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Is My Google Ads Being Managed Properly? A Checklist

  • Writer: Jesse Heslinga
    Jesse Heslinga
  • 1 day ago
  • 10 min read

You are paying an agency or freelancer to manage your Google Ads. The monthly invoice goes through. You get a report with some graphs. Leads come in sometimes. But something feels off, and when you ask questions you get vague answers about "optimisation" and "the algorithm."


Google Ads is deliberately hard to audit from the outside. Agencies know this. The reports they send show what they want you to see, not what is happening inside the account.


I have taken over dozens of accounts and found the same problems repeating. So I built this checklist. Work through it and you will have a clear picture of whether your account is in good hands.


The Short Answer

  • The fastest check: go to Tools > Change History in Google Ads. If it is quiet, so is your agency.

  • You must own the Google Ads account. If the agency owns it and you leave, you lose your data and your history.

  • A managed account should have active ad testing, a growing negative keyword list, and reporting that leads with cost per lead, not clicks.

  • Real conversion tracking counts phone calls and form submissions. Page views and sessions are not leads.

  • If several answers on this checklist are "no" or "I don't know," that is a management problem, not a you problem.

Why This Is Hard to Know From the Outside

Google Ads agencies control what you see. They send you the reports. Most clients never log into the actual account. They would not know where to start even if they did.


This is not unique to bad agencies. It is the nature of a service where the product is invisible. You are buying expertise, so you trust the person who is supposed to have it.


The problem: there is no industry standard for what "managed properly" means. One agency does weekly optimisations and tests new ad copy every month. Another logs in quarterly, adjusts a bid or two, and sends you the same templated PDF. Both charge similar fees. Both use the same language: "we are constantly optimising your account." From the outside, they look identical.


The only way to know the difference is to go looking for evidence. This checklist tells you exactly what to look for and where to find it.

The 10-Point Checklist

Work through this table. For each item, answer honestly: Yes, No, or I don't know.

#

What to check

What "Yes" looks like

1

Conversion tracking

Only real leads are counted: phone calls over a minimum duration (60+ seconds), completed contact forms, or booked appointments. Page views and sessions are not leads.

2

Search terms

Your agency can show you a reviewed search terms report. Negatives have been added in the last 30 days. You are not paying for traffic from irrelevant searches.

3

Ad variants

Each ad group has at least 2 to 3 active variants being tested. Ad copy has been changed or refreshed in the last 60 to 90 days. Underperforming ads are paused.

4

Bid strategy

The bid strategy matches the account's conversion volume. If you are on Smart Bidding (Target CPA / Maximise Conversions), you have at least 30 conversions per month per campaign to support it.

5

Geographic targeting

Targeting is set to people in your locations, not people interested in your locations (a common default that expands reach beyond your actual service area).

6

Reporting

Your monthly report shows cost per lead trends, not just clicks and impressions. You can see whether CPL is going up or down and why.

7

Account ownership

You own the Google Ads account. It sits under your Google account, not the agency's. If you leave today, you keep your data.

8

Change history

The account's change history shows regular activity: at least weekly or fortnightly. Not silence for weeks at a time.

9

Landing pages

Your agency has flagged issues with your landing pages, or confirmed they are performing well. They are not just sending traffic and ignoring what happens after the click.

10

Communication

When you ask why a change was made, you get a plain-language explanation. Not jargon. Not "the algorithm." An actual reason.

Count your Yes answers.

  • 8 to 10: your account is in decent shape. Keep reading anyway. There may be a gap or two worth tightening.

  • 5 to 7: there are real problems here. Not panic territory, but you need a direct conversation with your agency.

  • Below 5: your account is under-managed. The question is how fast to act.

The Change History: The One Thing That Never Lies

Before you pick up the phone and call your agency, look at this yourself. It takes two minutes.


In Google Ads: go to Tools (the wrench icon, top right) and select Change History from the left sidebar. You will see a timestamped log of every change made in the account: bids adjusted, keywords added, ads paused, budgets changed.


