With the growth of algorithmic bidding, advertisers rely solely on clean server-side data and accurate revenue attribution to profitably scale their paid media spend.

The keys to scaling a paid account are to understand what operational standards your pay per click marketing agencies should meet, what price models you should offer, and what market providers are necessary to successfully govern a paid account without wasting dollars on vanity clicks.

Agencies must start to show their clients proof of real cash returns from their campaigns rather than screenshots of platform data.

How Pay Per Click Marketing Agencies Affect Your Costs

Agencies offer generic pricing lists and directories without analysing how agency fees affect their clients’ true unit economics. Most agencies repeat the same standard fee ranges without providing their clients with a clear picture of how their media operations actually work. True governance of paid accounts (GPA) involves auditing a client’s tracking structure prior to launching a campaign, mapping that data back to a blended return on ad spend and enforcing strict pipeline measurements.

Advertisers must retain control of their ad accounts, avoid entering long term contracts, and link their performance to their profit margins. If an agency provides a quote that is much higher than the industry average, yet does not provide services such as product feed management or creative testing, then the advertiser is essentially paying a growing tax on the agency's automated platform expense.

Additionally, advertisers are increasingly comparing traditional agencies to software suites that manage their ads as well as to in-house media buyers.

Advertisers will generally pay more for external management as the number of tracking channels increases and the complexity of the tracking structure increases.

The percentage model is set up to benefit the agency and incentivize them to keep your advertising budget increasing rather than making you more efficient. This only happens if you set the contract up properly though.

Freelancer and Software Options

You should hire a freelancer or manage your ads with a software program if your monthly ad budget is less than $5000. As soon as you get to this threshold, the mathematics no longer work out on hiring an agency. Because a minimum retainer will take up too much of your working capital, your effective management fees will be anywhere from 15-25% if you can find an agency willing to take you, with strict minimum fees often being in place.

The alternative to this is hiring freelancers at a rate of $50-199 per hour, or using managed software alternatives. Many of the managed artificial intelligence platforms entering the marketplace are starting around $999 per month for some advertised services.

The current pricing for some basic pay-per-click software is anywhere from $49-$249 per month for software such as these. Both of these software programs provide the ability to manage your daily bid pacing, keyword negative lists, and allow you to really spend more of your overall advertising budget on media buying.

Small Agency Retainers

As soon as your advertising spend exceeds $5000, and approaches the $20,000/month threshold, it is typical for agencies to charge retainer fees. The common fee at this level is a flat monthly fee ranging from $1,500-$4,000/month, or between 10-20% of advertising spend (what most of the industry will charge at this level).

Agencies at this level generally will take care of daily bid management, manage the basic creative rotation in the campaigns created for your account, and provide you with monthly reports on performance.

However, don't expect very deep data science analysis or complex server-side tracking setups for the price you will be paying. Typically, there is a one-time setup fee associated with your initial engagement with the agency, and this will range from $500-$3,000 for the initial audit/rebuild of your account.

Hybrid Agency and Senior Oversight

Monthly budgets of $20,000 - $100,000 will have to use multiple channels and a great deal of integrated data. Pricing changes at this level to become a hybrid model (a fixed monthly retainer in addition to a capped % of ad spend).

For instance, if the total monthly ad spend is $80,000 at a 10% flat rate, the monthly cost will be $8,000. A hybrid contract would charge a $7,500 retainer fee with an 8% fee on any amount over $50,000 in monthly ad spend.

At this level, you need a senior strategist to review your accounts on a weekly basis instead of junior resources using automated Google recommendations.

Custom Enterprise Contracts

Monthly spends of $150,000 and higher would not be best served with the standard percentage model. Enterprise companies will want a custom contract, which can range from $15,000 to $30,000 and more per month, with these contracts requiring true incrementality testing (measurement) of all ads against organic baseline sales.

Brands that spend significant amounts of money on ads are typically looking towards enterprise software suites such as Skai, which range from $114,000 to $756,000 annually, that provide multi-channel command and control from one central platform for Google, Meta and Amazon for your internal media buying team.

What to Expect in the First 90 Days

A true partner does not simply launch campaigns and email a monthly spreadsheet of performance statistics. The first three months of a new client relationship must adhere to a strict operational plan that is margin-aware. Utilize this schedule when reviewing an agency proposal.

Weeks 1 and 2: Data Integrity and Preparation

For Weeks 1 and 2, you will focus on the evaluation of the data integrity of your tracking systems.

The next two weeks will be used to prepare your agency for the launch of your first campaign. All tracking should be completed prior to launching the campaign.

