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PPC agency

A PPC agency is a company that runs a business's pay-per-click advertising, such as Google Ads, for a fee, with a team rather than one person doing the work.

How it works

PPC means pay per click: the advertiser pays when someone clicks an ad. For an online store, the work covers three areas: the product feed, conversion tracking and the campaigns themselves. The agency charges a management fee on top of what the store pays Google for the ads. A freelancer does the same work alone; at an agency a team shares it, often with an account manager as the store’s main contact.

Agencies often work from a manager account, which Google’s developer documentation describes as an account for administration, not for serving ads. The agency starts the link from its manager account, and you accept it in your own account. The link connects two separate accounts: the agency’s and yours. Questions to ask before you sign are covered in how to choose a PPC agency.

Example

Example store, not client data.

The tableware shop spends 40,000 a month on ads and gets 180,000 in revenue from them, so ads cost 22.2% of that revenue. An agency asks for 10% of spend: 4,000 a month. Spend plus fee comes to 44,000, or 24.4% of the same revenue.

To cover its fee, the agency’s work has to bring at least 4,000 a month: in spend saved without losing sales, in extra gross profit, or in both. At the shop’s 35% margin, 4,000 of gross profit takes 4,000 ÷ 0.35 = 11,429 of extra revenue.

Not to be confused with

  • Google Partner — a status an agency can hold in Google’s programme for agencies. It describes the agency, not the results in your account.

Right and wrong readings

  • Wrong: “The agency runs the account, so only the agency needs admin access.” Right: Google describes a user with the Admin access level as one who owns the account and controls who else gets in. If the agency is the only admin, the agency decides who has access, so keep at least one admin user of your own.

Sources

  • AccessRole — Google Ads API reference: what the Admin, Standard and Read only roles can do. Checked 2 October 2026.
  • Linking to Manager Accounts — Google Ads API: manager accounts serve administration, not ads; a link is started by the manager account and accepted by the client account. Checked 2 October 2026.