Before You Hire a Google Ads Expert: 9 Questions to Ask

Hiring somebody to run Google Ads is hard to judge from the outside. Everyone says they are data-driven, everyone has a dashboard, and the first month of anyone's work looks much like the first month of anyone else's. The difference shows up in month three, by which point you have paid for it.

These nine questions bring that difference forward. I have been on the answering side of them for years, so I have also included what a good answer sounds like.

1. How will you track conversions?

This is the most important question on the list, so it goes first.

A good answer names what will be tracked (form submissions, calls from the ads, calls from the website, purchases), how it will be checked, and how they make sure one enquiry is not counted twice. They will probably ask you what counts as a conversion for your business before answering.

A bad answer is "Google tracks that automatically" or anything that starts and ends with clicks. Without proper tracking, the account is optimising for the wrong thing and nobody can tell whether the money is working.

Tracking is the first thing I set up on any account, before a single click is paid for. The Google Ads setup articles go through why, and what else has to be in place on day one.

2. Whose name will the account be in?

A good answer: yours. The account is created under your business and your login, and the expert is added as a user with the access they need.

A bad answer: anything else. If the account lives under their email, you do not own your own data, your history or your conversion learning, and leaving them means starting from zero.

3. What would you change in my account right now?

Give them read-only access and ask. This is the closest thing to a free sample you will get.

A good answer is specific: these search terms are wasting spend, this campaign has no negative keywords, conversion tracking is counting page views as leads, this budget is split too thinly. It may also include "this part is actually fine", which is a good sign; an expert who finds nothing right is often selling, not assessing.

A bad answer is generic advice that would apply to any account.

4. How do you decide on a budget?

A good answer starts from your numbers: what an enquiry is worth to you, what clicks cost in your market, and how many clicks the account needs to learn anything. I go through that method in how much a small business should spend on Google Ads.

A bad answer is a round number with no reasoning, or a budget that conveniently matches their minimum.

5. How are you paid?

Fixed monthly fees, percentages of ad spend and hourly rates are all legitimate. What you are listening for is how the model interacts with your interests.

If they take a percentage of spend, ask whether they have ever recommended a client spend less. A good expert has, and will tell you when. A good expert on any model will also tell you when Google Ads is the wrong channel for your business.

6. What will you report, and how often?

A good answer: a regular report, usually monthly with lighter weekly updates, showing spend, conversions, cost per conversion and return on spend, plus what was changed and what changes next.

A bad answer: a dashboard login and nothing else. Data is not the same as an explanation.

7. Can I see results from real accounts?

Ask for screenshots from the Google Ads interface, not a designed case study. Client names can be blurred. You are looking for spend, conversions and cost per conversion over a real period.

I publish mine, because I think every specialist should: my case studies show the reporting behind each one, including a store that spent $2.57K and returned $27.4K in a month.

8. What would make you say Google Ads is not right for us?

This question reveals honesty more than any other.

A good answer has real conditions in it: margins too thin to pay for clicks, no search demand for what you sell, a website that cannot convert the traffic yet. An expert who has never turned work down will not have an answer.

9. What happens if it is not working?

A good answer describes how they would diagnose it, what they would change, and at what point they would recommend stopping. It also includes a clean exit: you keep the account, they hand over what they built, and their access is removed.

The red flags, in one list

• Guaranteed rankings, leads or a fixed cost per lead
• The account created in their name, not yours
• No questions about your margins, customers or what a lead is worth
• Reports built around clicks, impressions and click-through rate
• A long contract before any results
• Vagueness about what they actually changed each month

If you are considering hiring from overseas

Everything above applies wherever the expert is. If you are weighing up somebody in the Philippines specifically, I have written a separate guide on hiring a Google Ads specialist in the Philippines, covering pricing models, time zones with Australia, the UK and the US, and payment.

Frequently asked questions

What qualifications should a Google Ads expert have?

Google offers free Google Ads certifications, and a serious specialist will usually hold them, but they prove familiarity rather than skill. Real account results and a clear answer on conversion tracking tell you far more than a certificate.

Should I hire a Google Ads freelancer or an agency?

Either can work. A freelancer is usually cheaper and you work directly with the person doing the work. An agency offers more cover if somebody is away but often passes your account to a junior. Ask both who will actually be in your account every week.

How much access should I give a Google Ads expert?

Read-only access while you are evaluating them, then standard access once you hire them. Admin access, which allows adding and removing users, should stay with you. You never need to share your password.

How quickly should a Google Ads expert get results?

Expect the first month to be spent on tracking, structure and removing obvious waste. Steady improvement usually becomes visible over two to three months. Anybody promising dramatic results in the first week is either guessing or taking risks with your budget.