Hiring campaign management is one of those decisions where price tells you very little. Two agencies can charge the same and deliver completely different levels of work.
What separates them is not the tooling or the certification: it is how much real attention your account gets each week and how readable what they send you is.
What a management fee includes
A serious fee covers these activities, and they should be written into the proposal.
Initial setup. Campaign structure, keyword research, ad copy, extensions, and conversion configuration.
Ongoing optimization. Search term review, negative keyword additions, bid adjustments, pausing what does not perform, and ad testing.
Creative testing. New ad variants and, in visual campaigns, new assets with a hypothesis behind them.
Measurement. Verifying conversions record correctly and that the data reconciles with your own system.
Reporting with interpretation. A monthly document explaining what happened, why, and what comes next.
Account management. A recurring call to review results and align with what is happening in the business.
What it normally does not include: media budget, landing page development, and creative production. Confirm before signing.
Pricing models
Flat monthly fee. The most predictable. Works well when spend is stable and lets you budget without surprises.
Percentage of spend. Typically 10% to 20%. It scales with the account but creates an incentive to increase spend; set a cap.
Base fee plus performance. Aligns interests when the metric is well defined and auditable. The risk is choosing a metric that can be gamed.
Project-based. For initial builds or standalone audits, with no ongoing management.
For most advertisers, a flat fee with quarterly review is the healthiest arrangement.
What it costs
The usual range runs 800 to 4,000 USD monthly depending on account complexity, campaign count, and the level of strategic support.
A single product line with moderate spend sits at the low end. Multiple lines, a large catalog, and complex measurement sit at the high end.
Be careful with very low fees. A properly managed account consumes several hours weekly from an experienced person, and there is a floor below which the work simply does not happen.
Note also that percentage-of-spend pricing can make small accounts uneconomic for the agency, which is often why they receive little attention.
What the monthly report must answer
This is where a serious agency separates itself fastest. The report should answer five things:
- How much was spent and how it distributed across campaigns.
- What results were produced: conversions, cost per conversion, and value generated.
- What changed versus last month and what it is attributed to.
- What was done during the month: specific optimizations, not generic activities.
- What happens next month and on what hypothesis.
A report showing only impressions, clicks, and CPC is useless for decisions. Those metrics describe activity, not outcome.
And it has to reconcile with your reality. If the report says forty sales and your system records twenty-five, that gap needs explaining before you keep investing.
The red flags
The account is in the agency’s name. The most serious one. End the relationship and you lose the history, which is the most valuable asset an ad account has.
They will not give you admin access. You should be able to log in and see what is happening whenever you want.
They guarantee a top position. Position depends on the auction at each search. Nobody can guarantee it.
They never ask about your margin. Without knowing what you earn per sale, any cost-per-acquisition target is arbitrary.
The report is a platform export. If nobody interpreted it, nobody worked it.
There is no review call. A channel that changes weekly is not well managed over email once a month.
In-house, agency, or freelancer
The right answer depends mostly on spend level and on whether anyone internally can read the data.
Below roughly 3,000 dollars of monthly spend, a specialist freelancer is usually the better value. The account does not need enough hours to justify agency overhead.
Between 3,000 and 50,000, an agency generally wins: the account needs consistent weekly attention, and the cost of a mistake exceeds the fee difference.
Above that, bringing management in-house starts to make financial sense, often with an agency retained for strategy and audits rather than daily execution.
Whichever you choose, the ownership rule does not change: the account, the data, and the history stay with your company.
What you need to provide
The relationship runs both ways, and a good share of poor results trace back to information that never reached the agency.
Real sales data, to contrast against platform reporting. It is the single most valuable thing you can share.
Your contribution margin, even approximately, so targets mean something. We cover that calculation in what ROAS is.
Notice of business changes: promotions, stock-outs, price changes, or seasonality. A campaign driving traffic to an out-of-stock product burns budget daily.
And feedback on lead quality, not just quantity. It is the only way optimization aims at the right customers.
How to audit an account before switching agencies
Five checks give you a clear read on the real state of your account.
Review the search terms report for the last 90 days. If a meaningful share of spend went to irrelevant queries, negative keyword work is missing.
Look at the change history. An account with no modifications for weeks is not being managed, whatever the report says.
Verify configured conversions. Duplicate events, conversions counting page views, and actions with no assigned value are surprisingly common.
Check how many active ads exist per ad group. A single ad means no testing is happening.
And compare spend per campaign against results per campaign. If budget is spread evenly across campaigns with very different performance, nobody is optimizing allocation.
What a well-run first 90 days looks like
The opening months set the tone for everything after, and they have a recognizable rhythm.
In the first two weeks there should be an audit of what exists, access to your sales data, and configuration or verification of measurement. None of this is optional.
By the end of month one, the new or restructured account should be running, with conversions recording correctly and a baseline of brand and high-intent campaigns live.
Month two begins real optimization: negatives, ad testing, and budget reallocation based on performance.
By month three there should be a clear read on cost per acquisition by product line and a scaling recommendation grounded in your own business data.
If at the close of month three nobody can tell you what it costs to acquire a customer through this channel, the problem is not the budget.
At Conqr we work with accounts in the client’s name and reports that connect spend to business outcomes.
Frequently asked questions
Should the agency bill my ad spend?
They can for convenience, but the healthiest setup is your card on your own ad account. You see spend in real time and keep control.
How often should they optimize?
At least weekly on active accounts, and daily during heavy campaign periods or budget changes.
How long before I evaluate?
Three months. The first is setup and learning, the second adjustment, the third representative.
Can the account live in my manager account while they operate it?
Yes, and it is the recommended setup. You own it and grant them access. If the relationship ends, you revoke access and keep everything.
What if I suspect they are not working the account?
Check the change history inside the platform. Every adjustment is logged with a date and a user. It is the most direct way to verify.
Want a second opinion on your current account? Get in touch.