What Makes an Outstanding PPC Partner? What to Check Before You Sign

An outstanding PPC partner leaves you owning your Google Ads account, reports what Google charged separately from its own fee, and tells you what to stop spending on, even when that advice makes its own invoice smaller. Platform skill matters, but it is common and easy to test. What separates the outstanding partner from the merely competent one is willingness to say the expensive thing out loud, which is awkward for the partner because so much good advice in a Google Ads account ends in a smaller budget, fewer campaigns or a channel switched off. This guide sets out the minimum Google already requires of every agency, the signs that point to something better and the questions that sort candidates on a first call.

The minimum Google already requires of every PPC partner

Before judging whether an agency or consultant is outstanding, check that it meets the floor. Google publishes third-party policies for anyone who buys and manages Google ads on a client’s behalf, and they are more specific than most business owners expect. A partner that falls short of them is not simply a weak choice, because it is breaking rules Google sets for every third party that manages ads.

Google’s advertiser guide for working with third parties adds a practical point: test one partner at a time rather than splitting your budget between two, because Google does not show more than one ad for a business on the same results page. If a partner breaks these rules and talking to them does not fix it, Google provides a form to report a third-party policy violation.

You own the account, and you hold admin access

The most important sign is the dullest one. The Google Ads account should belong to your business, with the payment method in your name and your own Google login holding admin access. The partner then works in it through their manager account or a user login. When the relationship ends, you keep the account, its conversion history and every campaign and keyword list that your budget paid to build.

Google’s access levels make the difference concrete. An admin can grant and remove access, change access levels, accept or unlink manager accounts and review each user’s last login. A standard user can edit campaigns and billing details but cannot decide who else is in the account. If the agency holds the only admin login, it controls the account in every way that matters, however friendly the arrangement looks today. The same applies if the partner’s manager account is given ownership of yours, because Google then lets its admins edit user access and manager links too. Google also notes that an account with only one administrator can lose access to its tags if that person becomes unavailable, so keeping a second admin on your side is sensible housekeeping as well as protection. If you are setting this up for the first time, it helps to know how to add a manager to your account without handing over ownership.

Two numbers, and a fee model you understand

An outstanding partner is happy to show the management fee and the ad spend as two separate numbers, because Google requires the fee to be disclosed in writing and on every invoice, and any report of Google’s cost to show it without the fee folded in, and because it lets you work out what each lead really costs once both are added together. With any provider, To-The-TOP! included, ask for the management fee and the ad spend as two separate numbers before you compare offers. The figures Calgary agencies publish, and the five common pricing models, are covered in detail in the guide to what PPC agencies charge. In Alberta, which has no provincial sales tax, a GST-registered agency generally charges 5% GST on its fee, so check whether a quoted figure includes it.

Every fee model also carries an incentive, and an outstanding partner will name its own. Take an illustrative account spending $6,000 a month with a management fee of 15% of spend, which is $900 a month. If the partner finds $2,000 a month going to searches that never convert and recommends cutting it, the fee falls to $600 for as long as the account stays at the lower budget. A flat fee removes that particular conflict but introduces another, because it pays the same whether the account is worked hard or left to coast through a quiet quarter. No model is clean, so the useful question is how the partner handles advice that lowers its own income. Once you have a proposal in hand, it is worth knowing how to read a PPC proposal line by line before you sign it.

Badges prove less than they appear to

Google Ads certifications are earned by individuals through Google’s Skillshop training and confirm that the person knows the platform. They are worth having, but they are a floor rather than a differentiator, because they test product knowledge and say nothing about judgement or willingness to deliver bad news.

