How to Choose the Best PPC Agency to Grow Your Business

Two people in business suits giving a thumbs up

Published: Apr 1, 2025
6 min. read
Jessica Bonacci

Multimedia Consultant
Jessica is a Google Analytics-certified Multimedia Consultant at WebFX. She has created over 300 educational videos for the WebFX YouTube channel in the last five years, covering everything from the basics of digital marketing to more advanced data activation and AI usage. When she’s not researching and writing scripts, or bringing those scripts to life, Jessica manages the WebFX social media presence and engages with the WebFX audience. She specializes in video, content, and social media marketing but also loves SEO and many other aspects of digital marketing. When she’s not creating videos, Jessica enjoys photography, listening to music, reading, and catching up on the latest TV shows.

Fun fact: For every dollar you spend on a well-optimized pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaign, you earn $2.

Teaming up with the right PPC agency can drive your desired results and return on investments such as this. But how do you choose the best PPC agency for your business?

Here are 10 tips for finding a PPC agency that will maximize your budget and drive returns.

Determine your goals
Set a budget range
Look for PPC agencies through referrals and online search
Evaluate your potential agencies’ expertise and compatibility with your business
Understand the agencies’ pricing packages
Discuss account access and transparency
Discuss KPIs, reporting, and integrating PPC into your overall marketing strategy
Check their certifications and tools
Read an agency’s reviews and case studies
Ensure the agency uses ethical techniques

🎥 Video: How to Choose a PPC Agency

1. Determine your goals

Before you search for PPC agencies, you must identify your goals with your PPC strategy. You can start with these questions:

Do you want to improve your brand or product awareness?
Do you want to generate more leads?
Do you want to increase sales and revenue?
What is your expected ROI?
What is your timeline?

By having clear goals, you can ask your candidates the right questions and shortlist the agencies capable of driving the desired results.

2. Set a budget range

Have an estimated budget range for your ad spend and PPC agency. Typically, your potential agencies will ask about your ad spend budget so they’ll know the amount they’ll work with and to set expected results.

During the initial discussions with your potential agencies, ask these budget-related questions to your agency candidates to see if they’re a good fit:

Is our PPC budget enough to meet our goals?
Do you recommend that we use other strategies other than PPC with our budget?
Will PPC drive the results we want and meet our goals?

If your potential agency thinks your budget is not sufficient to meet your goals, let them explain why. Ask follow-up questions to better understand their recommended strategies to meet your desired results without going way above your budget.

3. Look for PPC agencies through referrals and online search

Get recommendations from colleagues or your network for PPC agencies they can vouch for. That way, you immediately shortlist reputable and trustworthy agencies.

You can also search online. Check review sites like Clutch, UpCity, and G2 to get an idea of what it’s like to work with them.

4. Evaluate your potential agencies’ expertise and compatibility with your business

Expertise goes beyond knowing how to use different ad platforms, although that’s still pretty important. Hiring PPC experts who have worked in your industry before means they’ll pick up on the little things that make your business and your audience unique.

Someone who knows things like specific phrasing you use, regulations you follow, topics your audience likes, and even your seasonality can help take your PPC strategy to the next level.

In addition, take the time to evaluate an agency’s communication style and culture fit. Find out their communication style and responsiveness by asking them through your initial discussions and online reviews.

Your PPC agency is like an extension of your marketing team. You must partner with one that understands your goals, and is aligned with your working and communication style.

5. Understand the agencies’ pricing packages

One of the factors you must consider — and understand well — before choosing a PPC agency is price.

Different agencies have different pricing packages and rates. PPC agency rates might come as a flat fee or as a percentage of your ad spend.

Find out the inclusions in each PPC package to ensure you’re availing the services you need to drive the results you want. Clarify with your candidates if they provide help with any of the following:

Ad creatives
Landing page optimization
A/B testing

Pro tip: Don’t exceed your budget, assuming you’ll see a major ROI. But don’t just choose the cheapest option because it’s cheap, either. Cheap does not always equal good. What you don’t pay in money you’ll pay for in lackluster results.

6. Discuss account access and transparency

No matter where your agency is located and what services they offer, you should know what they do to get you results. You deserve to know what you’re paying for.

