B2B PPC Agency Red Flags: 10 Warning Signs to Watch For

Maelien:
Welcome back. Today we’re looking to create a bit of a danger-free zone.

Which sounds dramatic, but genuinely, this episode is about helping you avoid some of the horror shows we see in the PPC industry.

Louis:
Yeah, and to be clear, this isn’t us saying every agency is terrible. There are loads of brilliant agencies doing good work.

But there’s also more bad practice than we’re comfortable with in the industry. And if you’re choosing an agency, it can be hard to know what’s normal, what’s a bit annoying, and what should make you run for the hills.

Maelien:
So the idea is to pull back the curtain a little bit.

We’ll talk through the warning signs before you sign, what can go wrong with the technical setup, and what happens when an agency relationship starts to drift.

Let’s start at the beginning then. Before you’ve signed anything.

What are the red flags in the pitch?

Louis:
The first one for me is the snake oil salesman.

That’s where an agency presents themselves as if they can do absolutely everything for you.

But generally, when an agency says yes to everything, that’s not a good sign.

Because a good agency knows when to say no.

Maelien:
Yeah i, also like  to go by the advice that if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

For example an agency saying that they can 10x your lead volume without even seeing any data from your ad accounts. 

It’s also worth noting that there’s quite a big breadth of skills that an agency has to have. But a good agency will have a tightly defined scope.

So really it’s this idea of massively overpromising with no intention of delivering on those promises. Essentially, stopping at nothing to get the sale.

Whereas a conscientious and experienced agency will be honest and transparent about what they can and can’t do.

Louis:
I remember something really clearly from when Web Marketer first started.

I was speaking to what became our biggest client, and they asked whether we could help get the sales team to stop leaving emails unread in the leads inbox.

I was nervous, because early on there’s a temptation to say, “Yes, of course.”

But I said no.

I said that wasn’t a PPC issue. That was an internal sales leadership issue, or possibly something the board needed to tackle.

I remember worrying that saying no might cost us the opportunity. But the opposite happened. You could feel the guards come down because we’d been honest.

That’s the point. Saying no isn’t always negative, sometimes it is that trust builder.

Maelien:

A good way to check this is to ask the agency what their scope covers and what it doesn’t. If their answer essentially sounds like everything. Then you should probably have your spidey senses up. 

Another one to flag is fake expertise. So, when someone sounds confident in what they’re, but they’re actually just repeating information they’ve seen online and don’t know how to do it in practice.

Louis:

Yeah, this can be pretty hard to spot if you’re not a platform specialist yourself.

But, if you’ve got a feeling this is happening, you can always ask for something to be explained in a different way. Because, someone with real knowledge should be able to reposition things until they make total sense.

Its also always really important to ask for references from current or past clients. And to ask what they’re like when things are difficult, not just when things are going well.

Because most people can make a sales deck sound good – but it’s only really in a crisis when you get to see an agencies true colours.

Maelien:
Okay, so let’s fast forward. The contract is signed and the relationship starts.

This is where we get into the technical setup. And the big one is ad account ownership.

Wherever possible, your business should own your Ad account and pay for the ad spend directly. If you don’t do this, your ad account won’t belong to you.

Because then when you leave, the most likely thing that happens is that you lose access and have to start again.

And starting again is not a small thing.

As you lose all of the performance data, the settings, the algorithm’s learnings, the structure, the retargeting audiences – loads of stuff that you will have to build back up from scratch.

Your ad account is a business asset. Losing it can set performance back for months. So if an agency makes it difficult for you to access it, this is going to be a massive problem. And one that you might not realise until it’s too late.

Louis:
The same goes for reporting.

You should be able to see the real data. Not just a nice PDF with selected screenshots and a few green arrows going up.

I’m always wary of reports that only show the story the agency wants to tell.

We mentioned in episode 6 that a report should help you diagnose, decide, or demonstrate something. It shouldn’t just be a highlight reel of the best bits or the most interesting information. 

You kind of want the warts and all version too – because it’s only natural that you’ll have good and bad months. Obviously you want a lot more good months than bad months – but the bad months are where you really learn about what’s working.

And so if that’s getting hidden, you’re just kind of stagnating.

Maelien:
This is where tracking comes in as well. Running campaigns without proper conversion tracking is what we call spray and pray.

We’ve seen so many ad accounts that don’t have conversion tracking set up – and it always makes us wonder what they’re even reporting on. As the most useful and important information isn’t there.