To launch a successful campaign, the agency needs to set up Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Google Tag Manager (GTM) first. Once the setup is complete, they will need to perform audits of all existing conversion events to ensure they are properly connected to your customer relationship management (CRM) system.

It is critical that the agency understands the way you run your business and that they can analyze customer acquisition costs and the economics of each unit sold.

If the agency were to launch ads without first determining that the resultant click translates into a lead or sale, then they would be running blind with respect to whether they are actually driving sales conversions.

Weeks 3 Through 8: Campaign Structure and Launch

In weeks three through eight, the agency will develop your campaign structure by determining the key terms (or keywords) that best match your prospective audience.

This includes identifying and developing an overall creative testing strategy that will enable the agency to measure the effectiveness of your campaigns on three platforms: Search, Google Performance Max, and Meta.

Once the campaign launches in week five, the agency will begin to implement bid strategy tuning and expansion of negative keyword lists. It is of utmost importance that the agency meets weekly for review calls and that you receive at least one monthly written analysis of your campaigns. The agency should also conduct conversion rate tests for your website's landing pages to maximize the amount of traffic purchased.

Month 3: Budget Reallocation and Incrementality Tests

By the end of month three, the agency will need to begin reallocating your budget based on actual profits realized from ads and not just on platform return on ad spend (ROAS). In addition, the agency will be performing incrementality tests on the campaigns to gather additional insights about the true return generated from ads.

The agency's goal during this time is to reconcile all of its findings on the platform against your overall blended marketing efficiency ratio and your CRM. If a campaign shows a 400 percent ROAS in Google Ads, and your financial records don't show the same growth, then the agency will need to identify and reconcile the discrepancy.

How to Evaluate Pay Per Click Marketing Agencies Using a Scorecard

The selection of an advertising vendor using a vendor selection scorecard (VSS) is an essential process to determine the right vendor for your campaign through a series of criteria.

Whereas you cannot base the vendor's qualification solely on the case studies they provide you, you have to specifically know what questions to ask and what information you want in order to evaluate their proposal against the other vendors.

Account Ownership and Account Setup

The first and most important factor in your decision-making process should be focused on the agency's measurement rigor. You must be certain that the agency can provide proof of their ability to measure the full impact of your account, including but not limited to, Google Analytics 4, server-side tracking, CRM and any other 3rd-party integration that may be necessary to determine the success of your account.

If they do not provide you with any additional information than a vague definition of the conversion, such as; the number of people clicked on a conversion link to purchase, you should immediately reject their proposal.

Second, in addition to the measurement rigor, it is imperative to ensure that you have complete ownership of your ad accounts and that you have full administrative access to those ad accounts.

Under no circumstances should you enter into an agreement that allows the agency to run your ads from a shared account (master account). If the agency is terminated, you should be able to walk away with all of your historical data.

Contract Structure and Hidden Terms

Beware of contracts containing long lock-in periods (12+ months) and harsh termination fees. Most "standard" contracts are written for 30 to 90 days, with specific clauses allowing for termination if performance does not meet expectations.

Ensure you understand how the agency will report on their advertising; they should provide access to live dashboards and provide you with detailed analyses of your account every month, which should directly relate to your revenue. If they do not provide live dashboards and detailed analysis of your account, you should not proceed with them.

Ensure that the senior strategist assigned to your account is named in the proposal. The agency that pitches your business is not necessarily the agency that will work on your account on a daily basis.

The 23 Best Pay Per Click Marketing Agencies Reviewed

The current state of PPC marketing includes a diverse array of agencies, including traditional advertising agencies, high-end strategic agencies, and niche specialists. The following is an in-depth guide using quantitative information.

1. Disruptive Advertising

Disruptive Advertising is a large, multi-channel performance agency with a portfolio of Google, Microsoft, Meta, and LinkedIn products and focuses primarily on mid-market to enterprise brands with a monthly ad spend of no less than $5,000.

As the agency's first step is to conduct an audit of a business's current paid media activity, and during that time, the agency will integrate its conversion rate optimisation into the paid media activity of that company.

Disruptive Advertising does not publicly display its rate card and uses a quote-based pricing structure; however, their pricing is consistent with the typical market structure of 10% - 20% of the total spend. They currently manage approximately $450 million of their clients' annual ad spend.

Most of the agency's primary case studies show a significant reduction in cost per acquisition (30% - 50%), which proves that Disruptive Advertising has the ability to eliminate wasteful ad spend and achieve significant reductions on a large scale.

2. KlientBoost

KlientBoost is a dual-threat agency that invests heavily in both landing page optimisation and paid media.

For companies with successful paid media campaigns, but low on-site conversion rates, KlientBoost is a great fit. KlientBoost caters to mid-market and high-growth brands.