Set the date range to the last 90 days.


A well-run account will show consistent activity: multiple changes per week. If you see two weeks of nothing, or a flurry of changes when the contract started followed by silence, that tells you exactly what level of management you are actually getting.


Agencies can dress up a report. They cannot fake the change history.


In one account I took over (a local trades business), the change history showed no activity for just over four months. The last search terms review was 11 months before I came on. In the first 30 days, I added 94 negative keywords that had been silently consuming budget. Those searches alone had cost just over €1,800 with zero recorded conversions.

Pro Tip: Screenshot the change history before you contact your agency. It is the most useful piece of evidence you will have in that conversation.

Verdict: the change history is the fastest, most reliable check in this entire list. Look at it first.

The Account Ownership Red Flag

This matters more than most people realise, and it is the first thing I check when a client comes from another agency.


Some agencies set up your Google Ads account under their own Google account or their MCC (their manager account). Technically, the account is theirs. You are just accessing it. Everything is fine while you are a client. Then you leave, and the data leaves with you.


Your conversion history. Your Quality Scores. Your campaign structures. Your audience lists. All of it goes because it was never legally or technically yours.

Keep in Mind: This is not always done with bad intent. Some agencies default to their own MCC setup because it is easier to manage on their end. But the effect is the same: when you leave, you start from scratch.

How to check: log into ads.google.com directly with your own Google account. If you can see the full account and manage it without the agency being present, it is likely linked correctly. If you can only access it through a link the agency gave you, or they have never set you up with direct access, that is a problem.


The right setup: your business owns the account. The agency has admin access. They work in your account, not the other way around.


Verdict: if the agency owns your account, that is the most urgent thing on this checklist to fix before anything else.

What Your Monthly Report Should Actually Show

Most agency reports look like a lot of data. They usually are not.


Clicks, impressions, CTR, average position. These are activity metrics. They tell you the account is running. They do not tell you whether it is working.


What you actually need to see each month:

  • Cost per lead (CPL): how much you are paying for each real enquiry, and whether that number is improving over time

  • Lead volume: how many qualified enquiries came through the account

  • What changed this month: specific actions taken, with reasons, not vague "we continued to optimise"

  • What is planned next month: the next priority and why

If your report does not include CPL, ask for it. If your agency cannot calculate it, or says they do not track it, that is a serious problem. Everything else in the report is noise without it.

Data Tip: CPL alone is not reliable if your conversion tracking is broken. I have seen accounts reporting a CPL of €12 because every page visit was counted as a conversion. The real CPL, counting only completed form submissions, was €180. Before trusting the number, verify what is being counted. The post on what to count as a lead in Google Ads covers which conversion actions should be set as primary.

Verdict: a monthly report that leads with clicks and impressions is not a performance report. It is a distraction.

Bid Strategy: Common Mismatches That Cost You Money

Google's Smart Bidding (Target CPA, Maximise Conversions) works well when the account has enough conversion data to learn from. The threshold is roughly 30 conversions per campaign per month. Below that, the algorithm is guessing.


An agency that puts a new account on Target CPA with 4 conversions in the last 30 days is not optimising. They are letting Google spend your budget while it figures itself out.


What bid strategies make sense at different stages:

Account stage

Recommended approach

New account, fewer than 30 conversions/month

Manual CPC or Maximise Clicks with a bid cap

Growing account, 30 to 50 conversions/month

Maximise Conversions without a Target CPA constraint

Established account, 50+ conversions/month

Target CPA or Maximise Conversions with Target CPA

If your agency has never discussed bid strategy with you, or cannot explain which strategy they are using and why, that is worth asking about directly.


Verdict: the right bidding strategy depends on your conversion volume. If that conversation has never happened, it probably should have.

When to Stay and When to Switch

A few "no" answers do not automatically mean your agency is bad at their job. Some problems are fixable quickly. Context matters.


