What Your Google Ads Agency Should Be Telling You (But Probably Isn't)

Suze Dowling
What Your Google Ads Agency Should Be Telling You (But Probably Isn't)

They typed words into a search bar. That means you have more information about what's driving your spend, and more leverage to manage the relationship, than most founders use. If your Google agency calls stay at campaign level, you're missing the data that actually explains performance.

The One Report That Explains Almost Everything in Google Ads

The search terms report shows you exactly what people typed before clicking your ad. Not the keywords you're bidding on, the actual queries that triggered your ads and cost you money.

This is the closest thing to ground truth in a Google account. If your CAC is creeping up and conversion rate is softening, look here first. You'll often find irrelevant queries eating budget, or high-intent terms being underserved. If your agency isn't showing you search terms on your weekly call, that's a problem worth raising.

The Weekly Questions That Actually Matter for Google Ads
  • Did CPC change? If you're paying more per click, traffic got more expensive. Could be increased competition, seasonality, or reduced ad relevance.
  • Did CTR change? If fewer people are clicking, your ads may have stopped matching what people are actually searching for - or a competitor made a stronger offer.
  • Did conversion rate change? If clicks are coming through but not converting, look at landing pages, product pages, and checkout before touching the campaign.
  • What do the search terms say? New waste, new intent signals, and new winners all show up here first.
The Google Shopping Feed Problem Nobody Talks About

If you're running Shopping or Performance Max, your product feed is doing most of the heavy lifting. The title determines what searches you show up for. The image determines whether people click. The price and description determine whether they buy.

A weak feed means you're matching the wrong searches, attracting lower-quality clicks, and paying more for worse traffic. In many accounts, fixing the feed moves the needle more than any campaign restructure.

Google Agency Red Flags to Watch For
  • They never show you search terms - all conversations stay at campaign level.
  • Performance Max is treated as a black box with no explanation of what it's actually buying.
  • No clear process for adding negative keywords or removing wasted spend.
  • They can't tell you your breakeven CPC or target CAC.

These don't necessarily mean the agency is bad - they usually mean the working relationship hasn't been set up to surface the right information. That's fixable, but you have to ask for it.

What You Should Know at the End of Every Google Agency Call

Four things: what you're actually spending money on, what's working and what isn't, where performance changed and why, and what's being done next. If those four aren't clear, the call didn't produce anything actionable.

Frequently Asked Questions About Managing Google Ads
How is Google different from Meta to manage?

On Meta, you're interrupting people. On Google, they're already looking. That means intent is clearer, search terms give you ground-truth data, and your product feed and landing pages often matter more than the campaign settings themselves.

What is Performance Max and should I be running it?

PMax is Google's fully automated campaign type that runs across all channels. It can work well, but it requires a strong product feed, clear conversion signals, and active monitoring of what it's actually spending on. Treat it as a tool, not a set-and-forget solution.

What's a reasonable target CPC for DTC brands on Google?

It depends entirely on your conversion rate and AOV. Work backwards: if your conversion rate is 2% and your margin allows $30 CAC, your maximum CPC is $0.60. Know your number before you run traffic.

The full Paid Media, Built to Scale bundle inside The DTC Operator includes the complete Google agency weekly review template, the target CAC and breakeven CPC methodology, and the full paid media performance system for managing both Meta and Google in one operating rhythm. It's $149. [Get the bundle →]