You don’t need to understand SEO or Google Ads to find out whether your agency is doing the work. You need logins to four places you should already own, and about 15 minutes once a month. The check answers three plain questions: did anyone touch the account, did the right people see you, and did any of it turn into a call or a form.
If the agency won’t let you look at those screens, you have your answer already, and the rest of this page can wait.
Plenty of online threads about firing an agency start the same way. A tattoo-studio owner on r/PPC opened the campaigns himself and found nothing had been edited for months: “Is this normal, or its safe to assume the “ppc manager” isnt doing anything?” Commenters told him to look at one screen, change history. That screen is where the check starts.
What do you need before the check works?
You need your own login, under your own email, in each account. A shared agency password doesn’t count, because you can’t see what they choose to hide and you lose it the day they leave.
| Account | Where to confirm your access | What you need for this check |
|---|---|---|
| Google Ads | Admin menu → Access and security (Google) | Read-only is enough to look; Admin is what an owner should hold |
| Search Console | Settings → Users and permissions (Google) | You should be an owner; that page only appears for owners |
| Google Analytics 4 | Admin → Access Management, at account or property level (Google) | Any role that can view reports |
| Your CRM, call log or inbox | Wherever leads land | The count of real enquiries by source |
Google Ads has five access levels: Admin, Standard, Read-only, Billing and Email-only. Read-only lets a user “view campaigns and use planning tools” without changing anything, so asking for it costs the agency nothing (access levels). Only an Admin can add users or change access levels. If the agency holds Admin and you hold nothing, fix that before anything else; our guide on who owns your code, domain and ad accounts walks through it.
The 15-minute monthly check, screen by screen
Do it on the same day each month, with last month as the date range. Here is the whole check on one card, then each screen in detail.
| Minutes | Screen | Look for | Red flag |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–4 | Google Ads → Change history | Edits by the agency’s emails in the last month | No edits, or one budget tweak a month for months |
| 4–7 | Google Ads → Search terms | What people actually typed before clicking | Job seekers, DIY questions, places you don’t serve |
| 7–8 | Google Ads conversion actions | What counts as a “conversion” | Page views or time on site counted as leads |
| 8–12 | Search Console → Performance | Clicks on queries that sound like buyers, by country | Impressions up, clicks flat; traffic from the wrong country |
| 12–13 | GA4 → Traffic acquisition | Key events from organic and paid traffic | Key events that are just scrolls or page views |
| 13–15 | Your CRM or call log | Real leads by source | Ads conversions far above the leads you can name |
Skip the Google Ads rows if you only pay for SEO, and the Search Console rows if you only pay for PPC. The last row is never optional.
Minutes 0–4: did anyone touch the ad account?
Open Campaigns → Change history in Google Ads (Google: about change history). The tool lists changes to your account, campaigns and ad groups for the past two years, and the “User” column shows the email address of whoever made each change through the interface. You can filter by type of change, such as budget adjustments or keyword edits.
Read the User column first. You want to see the agency’s people, by name, making changes most weeks (new negative keywords, ad tests, bid changes) on dates that line up with what their report says they did.
A physical-therapy clinic owner on r/PPC did exactly this after six years with one agency and found roughly one adjustment a month, usually a bid or the budget (thread). That isn’t automatically fraud. A mature account can need less work, and the agency told him as much. But it does change the conversation about the fee.
Two things to not misread:
- Entries under names like “Google Ads system” are automated maintenance, per Google’s own note, not your agency at work.
- A flood of edits in the first weeks can mean the agency is rebuilding the account its own way. That’s fine if they told you and explained why. It’s a problem if they didn’t.
Minutes 4–7: who are you paying to show up for?
Open Campaigns → Insights and reports → Search terms (Google: search terms report). This is the list of what people actually typed before your ad appeared, not the keywords the agency picked. Sort by cost and read the top twenty.
You’re the expert here, not the agency. You know that “how to become a roofer” or “roofing jobs near me” will never buy a roof. If those sit near the top of the cost column month after month, nobody is pruning the account. The fix is boring and well known: add irrelevant terms as negative keywords. Google’s own example is an eyeglasses seller adding “wine” after seeing “wine glasses” trigger their ads.
Google omits some low-volume terms from this report for privacy reasons, so the list will never match total spend exactly. That’s normal. An agency refusing to show you this report at all is not; it’s data from your own account.
Minutes 7–8: what does “conversion” mean in your account?