The Google Partner badge is different, and it is often misunderstood. It is earned by the agency’s registered manager account, which needs an optimization score of at least 70%, USD 10,000 in ad spend across its managed accounts over 90 days and at least half of its account strategists certified, with a certification in each product area where it spends USD 500 or more. Premier Partner status goes to companies that meet those requirements and also rank in the top 3% of participating companies in their country each year. None of that describes how your particular account will be run. Optimization score is Google’s estimate of how well an account is set up to perform, and Google states that applying or dismissing its recommendations changes the score, so a high score shows that recommendations have been dealt with rather than that the campaigns are profitable. To confirm a badge is genuine, click it on the agency’s website: Google’s advertiser guide says a certified company’s badge leads to its profile page on Google, and claiming to be a Google Partner without authorization breaks Google’s third-party policy.

They can tell you what they turned off

One question sorts candidates faster than any credential: ask what they switched off in a client account in the last thirty days. It could be a keyword, an ad group, a placement or a whole campaign. In most live accounts something deserves pausing, because search terms change and competitors come and go, so a partner who is watching closely usually has a specific answer ready, or a clear reason why the data did not justify a change. Then ask what switching it off cost the client in spend, and listen to how comfortable they are with that question.

Ask, too, whether they use Google’s option to apply recommendations automatically. Google lets an account apply selected types of recommendations on a schedule, from ad and asset changes to adding broad match keywords or expanding to Google search partners, and while you can review the queue and dismiss items, an account left on auto-apply is changing without anyone deciding each change. A good partner can tell you which recommendation types they allow, which they dismiss and why, and can show you the change history that records what was applied.

They measure leads, not clicks

Clicks and impressions are easy to report and easy to grow, which is exactly why they make poor proof of value. An outstanding partner sets up conversion tracking around actions that matter to your business, such as calls of a meaningful length, form enquiries and bookings, and then asks for numbers the ads platform cannot see: how many of those leads became customers, what a customer is worth and what margin you work on. Without that information, nobody can say whether the account is making money.

The same partner will also tell you which conversions were junk. Most accounts collect some, such as wrong numbers, job applicants and suppliers filling in a contact form, and counting them as wins makes a monthly report look better while the real cost per customer stays hidden. A useful monthly report shows Google’s cost, the conversions behind it and what changed in the account that month, with the bad news included rather than left for you to find.

They tell you when the problem is outside the ads

No PPC partner can rescue an offer the market does not want, a phone that rings out at four in the afternoon or a landing page the business will not change. Ads bring the visitor to whatever the business has built, so plenty of accounts fail after the click while the campaigns themselves work as they should. An outstanding partner says so, even though the fix sits outside their invoice, and raises it early rather than in a quarterly review after you have asked why leads dried up. Within the first couple of months, as a rough guide rather than a rule, you should have seen a search terms review, new negative keywords and at least one recommendation you did not want to hear, and that shows whether the partner volunteers bad news.

Questions to ask on the first call

These questions take a few minutes each and separate the outstanding candidates from the adequate ones more reliably than a sales deck or a set of reviews.

If you already run Google Ads and are thinking of switching, ask the candidate to look at the account before you commit, or commission a full audit of the account so you have an independent baseline. A partner who can point to specific wasted spend in your own data, and explain it in plain language, has shown you more than a portfolio of logos.

How SEO Company To-The-TOP! approaches Google Ads

Since 2007, SEO Company To-The-TOP! has worked in search marketing in Calgary as a solo practice. One Google Ads certified specialist does the client work, so the person on the first call is the person working in the account, and there is no junior team to hand the account over to. Because the same person handles both Google Ads management and organic search, a recommendation to move a query from paid to organic search does not need two departments to agree on it.

The public portfolio lists keywords the practice has ranked for in organic search. If you would like a second opinion on a current account or a proposal you have been given, call (403) 308-5949.

Sources (checked 6 November 2026)

• Google Advertising Policies Help, About Google third-party policies
• Google Advertising Policies Help, Transparency requirements for third-party advertisers
• Google Advertising Policies Help, False, misleading, or unrealistic claims
• Google Advertising Policies Help, Advertiser guide: Working with third parties
• Google Ads Help, About access levels in your Google Ads account
• Google Ads Help, How to become a Google Partner or Premier Partner
• Google Ads Help, About optimization score
• Google Ads Help, About applying recommendations automatically