In addition to maintaining a high volume of successful client campaigns, KlientBoost has released prices for two primary campaign types – landing page testing for $3,000/month and scaling Google Ads for $6,000/month, allowing potential inbound clients to see what the potential costs may be upfront. The agency's clients have seen an increase in total revenue as a result of improving their landing page experience prior to increasing their overall ad budget.

3. WebFX

WebFX is an agency that focuses on high-volume, data-centric SEO and PPC services and helps mid-market businesses scale their search engine visibility and PPC campaigns.

WebFX is built for businesses that are looking for more traditional search and display but do not require complex, custom integrations. They offer a transparent pricing model.

They publish a transparent mathematical range from $301 to $5,000 per month for median priced companies. They claim to be responsible for over ten billion dollars in revenue for their clients throughout their existence. Their individual case studies contain primarily actionable metrics for consistent return on ad spend and an increasing number of leads.

4. Ignite Visibility

Ignite Visibility is a full-service growth marketing agency that uses Google’s, Microsoft’s, and paid social media marketing to grow their clients’ businesses.

A strong reporting discipline makes them a good option for clients who expect to show reports with clear information to their boards. Their principal target market is mid-market digital brands and companies with national or multi-region operations.

Most of their pricing is based on quotes, typically in the same percentage (about 10% to 20%) of total media management as other large media management companies. They have an extensive presence on multiple B2B review directories and publish outcome cases focusing on producing the highest gross and net revenues as opposed to less precise metrics and traditional advertising that simply focuses on traffic.

5. OuterBox

OuterBox is a full-service digital marketing agency that specializes in eCommerce and Amazon sellers.

As online sales continue to grow, many eCommerce companies are looking for agencies to manage large inventories of products, including Amazon ads, and create customer conversion marketing. OuterBox excels at managing complex catalogs and inventories.

The pricing of OuterBox follows standard eCommerce retainers; therefore, they typically charge a retainer fee of around $1,500, up to $5,000 and higher or a percentage of revenue. Their published comparisons show the difference in efficiency of selling products on eCommerce platforms like Amazon compared to Google Shopping.

6. Searchbloom

Performance media and multi-location expertise is Searchbloom's focus. They specialize in managing Google, Microsoft and Meta campaign accounts for those businesses in service-based industries that need to generate leads from specific geographical locations. They focus their services on the SMB tier and mid-market tier.

They utilize retainer agreements with typical market terms of $1,500-$5,000, or the traditional percentage model.

Their results consistently demonstrate substantial decreases in cost-per-lead by providing highly targeted localised campaigns without excessive budget allocations on broad match keyword terms.

7. SmartSites

SmartSites built their reputation on providing a high degree of transparency with a strong focus on the SMB market.

SmartSites develop and execute PPC and social media campaigns with clear and informative reporting features, without utilising any confusing technical jargon. Their agency provides PPC and social media services across multiple verticals, making them an excellent option for smaller companies.

The average fees charged for managing PPC and social media campaigns represents between 10% and 20% of the actual spend, which is the industry standard for their target market.

SmartSites' public data demonstrates that their business model generates continuous and consistent increases in the number of leads generated by local businesses as well as steady and reliable returns on lead generation by smaller eCommerce businesses.

8. Funnel Boost Media

Funnel Boost Media provides a holistic or "full funnel" approach to paid media, including integration of creative design and testing of conversion rates as part of their Google and Meta campaigns.

Funnel Boost Media works exclusively with mid-market growth brands and their unique and innovative business model enables them to function as an entire external growth team for their clients.

Pricing for the Funnel Boost Media service is set and quoted as a monthly fee but is typically within the standard retainer ranges. Funnel Boost Media has developed and executed numerous case studies that involve complete overhauls of client pipelines to demonstrate how simultaneous improvement of creative and landing pages can dramatically reduce total acquisition costs.

9. HawkSEM

HawkSEM provides services to lead generation companies specifically in regards to performance measurement and call tracking.

If you own or manage a business with an emphasis on inbound phone calls, you should consider partnering with an agency that can track those calls by referencing the keyword(s) that triggered them. HawkSEM focuses on supporting mid-market local service companies.

As means of their ability to manage complex tracking systems, they publish pricing guidance that can range from 15% to 30% of overall ad spend for more complex models. Additionally, their successful track record includes significant increases in the number of verified, highly-qualified phone leads received.

10. Silverback Strategies

Silverback Strategies has a proven background in performance-based advertising and has deep expertise in both ecommerce and lead generation. They manage campaigns utilizing Google, Microsoft, and Meta advertising platforms for mid-market companies looking for rapid scaling.