Ask, once, which conversion actions the account counts and which of them are primary. In Google Ads you choose what counts as valuable, such as a purchase, a sign-up or a phone call, and Google notes that setting actions as primary (used for bidding) or secondary (observation only) affects how Smart Bidding optimizes (Google: conversion measurement).
The red flag is a conversion that isn’t a customer action, like a page view or time on site. Those inflate the number in the report and teach automated bidding to chase the wrong people. Write the answer down; you’ll use it in minute 13.
Minutes 8–12: is search traffic growing where it matters?
Open the Performance report in Search Console (Google: Performance report). It shows clicks, impressions, CTR and average position for your site in Google Search. Click the date filter at the top, choose Compare, and set last three months against the previous three, or against the same months last year if your business is seasonal (Google: how are you performing).
Then work through the tabs above the table:
- Queries. Are the queries that sound like buyers (“emergency plumber [your city]”, “[your product] price”) getting more clicks than before? Growth that’s all in obscure long-tail phrases nobody else searches is the classic vanity result.
- Pages. Are the pages that sell (services, pricing) gaining clicks, or only blog posts?
- Countries. If you serve one city, most clicks should come from your country. A local service owner on r/SEO left an agency after six months: traffic had gone up, but nearly all of it came from India (thread).
The pattern to worry about is impressions climbing while clicks stay flat. Impressions count every time your link appeared in results; a report built on them can show growth for a year without a single new customer.
Also hold the agency’s report up against this screen. A roofing company’s marketing manager found 43 indexed pages in Search Console while the agency’s own report claimed more: “They send us their own report that says we have over 400 pages indexed.” Some of the pages in that report were about divorce law. When the vendor’s tool and Google’s own data disagree that badly, Google’s data wins.
Minutes 12–13: is that traffic doing anything?
In GA4, open Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition (Google: traffic acquisition report). The table includes a Key events column. Look at Organic Search and Paid Search rows; if you want more detail, switch the dimension dropdown to “Session source / medium”.
Then check what a key event actually is on your property: Admin → Data display → Events, then the Key events tab (Google: mark events as key events). A key event should be a form submission, a call click, a booking or a purchase. If it’s a scroll or a page view, the column is decoration.
Search Console and GA4 will never agree exactly. Google lists the reasons: privacy filtering of rare queries, time zones, and the fact that Analytics only sees visitors with JavaScript turned on (Google: data discrepancies). Those explain modest gaps. The roofing manager above saw about 13,000 organic users in Analytics against 403 Search Console clicks over the same three months. That’s not a time-zone issue, and it’s a fair question to put to the agency in writing.
Minutes 13–15: did the phone ring?
Count the real enquiries from last month, by source, in your CRM, call log or inbox. Put three numbers side by side: conversions Google Ads reported, key events GA4 reported, and leads you can name.
They won’t match perfectly. If Google Ads reports several times more conversions than you can find actual people for, go back to minute 7: something that isn’t a lead is being counted as one. If the numbers are close and flat, the tracking is honest and the campaigns simply aren’t producing yet, which is a different conversation.
What should the monthly report contain, and what is padding?
A useful report answers “what did you do, what happened, what’s next” in terms you can check against the screens above. Google suggests asking any SEO whether they will share all the changes they make to your site, with their reasoning (Google: do you need an SEO?). That question applies to PPC too.
| Should be in the report | Padding when it stands alone |
|---|---|
| A list of changes made, which you can match to change history | “Optimized campaigns” with no specifics |
| Search terms reviewed and negatives added | Impressions and “visibility” scores |
| Spend, conversions and cost per lead, with the conversion definition stated | CTR with no lead numbers next to it |
| Clicks from Search Console on commercial queries and pages, against the prior period | Rankings for long-tail phrases nobody searches |
| Leads by channel, reconciled with your CRM | Total traffic, without country or landing page |
| What they’ll do next month and what result would prove it worked | Third-party tool scores you can’t check yourself |
The PPC owner whose agency reported a 6% click-through rate and strong keyword coverage had zero conversions after two weeks and most of the month’s budget gone (thread). Two weeks is early to judge results, and several experienced commenters said so. Still, the first thing they told him to open was the search terms report, not the CTR.
How long before you judge the results?
Judge the work from the first month; judge the results on the channel’s own clock. Those are different questions, and agencies sometimes answer the second when you ask the first.