While a PPC agency manages your campaigns, you must own your business’s ad accounts and have full access to them. This means you can see your total ad spend and results from your dashboards.

7. Discuss KPIs, reporting, and integrating PPC into your overall marketing strategy

Before hiring a PPC agency, it’s crucial to be aligned with what success looks like. Discuss with your potential hires the following:

Key performance indicators (KPIs): What are the KPIs you’ll both focus on and track to measure the success of your PPC campaigns?
Regular reporting cadence: How often will they send you performance reports on your campaigns? What analysis (such as competitive analysis and current vs. previous performance analysis) are covered in the regular reports?
PPC’s role in your overall marketing: Is the agency willing to collaborate with your in-house team, freelancers, or other agencies for projects that involve PPC and other marketing strategies?

8. Check their industry certifications and tools

Ask a PPC agency about their industry certifications to ensure they use up-to-date tactics. Valuable industry certifications such as Google Ads Certification and Microsoft Advertising Certified Professional.

Aside from certifications, ask an agency about the PPC tools they use. The tools they use will give you an idea how they track, measure, and analyze your PPC campaigns’ performance.

9. Read an agency’s reviews and case studies

Spend some time reading reviews. After all, an agency won’t tell you they’re bad.

Go to third-party sites like Clutch, G2, and UpCity. You can also read customer feedback on Google, Facebook, Yelp, or other review sites.

Pair this third-party data with case studies and testimonials from the agency, and you will have plenty of information to make the best decision for your business.

Pro tip: All the reviews, case studies, and testimonials will also help you evaluate if you can see your business partnering with the agency in the long term and as you scale your business.

If the agency has the resources and experience to handle bigger PPC campaigns, they can likely service your business as you grow.

10. Ensure the agency uses ethical techniques

Shortlist only PPC agencies that employ ethical techniques. They must follow Google Ads and Microsoft Ads policies.

Some red flags to watch out for are click fraud and plagiarism. You can check review sites and ask feedback from past clients to find out if an agency uses unethical tactics.

FAQs on choosing the best PPC agency

In case all those tips raised more questions, let’s answer them below!

What is a PPC agency?

A PPC agency is a firm that you can hire to help you manage your PPC campaigns to drive better conversions.

Hiring a PPC agency takes the load off businesses to track, measure, and analyze campaign performance. In fact, one survey showed that only 46% of companies felt “very confident” in tracking the ROI of their PPC campaigns.

Generally, when you hire PPC experts, they’ll:

Research your competitors, industry, audience, and keywords
Develop and launch campaign strategies based on their research
Design visual elements for your ads
Write ad copy
Manage your bids
Track and report PPC performance

Some agencies may offer landing page design services as part of their PPC packages. You may find agencies who offer video production for PPC ads and others that don’t. Honestly, if I stood here and listed the differences between every PPC agency in existence, we’d be here for hours. Maybe even days.

Fortunately, coming up with a list of qualified agencies doesn’t take as long as you may think. In fact, some lists already exist for you.

How much does PPC cost?

Businesses typically spend $100 – $10,000 per month on average on PPC. However, because each business is unique, your PPC budget may spend more or less than these average numbers. The following factors affect your budget:

Industry
Ad spend
Chosen ad network
Whether you’re doing PPC in-house or outsourcing PPC

How much does a PPC agency typically charge?

PPC agencies typically charge $501 – $3,000 per month on average to manage a business’s campaigns.

How long does it take to see PPC results?

On average, PPC takes three months to work.

These first three months are crucial to gather data as you run your campaigns. Once you’ve gathered data, your targeting, keywords, and bid will improve.

What questions should I ask a PPC company before hiring them?

1. Do they offer affordable pricing?

One of the first qualities you should look for in a PPC agency partnership is affordable pricing. If an agency is outside of your budget, you obviously shouldn’t waste your time considering them further. You need to choose an agency that’s affordable.

Notice that we’re using the word “affordable,” not “cheap.” If an agency costs a suspiciously low amount of money, it probably means they’re not a very good agency — you get what you pay for when it comes to PPC services. The best course is to find something with midrange pricing.

2. Do they have a lot of experience?

Part of the benefit of partnering with an agency is that they bring a level of expertise you may not have on your own. But that’s only true for agencies that have a substantial amount of experience. If your chosen agency has only been around for a couple of years, they may not have as much PPC expertise as you’d like.