Custom quotes are required to determine pricing, yet based upon the current average retainer price of $1,500 to $5,000, they do align with that average.

Their published case studies illustrate a strong grasp of the revenue attribution process, demonstrating their ability to establish a relationship between a Meta ad impression and subsequently closing (i.e., completing) the sale months later.

11. Black Propeller

Black Propeller uses data-driven methodologies to manage campaigns focused heavily on B2B and ecommerce clients. In addition to standard Google/Microsoft search ads, they are very experienced in conducting testing of landing pages and how that can improve conversion rates.

Like with Silverback Strategies, Black Propeller's target audiences consist of mid-market companies that require an organized, systematic approach to building out their accounts.

Pricing is only available through quotes, which generally fall within standard market ranges.

The case studies published by Black Propeller regularly reference large increases in pipeline development by B2B firms as evidence of their capability to attract highly-targeted search traffic and convert it into software demos.

12. AdVenture Media Group

AdVenture Media Group is a specialist agency that typically engages in search-heavy advertising.

While they do manage clients' advertisements on Meta, most of AdVenture Media Group has built its reputation on its strength in dominating Google's and Microsoft's search engine results pages for mid-market advertisers.

They implement costs based off quotes with approximately 10% - 20% being most standard. They have a reputation for taking over poorly managed, bloated search accounts and removing ineffective expenditures which immediately lowers clients' cost per acquisition.

13. Tinuiti

Tinuiti is the highest level of scaled performance media for enterprise and national brands with an extraordinary volume of media exposure through multi-channel accounts such as search, shopping, and programmatic display.

The pricing offered by Tinuiti is custom built for enterprises, and their pricing will almost always include a hybrid of a very large retainer plus capped percentage of media spend in addition to the individual campaign budgets which they manage that total hundreds of millions of dollars in media. The case studies they have produced have demonstrated forecastable large-scale revenue attribution; in addition, they provide solutions to large complicated data problems for global brands.

14. Directive Consulting

Directive Consulting has created a niche within the SaaS (Software as a Service) and B2B (Business to Business), focused entirely on those areas.

They do not focus on buying cheap leads but rather rely heavily on pipeline attribution and actual software trials completed from their paid media efforts and strategy to drive trials through the integration of paid media with their content strategy.

Because their type of tracking in the B2B arena is so complicated, their pricing typically ranges from 15% to 30% of media spend or through a very heavy customized retainer based on the type of projects they are working on. Their results are verifiable because they provide case studies of clients who have seen significant growth in their actual closed-won revenue through large software companies.

15. JumpFly

JumpFly is a Google and Microsoft Ads specialist for the SMB and mid-market sector utilizing a highly structured, tiered pricing structure that is determined based on the exact dollar amounts being spent on advertising.

They use an initial form to classify clients from "Up to $3,000" all the way up to "$150,000 +" with their response depending on where the client fits within the pricing tiers.

The tiered price was created in response to the need for smaller brands to scale in a predictable manner, rather than experiencing sudden increases in costs. In addition to this, they have provided numerous examples of this success (in their case studies) from a variety of clients who use traditional paid search or PPC advertising methods.

16. Solutions 8

Solutions 8 is one of the most focused Google Ads agencies and has placed an immense amount of effort into mastering Google’s newest Performance Max campaign functionality.

Most of their clients are small- and medium-sized businesses that are either selling eCommerce products or generating leads.

They charge standard agency rates based on a quote-for service agreement. Their solid track record of providing clean, margin-aware data to the Performance Max algorithm has inspired them to emphasize that any profit-driven products created by them from 2017 and forward would create profitability using the Performance Max bidding algorithms.

17. Lounge Lizard

Lounge Lizard is a full service digital agency that has established a strong impact through creativity through their advertisement management services.

They run ads for leading mid-size brands on Google, Meta, and LinkedIn. High-end design work is needed to stand out in today’s crowded advertising marketplace.

They charge standard market rates for their services. Their published case studies highlight their ability to add value beyond just the direct return on investment; they also demonstrate the increased brand visibility and market penetration that is occurring due to their superior quality of ads compared to the competition.

18. RGray

RGray has built its business by offering support to mid-size companies that are focused on the technical aspects of advertising and are seeking ways to increase the effectiveness of their marketing. Therefore, RGray has created a suite of tools and analytic capabilities to assist these clients.

They charge on a by-quote basis. In their published case studies, RGray demonstrates how they have significantly reduced their clients’ customer acquisition costs through the improvement of their tracking setups and reallocation of budgets to individual demographics that were most profitable.

