Should You Fire Your Google Ads Agency? 7 Warning Signs

The Nagging Feeling You Can't Quite Justify

Most people don't fire their Google Ads agency in a dramatic moment. They sit with a nagging feeling for months — results have plateaued, the reports look busy but say nothing, and every call ends with "we're optimising." They suspect they could do better elsewhere, but switching feels risky, and they can't quite point to a single thing that's clearly wrong.

So here's a way to make that gut feeling concrete. Below are seven warning signs that separate an agency that's genuinely working for you from one that's coasting on your retainer. None of them on its own is proof. But if you recognise three or more, it's time for a serious conversation — or a serious change.

A good agency makes you money and makes itself easy to verify. A bad one makes you reports and makes itself hard to question.

Sign 1: The Reports Are All Vanity, No Revenue

Open your last monthly report. What's at the top? If it's impressions, clicks, and click-through rate dressed up in colourful charts — but you have to dig to find cost per acquisition, conversions, or return on ad spend — that's a deliberate choice.

Impressions and clicks are activity, not results. They go up when you spend more, and they tell you nothing about whether that spend is profitable. Agencies that lead with vanity metrics are usually doing so because the metrics that actually matter don't look good.

What good looks like

• Reports lead with revenue, ROAS, cost per acquisition, and conversion volume — the numbers tied to your bottom line.
• Performance is framed against your goals, not against last month's impressions.
• You understand the report without a translator. If it takes the agency to explain what their own report means, the report is theatre.

Not sure what "good" ROAS even is for your business? Our guide to calculating and improving ROAS gives you the benchmarks to judge for yourself.

Sign 2: Nothing Actually Changes Month to Month

You're paying for "ongoing management." But is anything actually being managed? Google Ads has a built-in way to check, and it's the single most revealing thing you can do as a client.

Check the change history yourself

In Google Ads, go to Tools > Change history. This logs every edit made to the account, by whom, and when. Set the date range to the last 90 days and look at the volume and substance of changes.

If a well-managed account, you'll see regular activity — new negative keywords, bid adjustments, ad tests, budget shifts, audience tweaks. If you see a flat line, a handful of cosmetic edits, or a flurry of activity only in the days before your monthly call, you're paying a management fee for a set-and-forget account. That's one of the most common — and most expensive — forms of wasted spend there is.

Sign 3: You Never Speak to the Person Doing the Work

Many agencies sell you with their senior people and then quietly hand your account to a junior — or worse, to a rotating cast of them. You build a relationship with an account manager who doesn't actually touch your campaigns; they just relay messages between you and whoever is doing the real work this month.

The problem isn't junior staff per se — everyone starts somewhere. The problem is experience and accountability. When the person managing six-figure budgets has eighteen months of experience and no direct line to you, mistakes go unnoticed and strategy gets shallow.

Questions worth asking

• Who, specifically, will be in my account day to day — and how much experience do they have?
• Can I speak to them directly, or only through an account manager?
• How many other accounts does that person manage?

If the honest answers make you uncomfortable, you've found a real reason to look elsewhere. This is exactly why some advertisers deliberately seek out smaller, senior-only teams with no junior handoffs.

Sign 4: They Can't Explain the Strategy in Plain English

Ask your agency a simple question: "What's our strategy for the next quarter, and why?" A good partner can answer in plain language — which campaigns they're scaling, which they're cutting, what they're testing, and what they expect it to do.

A weak one hides behind jargon. You'll hear about "leveraging Smart Bidding signals" and "optimising for efficiency" without a single concrete decision or expected outcome. Jargon is often a smokescreen for the absence of a plan.

You don't need to understand the technical detail. But you should be able to walk away from any strategy conversation able to explain, to a colleague, what your agency is doing and why. If you can't, the problem may not be you.