Also, in B2B, surface-level conversion tracking is the bare minimum.

You need to know more than form fills and calls and really understand whether they’re turning into qualified leads, pipeline, and revenue. 

Louis:
And then there’s also the whole BS and technobabble side of things.

A lot of PPC is genuinely technical. Consent mode, enhanced conversions, offline conversion imports, CRM integrations, attribution – they’re all pretty complex.

But there’s a massive difference between explaining something technical in a way that the other person can understand it and using buzzword bingo to the point where the other person is none the wiser. 

What’s more – I’ve been part of plenty of conversations where people have used jargon to cover up the fact that they don’t really know what they’re talking about.

So it’s definitely one to watch for. And I guess the best approach for this one again is to ask for things to be explained in different ways.

Maelien:
Okay. So we’ve covered the pitch and the technical setup. Now let’s talk about what happens day to day.

Complacency is one of the most common issues we hear about from potential clients.

They’ll say, “They were great at the start, but now it’s really hard to get hold of them, and we don’t know if they’re still doing the work.”

And when we hear this. The first thing we look for is to see what kind of work is being done in the ad account. If it is being well managed and the agency have just dropped the ball with communication or if they’ve taken a set and forget approach.

And it’s sad to say that, all too often, we find that it’s the latter.

Performance marketing needs ongoing and active management.

That doesn’t mean changing everything constantly – but if the change log only shows one or two small or automated changes a month, it’s fair to question what’s actually been done.

Louis:
The next one is changing faces.

This is where you speak to someone really impressive during the sales process. But then as soon as you become a client, they disappear.

Now this isn’t always a bad thing. If you knew this was going to happen, then it’s fine right. 

But if you were expecting to work with the person you were speaking with and you just get handed off to a junior. 

Or, if your primary POC changes regularly and you’re constantly having to re-explain everything, that’s where it becomes a problem.

It’s also the same with who’s managing the ad account.

If the same person manages the account over time, they know the targets, they know the business and the ideal clients, they build up a sense of what’s worked, what hasn’t.

This is all the kind of stuff that makes someone feel like an extension of your team and it takes months to fully digest. So if it’s constantly changing – then the understanding of what’s going on is way more surface level.

Maelien:
Let’s move onto financial red flags. The first one is pricing that looks too good to be true.

Now, cheap isn’t automatically bad. Every agency has different overheads, models, and levels of senior involvement.

But if the fee is suspiciously low, it’s a good idea to ask how the price is possible.

Because proper PPC management takes time, experience, and specialist skills to do well.

If the fee doesn’t support that work, the account may not get enough attention, the work may be pushed to juniors, or the whole thing could be run on a cookie-cutter approach.

And that’s where “cheap” all of a sudden becomes expensive.

Because you might save a bit on the management fee, but are more likely to lose far more through wasted ad spend, poor tracking, bad decisions, missed opportunities and inaction.

Louis:
But it’s not about choosing the most expensive agency either.

It’s about whether the fee realistically supports the level of thinking, care, and execution that your account needs.

The most bang for buck doesn’t come from hiring the cheapest agency. It comes from hiring the agency that’s going to be most profitable for you.

Maelien:
And finally, we need to talk about spending pressure.So constantly being pushed to increase your budget.

Sometimes increasing the budget is right. If campaigns are profitable, lead quality is good, and there’s room to grow, then scaling makes sense.

But if your agency charges a percentage of media spend, they are financially incentivised to recommend more spend. So you might find them recommending an increase, even when the performance isn’t there to justify it yet. 

The bottom line is, that increasing your budget should line your business’s pockets first, before anyone else’s.

Louis:
So let’s do a quick recap.

There are loads of great agencies out there – but there’s also a lot of not so great things to watch out for in the industry.

Before you sign anything, watch out for agencies that promise everything, say yes to everything, or have suspiciously low pricing.

When things are getting set up, make sure you own your ad account, have proper conversion tracking in place, and can see the raw data behind the reports (even if only on request).

Then when you’re in the weeds – look out for complacency, set and forget management, constant handovers, vanity metrics, and pressure to spend more without a strong commercial reason.

A healthy agency relationship should feel transparent, commercially grounded, and constructively challenging. And if it falls short, it might be time to ask some questions.

Maelien:

And if anything we’ve talked about today has made you question your current setup, you can book a Coffee Call with us to talk it through.Just head to webmarketeruk.com/ppc-coffee-call for a second opinion.

Thanks for listening, and we’ll catch you on the next one.