For PPC, Google describes a standard 7–14 day learning phase for Smart Bidding, and says that changing budgets, targets or conversion goals during it resets the learning window (Google: conversion measurement). The full learning period can take a few conversion cycles, typically one to two, depending on how many conversions the campaign gets (Google: learning period). A bid strategy marked “Learning” isn’t a failure. But change history and search terms can be checked on day one; they don’t need to learn anything.
SEO lags longer and less predictably, which is why the Search Console comparison matters: you can see whether impressions and clicks on buyer queries are moving before leads follow. For week-by-week norms on both channels, and the points where “give it time” stops being a fair answer, see Is this normal? Vendor timelines.
Keep, renegotiate or fire?
After two or three monthly checks you’ll usually know which column you’re in. Our view: a vendor who does visible work and reports honestly on weak results is worth a hard conversation. A vendor who blocks your view isn’t.
| What the check shows | What to do |
|---|---|
| Regular edits, clean search terms, honest conversion definition, leads tracked even if still low | Keep. Agree on the number that would prove it’s working, and a date |
| Work is happening, but the report leads with impressions, rankings or CTR | Renegotiate the report. Ask for the table above every month |
| Conversions counted that aren’t leads | Ask them to fix tracking within two weeks. Results before that fix aren’t real |
| Few or no edits for months, no report, no meetings | Ask in writing what was done. If the answer doesn’t match change history, start an exit |
| No access to your own accounts, or search terms “proprietary” | Exit. Secure your accounts first, then give notice |
Before you give notice, make sure you hold Admin in Google Ads and owner rights in Search Console and GA4. Leaving without them can cost you the account history. A second-opinion audit from another provider is reasonable too, but remember that the auditor wants the account as well.
If you’re shortlisting a replacement, the questions in vendor pitch questions and good answers cover reporting and access up front, and pricing models compared explains why a percentage-of-ad-spend fee rewards spending, not results.
What should a one-off audit cover before you switch agencies?
A short paid audit from someone outside the current agency tells you whether to fix the relationship or leave it. Give the auditor read-only access, which in Google Ads lets them see campaigns without changing anything (Google Ads Help), and pay for the audit separately from any later work.
| Area | What the auditor should check |
|---|---|
| Conversion tracking | Which actions are counted as primary conversions, and whether they’re real leads or sales (Google Ads Help) |
| Search terms | What people actually searched before clicking, and how much went to irrelevant terms |
| Change history | How often the account was worked on over the last few months, and by whom (Google Ads Help) |
| Bid strategy and budget | Whether the budget produces enough conversions for the bid strategy in use; Google advises judging over at least two conversion cycles, a month, or 50 conversions (Google Ads Help) |
| Landing pages | Whether ads send people to pages that match what they searched |
Ask for findings ranked by how much they cost you, each with the screen or report that shows it, and no changes made during the audit. An auditor who also wants the account has the same conflict as any agency pitching for it, so read the findings against the evidence, not the recommendation at the end.
FAQ
Is read-only access to Google Ads enough to do this check?
For looking, yes. Google describes Read-only as able to view campaigns and use planning tools without editing anything, and viewing is all this check does. It’s not enough to own the account, though; someone in your company should hold Admin.
My agency says the search terms are confidential. Is that normal?
No. The search terms report is part of your Google Ads account and shows what your money paid for. An agency can keep its methods private; it can’t keep your data private from you.
Rankings went up but leads didn’t. Is the SEO working?
Partly, at best. Check in Search Console whether the queries that rose are ones buyers type, and whether clicks rose with them. Rankings for phrases with no clicks don’t pay for a retainer.
Should I buy Semrush or Ahrefs to check my agency?
Not for this. Search Console and GA4 are Google’s own data about your site, and they’re free. Google notes that third-party SEO tools don’t have access to its internal data (Google); they estimate. Use them for competitor research, not for auditing your own traffic.
How often should I run the check?
Monthly is enough once things are stable. In the first month of a new PPC account, run the change history and search terms screens weekly.
Your next step
This week, log in to Google Ads, Search Console and GA4 with your own email, without asking the agency for a password. If any of the three fails, that’s the first thing to fix, before any talk about results. If all three work, put a recurring 15-minute block in your calendar for the first Monday of each month and keep the card above next to it.
If the check tells you it’s time to look elsewhere, start from the hiring a vendor guide, then compare vendors in SEO agencies or PPC agencies, with how to choose an SEO agency as the shortlist filter.