Thankfully, there are plenty of agencies out there that have been around for years (or even decades), with a proven track record of results driven for past clients. That’s the sort of agency you should partner with if you want to feel confident that they know exactly what they’re doing.

3. Do they have a high client retention rate?

Suppose you’re considering hiring a PPC agency, and everything about the agency looks great — but then you find out that every client they have leaves after a month. That would probably change your mind, wouldn’t it? A low client retention rate is one of the biggest PPC agency red flags.

What you want is an agency that does a great job keeping clients around for a long time. That shows that their clients are happy with their services, which indicates that you probably will be as well. It’s not a fun experience having to switch agencies only a short time after starting with one.

4. Do they offer customizable services?

Cookie cutters are great if you’re making cookies. They’re decidedly not great, however, if you’re looking to hire a PPC agency. If an agency offers cookie-cutter services, using the exact same strategy on every client, that’s a bad sign. It means they’re not taking into consideration the unique needs of each client.

You want to find an agency that will customize their services to you. An agency in this category will start your partnership by assessing your audience, budget, and other specific needs to determine the best approach to your PPC strategy. They’ll then put that strategy into action for you.

5. Do they prioritize data-driven marketing?

All the best marketing campaigns rely on data. By tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) like click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate, you can determine which ad campaigns are seeing the most success, and how to improve the less successful ones to drive better results.

But that’s only possible if you value data in the first place, which some agencies don’t. That’s among the biggest PPC agency red flags. You need to find an agency that hinges their PPC services on data because without it, your campaigns won’t really see any improvement over time.

6. Are they transparent with their processes?

Another must-have quality in an agency is transparency. That is, an agency you partner with should be very open with you about everything they do for your PPC strategy. Ideally, they’ll send you regular reports on optimizations they perform and the results those optimizations drive.

Unfortunately, many agencies opt to keep their clients in the dark about the details of what they’re doing. With one of these agencies, you’d have to just blindly trust them to drive results for your PPC, which can be stressful. That’s not fun, so try to find a transparent agency.

7. Are they familiar with your industry?

Imagine you’re visiting a new country, and you want to bring along a guide. Would you bring someone who has no knowledge of the culture or language? Or would you bring along someone who’s intimately familiar with the country you’re visiting? Probably the second one.

It’s the same with a PPC agency. Your unique advertising needs will depend on your industry, so you want someone who has experience working in that industry. If your agency knows nothing about your field, they won’t be able to help you that much. But industry experience leads to higher-quality services.

8. Do they have a lot of good reviews?

The final thing to look for when hiring a PPC agency is positive reviews. Reviews are one of the most reliable ways to verify an agency’s quality. Any agency will say good things about themselves, but the question is, do their clients say good things about them?

Clients have no incentive to promote an agency, so you can trust what they say. For that reason, be sure to look up some reviews and testimonials for any agency you consider partnering with. If there are a lot of negative reviews, maybe pass on that agency. But if reviews are mostly very positive, that’s a good sign.

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AdTechFX Use Cases
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Partner with one of the best PPC agencies to grow your revenue

Now, here’s the pitch. WebFX is a full-service digital marketing agency and the best Fort Myers PPC agency, and we’ve generated over $10 billion in revenue for our clients. If you’re looking for a PPC agency that will help you achieve your goals, get in touch with our team!

If you’re not ready to contact us, that’s okay! Sign up for Revenue Weekly, our email newsletter, to keep learning about PPC and other digital marketing channels!

Jessica is a Google Analytics-certified Multimedia Consultant at WebFX. She has created over 300 educational videos for the WebFX YouTube channel in the last five years, covering everything from the basics of digital marketing to more advanced data activation and AI usage. When she’s not researching and writing scripts, or bringing those scripts to life, Jessica manages the WebFX social media presence and engages with the WebFX audience. She specializes in video, content, and social media marketing but also loves SEO and many other aspects of digital marketing. When she’s not creating videos, Jessica enjoys photography, listening to music, reading, and catching up on the latest TV shows.
WebFX is a full-service marketing agency with 1,100+ client reviews and a 4.9-star rating on Clutch! Find out how our expert team and revenue-accelerating tech can drive results for you! Learn more

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