Is percentage-of-spend ever the right model?

Yes — for accounts under C$10K/month spend where flat retainers would consume too much of the budget. Above that level, the incentive misalignment outweighs the simplicity, and a flat retainer or hybrid model is almost always better for the buyer.

What's a reasonable management fee for a C$10K/month Canadian Google Ads account?

C$1,500–C$3,000/month flat, or 12–15% of spend (C$1,200–C$1,500/month). Hybrid: C$1,500 base + 5% of spend = C$2,000/month total. All three are defensible; the spread reflects agency stage and account complexity.

Should I bundle PPC with SEO under one agency?

For combined budgets under C$8,000/month, bundling usually produces tighter coordination. Above that, separating creates accountability — but only if your internal team can manage two vendors. Either model can work; the failure mode is when you bundle but never make the agency demonstrate cross-channel collaboration.

What's the deal with Performance Max in 2026?

Default for many e-commerce accounts and increasingly for lead generation. Performs well when you have strong first-party data and high-quality creative; performs badly when fed thin signals. A serious agency has a written PMax playbook, not 'we let Google's AI do its thing'.

How do I evaluate a PPC agency without spending real money?

Ask for a free 30-minute account audit (most credible agencies offer this). The depth and specificity of the audit findings — vs generic best-practice slides — tells you most of what you need to know about the team you'd actually be working with.

What about TikTok and emerging platforms?

If TikTok represents real audience for your business, your agency needs current expertise. If they're pitching it as a novelty, they're probably not running it well for any client. Ask for a recent TikTok account they've actively managed.

Questions to Ask Before Signing a PPC Contract 2026: Canadian Buyer's Guide

The decision in one paragraph

Most PPC engagements fail not because of bad campaign management but because of bad contracts. Fee models that scale with spend reward inefficiency. Agency-owned ad accounts create exit hostage situations. Vague attribution lets weak campaigns survive on credit they didn't earn. The right contract gives you transparent fees, full account ownership, contractually-defined optimization cadence, and a 30-day exit. Anything else is a service designed for the agency, not for you.

The 4 fee models — and which one to avoid

Every PPC engagement uses one of four fee models. Each rewards different agency behaviour. Understanding which one you're buying is more important than the dollar amount.

Percentage of ad spend (10–20%)
Standard model for managed ad accounts. Rewards the agency for spending more, not for spending well. Defensible at small accounts (under C$10K/month spend) where alternative models become uneconomic. Becomes problematic above C$25K/month spend, where the incentive to recommend higher budgets gets significant.
Flat monthly retainer
Honest model — the fee is decoupled from spend. Common ranges: C$1,500/month for small accounts (under C$5K spend), C$3,500/month for mid (C$5K–C$25K spend), C$8,000+ for larger. Cleanest incentive structure for buyers.
Performance-based / pay-on-results
Mostly a sales tactic. Real performance contracts require a mature, well-tracked sales pipeline and an agency willing to walk away if results don't materialize — which most aren't. The 'performance' usually still includes a base retainer plus a small variable component.
Hybrid (base + variable)
Common for mid-market engagements. A base retainer (C$2,500–C$5,000) plus a small percentage of spend (3–8%) or a bonus tied to specific KPIs. Most defensible model for accounts spending C$15K–C$50K/month.

Percentage-of-spend at scale rewards the wrong behaviour. The day you cut your ad budget by 30% because returns are weak is the day your agency loses 30% of its revenue from your account.

— Martin Vassilev, founder, Toronto SEO

Account ownership: who actually owns what

The most common PPC mistake Canadian operators make is letting the agency create the ad accounts. Six months later, when the engagement ends, you discover that 'your' Google Ads account, conversion data, audience lists, and creative assets all live inside an MCC the agency owns.

The fix is procedural and free. You create the accounts. You add the agency as a manager. When the engagement ends, you remove their access, and everything stays.

Google Ads
You create the account. Agency requests access via their MCC. You retain full ownership of the campaign data, conversion definitions, and all audience lists.
Meta Ads (Facebook + Instagram)
You create the Business Manager. You own the ad account inside it. Agency gets assigned as a partner — not as the owner.
Pixels and tag manager
Pixels live on your domain and inside your Business Manager. Tag Manager container lives in your Google account. Agency gets edit access; you keep ownership.
Creative assets
All ad creative, copy variants, video files, and brand assets live in your shared drive. Agency uses them; the master files stay with you.
Attribution / analytics
GA4, Looker Studio dashboards, and any attribution tools (e.g. Northbeam, Triple Whale) sit in your accounts. Agency builds dashboards inside your environment.

The 14 questions that matter

What's your fee model and why is it the right fit for our spend level?
Listen for: spend-level reasoning. Avoid: 'this is just how we do it'.
Will we own all ad accounts, pixels, and audiences?
Should be an immediate yes. Anything else is a structural problem.
Walk me through last week's optimization log on a current account
Specific changes, with reasoning. If they can't, the optimizations probably aren't happening.
How do you decide when to kill a campaign?
Real operators have written rules (e.g. ROAS thresholds, time-window evaluations). Sales pitches describe 'continual optimization'.
What attribution model do you use, and why?
Should mention data-driven attribution, multi-touch limitations, and offline-conversion uploads if applicable. If they say 'last-click', they're underselling weak campaigns.
How are you handling iOS 17/18 attribution loss?
If they don't have a current answer (server-side tracking, modeled conversions, first-party data strategy), they haven't been doing the work.
How do you build creative testing into the engagement?
Cadence (e.g. 2 new creative variants per week), how decisions get made, who writes vs designs.
How are you using AI in campaign management?
Specifically: which Performance Max + AI features, when do you opt out of automation, what's your stance on auto-generated creative.
What's a recent campaign you killed and why?
Mature operators talk about kills. Sales pitches don't have any.
How will we know in month 1 whether this is working?
Specific 30-day learning milestones — not 'it takes 3 months for ROAS to stabilize'.
What's your client-to-strategist ratio?
Above 12 active accounts per strategist, individual attention is structurally hard. Below 6 is unusually low (and may be priced accordingly).
How do you handle landing-page conversion-rate work?
Often out of scope, which is fine — but it should be explicit. CRO is a separate discipline.
What does monthly reporting include?
Pre-canned tool exports = thin. A written narrative + dashboard + recommendations = serious.
What would make you fire us as a client?
Refusing to share data, ignoring optimization recommendations, demanding scope outside competence — all healthy answers.

What 'managed PPC' should and shouldn't include

In scope (almost always)
Campaign structure, keyword/audience research, ad copy, bid management, daily optimization, weekly reporting, monthly strategy review, conversion tracking maintenance.
Sometimes in scope (negotiable)
Landing page CRO, creative production (video / static), shopping feed management, server-side tracking implementation, attribution modeling, lifecycle audience strategy.
Rarely in scope (separate engagement)
Brand-strategy work, full website redesign, organic SEO, lifecycle email, customer support, sales enablement.

Exit terms and the data you must walk away with

Plan the exit before signing the start. Engagement endings are emotional; the contract terms decide what happens next. Three contract clauses matter most:

30-day exit notice after a 90-day commit
Standard terms. Avoid 12-month auto-renew structures.
Full data handoff package
Campaign archive (export), conversion definitions, audience-list inventory, creative-asset library, optimization log for the engagement period.
Account access removal protocol
Documented steps for removing agency access from each platform. Should include: timeline, written confirmation, and an attestation that no copies of audience/customer data have been retained outside your environment.

Frequently Asked Questions

The questions Canadian operators ask before signing a contract.

Questions to Ask Before Signing a PPC Contract (2026)