How much does Google Ads management cost?

Management has two parts: setting the account up, and then running it month to month. Setup takes more hours at the start. The monthly work is where most of the value is, because the searches people make, the competition for them, and your own busy seasons change over time.

Setup

Setup happens before any ad runs. We start by learning what you sell and what a good inquiry looks like for your business, because that decides what the account should count as a result.

• Choosing which campaigns to run, where the ads should show, and how to split the budget
• Finding the searches your customers use and building the first keyword lists
• Writing the first ads
• Setting up conversion tracking for calls, form submissions, and sales, then testing that it records them
• Checking that the pages the ads send people to load quickly and make it easy to call or fill out a form

A normal month

Once campaigns are running, a month of management usually includes this work.

• Reading the search terms report, which shows the actual searches that triggered your ads, and blocking the ones that don't fit by adding them as negative keywords
• Adjusting bids and budgets by area, time of day, and season
• Writing and testing new ad copy
• Keeping each landing page matched to what its ad promised
• Checking that calls and form submissions are still being recorded
• Reviewing the changes Google suggests on its Recommendations page and deciding which ones fit your business before they're applied
• Reporting on results and walking you through what they mean

Some months call for a lot of changes and some call for very few. The checking happens either way, and a useful report tells you what was looked at as well as what was changed.

The landing pages matter as much as the ads. If a page is slow or makes it hard to call, you pay for clicks that don't turn into anything. That's a website question, and our post on what a website costs explains what moves the price of that work.

Neither fee model is better in every case. Look at how the fee behaves when your budget changes, and whether it follows the work being done. It also helps to keep the two costs apart before you compare anything.

Ad spend and the management fee

Your ad spend is what Google charges for your ads, and Google bills it through your Google Ads account. The management fee is what you pay the person or company running the account. A quote that bundles the two makes it hard to see what the management itself costs, so ask for them as separate lines. It also helps if the payment details on the account are yours, so you can see exactly what went to Google.

How each fee model works

• A flat monthly fee is set by the work the account needs. It stays the same when your budget goes up or down, and changes when the scope does, like adding a new service or another campaign.
• A percentage of ad spend rises and falls with your budget. It's simple to work out, and it grows when you raise the budget, whether or not the work grows with it.
• Some managers combine the two, with a base fee plus a percentage of spend above a certain level.

A useful test is to ask what the manager would do differently if your budget doubled. Sometimes the answer is a lot, because a bigger budget can support more campaigns and more searches to review. When the work would stay about the same, a fee that rises with spend charges more for the same work.

Whichever model you're quoted, ask what happens to the fee in a month when you pause ads, whether there's a minimum term, and whether any tools, like call tracking, are billed on top.

The amount of work, and so the fee, comes mostly from these things.

• How many services, products, and locations you advertise. One service in one city needs less attention than dozens of products sold across several regions.
• How many campaigns you run, and which types. A Search campaign runs on keywords you choose. Shopping campaigns run on product data from Google Merchant Center. Performance Max runs across Google's channels, including Search, YouTube, and Maps, from a single campaign, and builds its ads from the text, images, and video you give it. Each type is reviewed differently.
• Busy and slow seasons. A seasonal business needs heavier work at the start and end of its season, when budgets and ads change, and less in between.
• Tracking. Counting calls, forms, and sales that close later takes more setup than counting a single form, and each piece needs checking because it can stop working without anyone noticing.
• Online sales. If you sell through Shopping ads, the product data has to stay accurate, because errors in it can keep products from showing.
• Landing pages. Building or rewriting pages for the ads is added work, and it's often quoted separately from management.
• Reporting and meetings. A weekly call takes more time than a monthly report.
• More than one platform. Running Meta ads alongside Google adds a second account to set up, track, and report on.

Some businesses hold their own account and give the manager access. Others have the manager set it up and run it for them. Either can work, but the account holds your campaign history and your conversion data, and both are hard to rebuild if you lose them. So whoever holds it, ask for your own access and get it in writing that the account and its history stay with your business if you change managers.

Google Ads gives each user an access level, such as Read only, Standard, or Admin. Admin is the level that can add and remove users, so ask who holds it. Google suggests adding a second admin, so access doesn't depend on one person being available.

Agencies often manage accounts through a Google Ads manager account that links to yours. Anyone with admin access on your side can end that link at any time, and your account keeps its campaign history when they do.

One thing to ask about is where the conversion tracking lives. Some managers set it up in their own manager account and share it with yours. If the accounts are unlinked, that tracking stops recording conversions from new clicks, so a new manager would start without working tracking. Ask where yours lives and how it would move over if you changed managers.

Judge them by the calls, form submissions, and sales they bring in. Clicks and impressions show what you paid for, but they don't tell you whether anyone became a customer.

Seeing those results depends on conversion tracking. Google Ads can count form submissions and purchases on your website, calls made straight from an ad, calls to the number on your website, and taps on your phone number from a phone. Sales that close later, like a job you quote in person, can be imported back into Google Ads, so you can see which ads led to paid work.

Tracking also affects how your budget gets spent. Google's automated bidding, which it calls Smart Bidding, requires conversion tracking and sets bids toward whatever the account counts as a conversion. If the tracking counts the wrong thing or misses calls, the bidding works toward the wrong goal. That's why we check tracking during setup and keep checking it, and why our reports focus on inquiries, the calls and form submissions that can turn into customers.

A few other signs tell you the work is happening.

• The change history in Google Ads lists the changes made to the account, when they were made, and who made them.
• Your report explains what changed and why, in plain words, and someone walks you through it.
• The inquiries in the report match the calls and emails you actually received. If they don't, the tracking should be checked.

Google search ads reach people who are already looking for what you offer. Meta ads run on Facebook and Instagram and reach people who aren't searching yet, chosen by where they live, their age, and their interests.

That makes them useful for different jobs. Search ads fit services people look up when they need them, like a repair or an estimate. Meta ads fit things people don't know to search for yet, like a new product, an event, a seasonal offer, or work that's easy to show in a photo or video.

Meta ads should be judged the same way, by the inquiries and sales they bring in. The Meta Pixel, a piece of code on your website, records actions like form submissions so they show up in Meta's reports. Running both platforms adds work, so it belongs in the plan and in the quote.

How ads fit with the rest of your marketing is a planning question, and what a marketing plan should include covers it.

1. 01Who will hold the account, and what access will I have to it?
2. 02Where will conversion tracking be set up, and what will count as a conversion for my business?
3. 03Is the fee flat or a percentage of spend, is there a setup fee, and what happens to the fee if I pause ads?
4. 04Is there a minimum term, and are any tools billed separately?
5. 05What will you check each month, including months when little needs changing?
6. 06What will you report, how often, and will you walk me through it?
7. 07How will we know the ads are bringing in calls, forms, and sales?

Our ad campaigns page explains how we run Google and Meta campaigns, and the FAQ covers reporting and how quotes work. If you'd like us to look at your account, send us a few details.