How can I tell if my agency is actually working on my account?

Open the change history in Google Ads, which records every change and who made it. Regular activity across the month is maintenance. A cluster just before each report, or weeks of nothing, tells you the account is being reported on rather than worked on.

Is it normal for an account to have few changes?

A well built account needs less intervention than a poor one, so quiet is not automatically bad. What should never be quiet is the search terms report, the creative rotation and the conversation about which leads turned into customers.

Should I change agency or raise it first?

Raise it first in almost every case. Switching costs you six weeks of somebody learning the account, and a team that has drifted will often recover when asked directly for a change history, a wasted spend number and a plan with dates.

What access should I keep as the client?

Administrative ownership of your own ad accounts, analytics and tag manager, with the agency added as users. Ownership is what makes leaving a decision rather than a negotiation.

What does a good monthly report look like?

It leads with cost per lead or cost per sale, names what was changed and what happened, and says what is planned next with dates. Impressions and clicks belong in it, but not at the top, because neither pays anybody.

Signs your agency is running the account on autopilot.

2 October 20267 min readBeyond Vision Digital

A row of identical monthly report shapes, the last one outlined in orange and empty.

The short answer

Six signs point at an account nobody is working on: a change history with nothing in it for weeks, reports that show impressions and clicks but not cost per lead, the same explanation every month, no negative keywords added since setup, creative that has not changed in a quarter, and nobody asking you which enquiries turned into customers. Check the change history first, because it is the one that cannot be argued with. Then ask for the three things changed last month and why.

This is usually drift, not dishonesty

Accounts go quiet for ordinary reasons. The person who built yours moved to a bigger client, the account is performing acceptably so nothing is urgent, and a monthly report can be produced without opening anything. None of that requires anybody to be acting in bad faith, which is why it is worth checking rather than assuming.

It is still costing you. An account left alone does not stay still, because the auction around it moves even when it does not.

The change history settles it in five minutes

Google Ads records every change, who made it and when. You can see it yourself, and no report can contradict it.

Open it and look at the last ninety days. Regular small changes are what a maintained account looks like. A cluster of activity in the week before each report is a different thing entirely, and a gap of weeks with nothing in it is the clearest signal there is.

Five more things worth checking

None of these are conclusive alone. Together they are.

The report leads with impressions, clicks and click through rate, and you have to hunt for cost per lead. Presentation follows performance: the numbers that get top billing are usually the ones that look best.
No negative keywords have been added since the account was built, which means nobody has read the search terms report, which is where most wasted spend hides.
The same creative has been running for a quarter. On Meta especially this is visible in the numbers before anybody admits it, and our ad frequency and fatigue calculator will tell you whether yours is worn out.
Every month the explanation is seasonality, or the market, or iOS. All three are real. All three being the answer every time is not.
Nobody has ever asked you which enquiries became customers. An agency optimising towards form fills without knowing which ones were any good is guessing, however good the form fill number looks.

Ask three questions before you do anything

What were the three most significant changes last month, and what happened after each. Which part of the spend produced nothing in the last ninety days. And what would you do if the budget went up by a quarter, or down by a quarter.

Good answers are specific and slightly uncomfortable. Vague answers to all three, given confidently, tell you what you needed to know.

Fixing it is often better than leaving

Changing agencies has a real cost. New people take six weeks to learn an account that somebody already knows, and campaign history has value that does not transfer just because the login does.

So raise it directly first. Ask for the change history, the wasted spend number, and a plan with dates. A team that has drifted usually reacts to that by getting back to work. A team that cannot produce any of it has answered you.

When did somebody last open your account

It is a question you can answer today without asking anyone. Open the change history, look at the last ninety days, and see whether the pattern looks like maintenance or like reporting.

If what you find bothers you and you want a second opinion before making a decision, send us read only access and the last three reports. We will tell you what is actually happening in there, and if the answer is that it is being run well, we will tell you that too. Start with the enquiry form.

Questions we get asked.

How can I tell if my agency is actually working on my account?: Open the change history in Google Ads, which records every change and who made it. Regular activity across the month is maintenance. A cluster just before each report, or weeks of nothing, tells you the account is being reported on rather than worked on.
Is it normal for an account to have few changes?: A well built account needs less intervention than a poor one, so quiet is not automatically bad. What should never be quiet is the search terms report, the creative rotation and the conversation about which leads turned into customers.
Should I change agency or raise it first?: Raise it first in almost every case. Switching costs you six weeks of somebody learning the account, and a team that has drifted will often recover when asked directly for a change history, a wasted spend number and a plan with dates.
What access should I keep as the client?: Administrative ownership of your own ad accounts, analytics and tag manager, with the agency added as users. Ownership is what makes leaving a decision rather than a negotiation.
What does a good monthly report look like?: It leads with cost per lead or cost per sale, names what was changed and what happened, and says what is planned next with dates. Impressions and clicks belong in it, but not at the top, because neither pays anybody.