they hearing repeatedly? What questions come up on every call? What makes someone choose you versus a competitor?

You don’t need elaborate systems for this. A quick email whenever you have some insights to share is great! The clients who do this consistently see dramatically better results than those who stay silent until they’re frustrated.

A real world example:

An agricultural equipment client of ours let us know that they were getting a lot of calls from people asking about a particular model of compact tractor. The problem? They didn’t carry the model. We were able to adjust the keyword targeting and add negative keywords to avoid showing up for this particular model. Money was saved. Lead quality improved. Yay for communication!

When you’re at capacity: Your agency can shift strategy to focus on higher-intent, more qualified leads rather than volume. They might tighten targeting or temporarily reduce spend in areas that drive high volume but mixed quality. Depending on your business, they can also shift budget from one service to another (if another area of your business isn’t booked up), or adjust ad copy to manage customer expectations (e.g. “Now booking for spring.”)

When you need more volume: Your agency can expand targeting, test new keywords, increase bids in competitive areas, or even explore new campaign types. They can afford to cast a slightly wider net because you have the capacity to work more leads.

When capacity is seasonal: If you have predictable busy and slow periods, your agency can build that into the annual strategy, ramping up spend and expanding reach during slow months, and pulling back during peak times.

But none of this happens unless you tell them where you stand!

Growth mode vs. control mode

It helps to think about this in two modes:

Growth mode: You have capacity and want to fill it. Your agency can be more aggressive: testing new opportunities, expanding reach, optimizing for volume.

Control mode: You’re at or near capacity and need to be selective. Your agency focuses on efficiency: higher quality thresholds, premium positioning, protecting what’s working.
Both are valid strategies. The problem is when your agency thinks you’re in one mode, but you’re actually in the other.

We’ve had clients apologize for “bothering” us with updates about how busy they are. That’s not a bother, it’s exactly the kind of information that helps us make your campaigns work harder for you. If anything changes in your capacity, even temporarily, let your agency know. It’s one of the simplest ways to get more value from your advertising investment.

Here’s an uncomfortable truth about PPC advertising: your agency can do everything right and your campaigns can still fail.

Why? Because PPC is only the first half of the customer journey. Your agency gets people to your door (or your website, or your phone line). What happens after that is entirely up to you, and it matters just as much as the advertising itself.

Questions to ask yourself

Your agency optimizes clicks and conversions. You need to optimize what happens after. Here are the questions that determine whether those hard-won leads turn into customers:

• Response time: How quickly do you respond to new leads? If someone fills out a form at 10am and you don’t call until the next day, they’ve probably already called two of your competitors. Speed matters more than most businesses realize.
• After-hours coverage: What happens when someone calls at 6pm or on a Saturday? Do they get voicemail? An automated message saying you’ll call back Monday? Or do they get crickets?
• Sales team training: When your team gets on the phone with a lead, are they ready? Do they know how to handle common objections? Can they clearly articulate your value proposition? The best leads in the world won’t convert if your sales process isn’t solid.
• Website experience: Is your website clear about what you offer and how to take the next step? Your agency can drive traffic, but if your website confuses or frustrates people, they’ll leave. A good agency won’t just point this out, they should be actively recommending ways to improve user experience and, depending on your contract, helping you implement those improvements.
• Follow-up process: What happens if someone doesn’t answer when you call back? Persistence in follow-up often makes the difference between a lost lead and a closed customer.
• Contact options: Are you offering multiple ways for people to reach you? Some leads want to call immediately, others prefer forms, and many now expect to text. When someone has to use a contact method they’re uncomfortable with (like calling when they hate phone calls, or filling out a form when they want immediate answers), you’re adding mental friction. And friction kills conversions.

A real world example:

A client of ours was seeing a fair number of phone calls coming through their Google Ads campaigns, but very few of them were turning into qualified leads. After having a conversation, we discovered that their sales number went directly to a voicemail. By the time someone followed up with the leads, they either didn’t answer or they had already moved on to a competitor. The client made sure that calls went through to an actual person during business hours, and the voicemail was only used for after-hours/weekends. The result? Qualified leads increased!

The partnership mindset

Great PPC clients understand that advertising and the post-click experience are both part of the same system. Your agency optimizes their half. You optimize yours. Both matter equally.

Your agency can help you think through some of this! We often have insights from working with similar businesses, but the execution is on your side. We drive the traffic, you close the deal. When both halves work well together, that’s when PPC really delivers. 🤝

Don’t talk to Google Ads reps. Instead, forward them to your agency

1. Google reps aren’t support people—they’re salespeople. Their recommendations are based on growing the account at any cost. They are not aware of your strategy, business goals, or budget constraints. If you are curious about their recommendations, forward the email and let your agency sanity-check what’s being suggested.
2. Don’t make account changes without telling your agency. Pausing campaigns, changing ads, adding keywords, or adjusting settings can impact performance and your overall strategy, especially if your agency doesn’t know about the change. If you do need to turn off a campaign or make an adjustment over the weekend, send your agency an email to keep them in the loop.
3. Don’t enable auto-apply recommendations. While promoted by Google, these can compromise your overall strategy and make it difficult to figure out when and why changes are being made. If you’re curious if some auto-apply recommendations might be beneficial for you, check out the best way to manage and dismiss Google Ads recommendations.
4. Don’t Google your keywords to “check if ads are running”. Don’t be surprised if you don’t see your ads on Google. Ideally, you shouldn’t! Agencies often filter ads to avoid showing them to people outside of your target audience. This is done by excluding your business’ IP addresses. Automated bidding strategies also use machine learning to show ads to users most likely to take a specific action (convert, click, etc.), which means you might be filtered out automatically. It’s not about hiding your ads, it’s about showing ads to people who will actually help you reach your campaign goals. If you do see your ad, don’t click it! You’re only wasting your budget. Curious about the ad copy that’s running? Just ask! Your agency will be happy to provide you with that information. You can also use Google’s Ad Transparency Center to see a selection of your ads.
5. Don’t wait until a promotion launches to tell your agency about it. The earlier you loop in your agency with any upcoming promotions or campaigns the better. Your agency will be able to provide you with a more thought out and sophisticated approach and you’ll have plenty of time to pull together the correct assets to help the campaign succeed.

If there’s one takeaway from this guide, it’s this: your involvement matters. Ready to work with an agency that actually wants to hear from you? Let’s talk about how we can partner to make your PPC investment deliver real, measurable growth for your business.