19. SEOTonic Web Solutions

SEOTonic Web Solutions provides a hybrid approach involving both SEO and PPC tailored towards the needs of small businesses. They provide a strong emphasis on local lead generation within both the US and UK.

The company has a standardised pricing model, forming the range of $1,500 - $5,000 per month. The verifiable results indicate steady and predictable increases in local lead volume for service businesses needing calls right away.

20. Power Digital

As a full-service growth agency, Power Digital supports the delivery of integrated paid media campaigns; using multiple platforms (Google, Meta, and LinkedIn) and often pairing these with high-profile influencer campaigns. Their ideal target market is mid-market and enterprise direct-to-consumer and B2B brands.

Unlike many agencies on this list, Power Digital does not release their pricing on their website. Pricing is custom-quoted, but Power Digital generally falls into the higher end of typical retainer fees.

Their case studies show explosive revenue growth for retail brands, which demonstrates that they have successfully scaled large budgets in short time periods.

21. Accelerated Digital Media

Accelerated Digital Media has a high emphasis on accountability and reporting regarding performance media.

Their target audience is mid-market lead generation and eCommerce businesses looking for total accountability for every dollar they invest.

Accelerated Digital Media also does not have standard pricing; they use a custom quoting model. What you can find in their case studies are verifiable results that show sizeable improvements in lead pipelines with actual examples of how they decreased wasted expenditure and increased the number of high-quality leads generated.

22. MONSOON

MONSOON provides a full-service digital agency that combines the skills and experience of creative/artistic teams, creative media specialists and media buyers to achieve a common objective.

Google, Meta, and LinkedIn marketing are used by mid-market brands where the advertising language and visual elements must look exactly like the brand voice.

They charge a regular quoted rate and the evidence of success is seen through significant increases in brand lift and consistent returns against brands that will not sacrifice their identity for inexpensive clicks.

23. Search Scientists

Search Scientists specialize solely in handling Google ads and Amazon ads via a product feed management process for e-commerce companies. This agency also has expert knowledge of executing effective shopping campaigns for e-commerce companies.

The cost of their services is within the normal cost range of the online marketing industry. Search Scientists show revenue dollar growth on their case studies through ecommerce clients highlighting the balance of a direct-to-consumer website with an Amazon storefront, thus eliminating conflicts with sales on either platform.

What You Need to Succeed in Niche Markets

When operating in a complex marketplace, standard pay per click marketing agencies will fail. The proper tactical plan must be established according to the type of business model. As an example, software companies cannot operate like a retail company by employing the same bidding strategies.

Business to Business and Software Sales Cycles

Media buying for a business-to-business (B2B) requires an extended period of patience and a rich integration with a customer relationship management (CRM) system.

A B2B marketer’s primary focus should be on bringing in new product demonstrations, trial software, and tracking the attribution of a sale through the entire sales cycle. Google Search can be used in conjunction with LinkedIn and Microsoft Ads for account-based targeting for high intent customers.

The three primary metrics for B2B media buying are cost per demo, total pipeline dollar value, and customer acquisition payback period. Reporting only on low-cost top-of-funnel clicks when the sales team is actually starving for qualified meetings is completely useless.

Direct to Consumer and Retail Margin Bid Strategies

In the e-commerce arena, there are two sides to media buying - profit margins and product feeds. The eCommerce media buyer's concentration should be on Google Shopping (formerly known as PLAs), Google Performance Max & aggressive testing of creative (RG) on Meta.

eCommerce media buying must employ margin-aware bidding.

The three key metrics to measure for effective eCommerce media buying are the marketing efficiency ratio, contribution margin, average order value, and return rate. If an agency reports high return on ad spend (ROAS) with an extremely high volume of sales of very low-margin products that get returned the following week, your business is going to lose money.

Controlling Amazon Seller Ad Leakage

Amazon sellers will have unique business models from those of the average eCommerce seller. Amazon seller management agencies must maintain a strong focus on the harvesting of keywords and managing competing ads from a seller’s account.

Amazon seller management prices typically range from $1,000 - $3,500 per month, or 8 - 15% of total ad spend. Additionally, there are mandatory metrics used to measure success, total advertising cost of sales (TACOS), standard advertising cost of sale (ACOS), organic rank lift, and repeat purchase rate.

Making Media Buyers Accountable for Their Results

When partnering with outside pay per click marketing agencies, do not accept the agencies grading their homework. In order for you to have confidence in your outside agency's impact on your bottom line, you must require that media buyers tie every advertising dollar to your CRM pipeline and bank deposits.

If the agency cannot provide direct impact evidence to the bottom line, remove their access and find a partner that understands the real business economics.