PPC agency, UK-wide
A PPC agency is only worth what it does on a Monday morning
A PPC agency runs paid search advertising for you: the keywords, the ads, the bids, the negatives, the tracking and the report, on Google and usually Microsoft. Pay Per Click Management is a one-person PPC agency in Wrexham that manages accounts for UK businesses at a flat fee from £249 a month, set by spend band rather than as a percentage of spend. This page sets out what an agency actually does hour by hour, so you can judge any agency, including this one, on the work rather than on the pitch.
What the work is
What a PPC agency does by the day, the week and the month
Most of the job is reading. An account produces a list of the searches it paid for, a list of what each click did afterwards, and a list of what Google would like changed. An agency that reads those three lists on a schedule is doing the job; one that reads them when a client complains is not.
| Rhythm | What is read | What is done | How you can tell |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily, first fortnight | Search Terms from the day before; the conversion column | Negatives added; a broken conversion action fixed before it teaches the bidding anything | Change history shows entries on consecutive days |
| Weekly, after that | Seven days of Search Terms; impression share lost to budget and to rank; the recommendations tab | Negatives, budget moves between campaigns, recommendations declined or applied by hand | A weekly cluster of entries in the change history |
| Monthly | Cost per lead by campaign against the month before; ad strength and asset labels; landing page speed | Ads rewritten where an asset never serves; a page change requested; the report written | A report that names what changed and why, with the numbers beside it |
| Quarterly | The account structure against what the business now sells; the conversion values against what leads were worth | Campaigns merged or split; values updated; bid targets moved | A conversation about the business, not just the account |
The Monday Search Terms read is the whole method in one habit, and it is written up step by step in the guide to reading the Search Terms report, so you can do it on your own account before you pay anyone.
How to choose one
Eight questions to put to any PPC agency, with our answers
Ask them on the first call, in this order, before the fee comes up. The answers tell you more than the case studies do.
- How is your fee calculated?
- A flat fee by spend band: £249, £399 or £599 a month. A percentage of spend pays the agency more when you spend more, whatever comes back.
- Whose name is the account in?
- Yours. We link to it through a manager account you can remove in one click. If we build a new one, it is created on your Google login with your card on the billing.
- Who reads the Search Terms report, and how often?
- Daniel Stoychev, every week, negatives added the same day. Daily in the first fortnight of a new or rebuilt account.
- Will auto-apply recommendations be on?
- No. Google's suggestions are read weekly and declined in writing when they would spend more without a reason in the data.
- What does the monthly report lead with?
- Conversions and cost per lead, and where you tell us what leads were worth, return on spend plus fee. Never impressions.
- What is the contract?
- 3 months, then monthly with a month's notice. You keep the account, the data and the reports.
- Will you take my competitor as a client?
- No. One business per sector and area on the monthly plans, confirmed in the reply to your quote.
- What will you refuse to do?
- Charge a percentage, mark up the spend, run Performance Max as the only campaign, bid on your brand by default, or report clicks as results.
Red flags
Six things that should end the conversation
- The account will live in their manager account. Leaving then means starting from nothing: no history, no conversion data, no Quality Score.
- The fee is a percentage and the first recommendation is a bigger budget. The two facts explain each other.
- The proposal promises a cost per lead before anyone has read your Search Terms. Nobody knows your auction until they have seen it.
- The report sample leads with impressions and click-through rate. Those are the numbers that always go up.
- You cannot name the person who will set the bids. An account manager who relays your questions to a team is a delay, not a service.
- Performance Max is proposed as the whole plan. On a small budget it hides which searches spent the money and starves the Search campaign that would have told you.
What this agency is
One person, a flat fee, and an account you can leave with
Webso Digital is a web and search studio in Wrexham, registered with the ICO as ZC207002. Daniel Stoychev builds the landing pages, installs the tracking, reads the Search Terms, sets the bids and writes the report. There is no account manager and no team you never meet, which is why the fee can be a flat £249 rather than a share of what you spend.
The routine the fee buys is set out on the Google Ads management page and the client's side of the first ninety days on how we work. A new or rebuilt account carries a £199 setup fee; the tiers, the setup and the audit are all on the pricing page.
Related
Where this connects
PPC management company
The terms: ownership, notice, handover, what leaving looks like.
Google Ads agency
Google specifically: the defaults we change and what a badge measures.
Pricing
Three flat tiers, the setup fee, the audit.
Get a quote
Your spend and your sector; the fee and the first changes in reply.
Questions people ask before choosing a PPC agency
What does a PPC agency cost in the UK?
Most charge between 10 and 20 per cent of your ad spend, some with a minimum fee, some with a percentage on top of a retainer. Ours is a flat fee by spend band: £249 a month up to £1,000 of spend, £399 up to £3,000, £599 up to £8,000, plus a £199 setup when an account is built or rebuilt.
Is a PPC agency worth it under £1,000 a month of spend?
Only if the fee is small enough to leave the spend intact and the agency reads the Search Terms report every week, because on a small budget one bad week of matching is a tenth of the month. At £249 the Starter tier is built for exactly that band, and the small business page says when it is still not worth it.
How do I check a PPC agency is doing the work?
Open the change history in your own account. It lists every negative keyword added, every bid changed and every setting touched, with a date and a user. A month with three entries is a month with no management. Our access is through your account, so the history is always yours to read.
Do I need an agency near me?
No. The account lives in a browser and the conversations happen by phone, email and a shared screen. We are in Wrexham and every account is managed remotely for businesses anywhere in the UK; what matters is whether the person reads your account weekly, not which town they read it from.
What is the minimum contract with a PPC agency?
Anything from rolling monthly to twelve months. Ours is 3 months, because Smart Bidding needs a month of clean data before its numbers mean anything, then monthly with a month's notice.
Tell us what you spend. We reply with a fixed fee and the first three changes.
Your monthly spend, what a lead is worth to you and the address of the page your ads land on. Daniel Stoychev replies within one working day with the tier, the fee, what he would change first, and whether your sector and area are still free.