Stay and work it out if:

  • The problems are fixable (wrong bid strategy, missing negatives, report format)

  • The agency responds promptly and takes feedback seriously

  • Results are acceptable even if some processes are sloppy

  • You have been a client for less than three months (accounts take time to settle)

Switch if:

  • You do not own your account

  • Conversion tracking has never been set up properly

  • You have raised concerns before and nothing changed

  • You cannot get a straight answer about what was done last month

  • The change history is consistently empty


For more on signs your Google Ads agency is coasting and what the specific patterns look like, that post goes deeper on each one.


There is no point having an honest conversation with an agency that has been running an untouched account for six months while charging a management fee. The conversation at that point is about your exit.


Verdict: a few gaps are fixable. Missing fundamentals for months at a time are not.

How I Handle This for Lead-Gen Clients

When someone comes to me after a bad experience, the first thing I do is a full account audit: conversion tracking, search terms, bid strategy, structure, change history, landing page performance, account ownership. I document what is there and what is not, then give the client a plain-language summary of where the money actually went.


Most of the time, the issues are fixable. Sometimes the tracking is so broken that we start from scratch on the data side. Either way, I work on accounts directly: no account manager in between, no junior handling optimisations. You deal with me.

Ready to Find Out How Your Account Is Really Performing? If you ran through this checklist and found gaps, do not sit on it. A mismanaged account does not improve on its own. It just costs more each month. I offer a free Google Ads account review for service businesses. I go through the account, tell you exactly what I find, and give you a straight read on whether it is being managed well. No sales pressure, just an honest assessment.

Frequently Asked Questions

Log into Google Ads and go to Tools > Conversions. Look at what is being tracked. If you see conversions labelled "All calls," "Website visits," or anything that sounds like general traffic rather than a completed action, your tracking is likely overcounting. The practical test: do your reported conversions match the actual enquiries your business receives? If not, something is wrong.

For an active account, weekly is typical: reviewing search terms, adjusting bids, testing ad copy, adding negatives. Fortnightly is acceptable. Monthly is too slow. If you check the change history and see nothing for 3 to 4 weeks at a time, the account is being under-managed.

It means the account technically belongs to them. If you leave, you lose your campaign history, conversion data, Quality Scores, and audience lists. You start from zero. Always make sure the account is set up under your own Google account, with the agency added as an admin. Ask them directly if you are not sure.

It is common but not good enough. A report should tell you, in plain language, how much you spent, how many leads you got, what your cost per lead was, and what the agency did that month. If you have to ask what anything means, ask. If they cannot explain it simply, that is a problem.

It varies by industry and location. Legal and medical tend to run €80 to €300+ per lead. Trades and home services are often €30 to €100. The number that matters is whether your CPL is improving over time and whether it makes financial sense given your average job value. For context on what Google Ads management fees look like, that post covers how agencies charge.

Check three things: (1) Is search volume actually low, or are your ads not showing due to budget or Quality Score issues? (2) Has click volume held steady while conversions dropped? That is usually a landing page or tracking issue, not the market. (3) Has your agency offered any explanation or made changes? Silence during a slow period is its own red flag.

Three months is a reasonable minimum for a new account or a significantly restructured one. Month 1 is setup and initial data. Months 2 and 3 are early optimisation. If you are four to five months in and CPL is still volatile with no clear trend, ask for a frank conversation about the plan.

Yes. If you have access to the account (which you should), you can log in any time and look at whatever you want. The agency will not be notified. Go to Tools > Change History to see what has been done, or look at the Campaigns and Ads tabs directly. It is your account.


About the author

Jesse Heslinga | Google Partner | 7+ Years Google Ads | Lead-Gen Expert


jesse_heslinga_groove_media

I run Google Ads for lead-gen service businesses at Groove Media across clinics, home services, and professional services, working with clients directly, no account-manager layer. I build every account around one question: is this spend turning into real customers, not just cheap form fills?

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