How to Know If Your Google Ads Agency Is Wasting Your Budget

What does agency budget waste actually look like?

Agency budget waste rarely looks like negligence. It looks like acceptable headline numbers: a CPA that is within range, conversion volume that is stable, a monthly report that shows green. The waste is in what those numbers are not showing — query drift into low-intent traffic, conversion events that do not represent real business outcomes, budget sitting in campaigns that the algorithm has already deprioritized.

The fastest way to find waste is not to look at the summary metrics. It is to look at the search term report, the conversion action settings, and whether anyone has touched the account in the past 30 days.

How do search terms reveal whether your agency is paying attention?

The search term report shows every actual query that triggered your ads and charged your account. A well-managed account has a negative keyword list that is added to regularly and search terms that are closely aligned with your service, product, and geography. A poorly managed account has queries that have nothing to do with what you sell and negatives that have not been updated in months.

• –Request the search terms report for the last 90 days. Sort by cost, descending. Read the top 50 queries. Ask yourself whether each one represents a realistic customer.
• –Check the negative keyword list. If it has fewer than 50 entries for a campaign that has been running for more than three months, nobody is doing regular search term review.
• –Look for brand queries in non-brand campaigns. If your brand name is appearing in a general service campaign without a brand exclusion, branded conversions are inflating non-brand performance metrics.
• –Check for irrelevant geographies. Traffic from locations you do not serve is pure waste. This is common when location targeting is set to "Presence or interest" rather than "Presence."

What does match type discipline reveal about account management quality?

Match types determine which queries can trigger your ads. Broad match gives Google the most latitude to expand into adjacent queries. Phrase and exact match give you more control. An account that runs mostly broad match keywords without strong negative keyword coverage gives the algorithm maximum freedom to spend on queries that look related but do not convert.

How does conversion tracking accuracy affect your ability to evaluate the agency?

Conversion tracking is the accountability layer for any Google Ads account. If the conversions being reported do not represent real business outcomes, everything built on top of them is unreliable — bidding, optimization decisions, performance claims.

• –Ask to see the conversion actions list in the account. What events are being tracked? Form fills, phone calls, page views, session duration goals?
• –Are all tracked actions set as primary conversions, or are lower-value micro-conversions being counted alongside genuine leads?
• –Does the conversion count in Google Ads match the lead count in your CRM for the same period? If there is a large discrepancy, something is miscounted.
• –Is conversion lag accounted for? If your product has a long consideration cycle, recent conversions may still be pending — which affects how bidding targets are interpreted.

What should a well-managed agency report include?

A report that only shows impressions, clicks, conversions, and CPA is not enough to evaluate whether an account is being managed well. It only shows whether spend is happening, not whether spend is producing the right outcomes.

A report from a well-managed agency should include:

• –Search term themes reviewed and negatives added this period
• –Changes made to bids, budgets, or ad copy and why
• –Brand performance segmented separately from non-brand performance
• –Any campaigns limited by budget and whether that limitation is intentional
• –Conversion quality signals — lead quality feedback, close rates, or revenue if available
• –What changed, what was tested, and what the plan is for the next period

What account access should you have?

You should have admin access to your own Google Ads account at all times. An agency that manages your account through their own MCC (manager account) without giving you direct access to the underlying account is creating dependency. If you stop working with them, they control the account history, data, and campaign structure.

• –You should be able to log in to the Google Ads account directly, not just through a dashboard the agency built.
• –Change history should be visible to you. You can verify whether the account is being actively managed or left to run.
• –Billing should be connected to your payment method, not the agency's. You are the advertiser.

What questions should you ask your agency this week?

1. Can you show me the search terms report for the last 90 days, sorted by cost?
2. Which conversion actions are set as primary, and how do they map to our actual sales outcomes?
3. When did you last add negative keywords and what did you add?
4. Can I see the change history for the account for the last 60 days?
5. How do our brand conversion numbers compare to our non-brand conversion numbers, and are they being tracked separately?
6. What is the current strategy and what are you testing next?

If an agency cannot answer these questions specifically and with direct reference to your account data, that is the finding. A well-managed account has clear answers to all of them.

For a structured framework to evaluate your account independently, see the Google Ads audit checklist. If you want an external review of the account without changing who manages it, a Google Ads audit documents the current state and gives you a prioritized list of findings.