Sign 5: You Don't Have Full Access to Your Own Account

This is the one that should genuinely alarm you. You should own your Google Ads account. Best practice is for it to live under your own Google Ads ID, with the agency granted manager (MCC) access on top. That way, if you ever part ways, you keep everything — campaigns, conversion history, and the years of learning baked into the account.

Some agencies instead build your campaigns inside their account. When you leave, you leave with nothing: no history, no data, no campaigns. It's a hostage situation dressed up as a convenience.

What to verify today

• Do you have admin access to your Google Ads account right now? (Log in and check.)
• Is the account under your own Google Ads ID, with the agency as a manager — not the other way around?
• Do you control the billing, or does it run through the agency?

If you're being denied access to your own advertising data, that alone is reason enough to move — and a reason to secure access before you give notice.

Sign 6: Long Contracts, No Accountability

Be wary of any agency that locks you into a 12-month contract but won't commit to any standard of performance. Long contracts aren't inherently bad — building results takes time. But a long contract with no accountability is just guaranteed income for the agency regardless of how they perform.

Healthy vs unhealthy commitment

• Healthy: a 60-90 day initial period to fix and rebuild, then rolling monthly terms or a clear break clause. Skin in the game.
• Unhealthy: a 12-month lock-in, automatic renewal, and vague promises with no defined targets or review points.

The best agencies are confident enough in their work that they don't need to trap you. They keep you because leaving would cost you results, not because a contract says you can't.

Sign 7: You Don't Actually Know What You're Paying For

Can you explain, clearly, how your agency charges you? A flat retainer, a percentage of ad spend, a performance fee? And do you know whether they're marking up your media or taking commissions you can't see?

Opaque pricing is a warning sign in itself. The percentage-of-spend model in particular can create a quiet conflict of interest: the agency earns more when you spend more, whether or not that extra spend is profitable for you. That's not automatically wrong — but you deserve to understand the incentive. If you've never been given a straight answer about fees, ask. The reaction tells you a lot. (We break the models down in our explainer on how much Google Ads should cost.)

When You Shouldn't Fire Your Agency

Switching isn't always the answer, and a good agency is worth keeping. Before you make a move, rule out these false alarms:

• You haven't given them time. A new agency typically needs 60-90 days to audit, rebuild, and let optimisation compound. Judging month one is unfair.
• The problem is outside ads. If your website doesn't convert, your offer isn't competitive, or your tracking is broken, no agency can rescue the numbers. Sometimes the issue is the destination, not the traffic — our piece on why Google Ads campaigns stop converting covers this.
• You've never told them your real goals. If the agency is optimising for leads and you care about profit, align expectations before you walk.
• It's a seasonal or market dip. Make sure you're not blaming the agency for a downturn that's hitting your whole sector.

A quick, honest conversation often resolves more than a switch — if the agency responds to it openly. How they react to being challenged is itself a useful test.

How to Switch Cleanly (Without Losing Anything)

If you do decide to move, do it in the right order so you keep your data and avoid a gap in performance:

1. Secure admin access first. Before giving notice, confirm you have admin rights to your own Google Ads account and that it's under your ID. This is the step people skip and regret.
2. Export your history. Download key reports and campaign data so you have a record regardless of what happens to access.
3. Line up the replacement before you leave. Have your new agency (or in-house plan) ready so there's no unmanaged gap where performance drifts.
4. Revoke access on your terms. Once the handover is complete, remove the old agency's manager access — don't let them remove yours.
5. Check billing. Make sure ad spend billing is in your name and uninterrupted through the transition.

Trust Your Gut — Then Verify It

That nagging feeling is usually right, but it's worth verifying before you act. Pull up your change history. Read your last report and look for revenue, not impressions. Log in and check you actually own your account. Ask who's really doing the work.

If the answers reassure you, great — you've got a good agency, and now you know it. If they don't, you've got the evidence you needed, and the steps above to move on without losing a thing. Either way, you stop guessing. And in Google Ads, the advertisers who stop guessing are the ones who win.