Do This Before You Hire a PPC Manager (Episode 523)

When a business owner hires a PPC manager, the natural instinct is to learn Google Ads first so they can supervise intelligently. Chris, host of The Paid Search Podcast, argues this is a mistake. Drawing on two decades of experience, he explains that a business owner who learns PPC before hiring an agency often brings half-baked opinions and conflicting methods that sabotage the relationship. Instead, he offers ten rules for managing a PPC manager—rules that keep the business owner in their lane (business expertise) and the manager in theirs (ads expertise), while setting up the campaign for real success.

Own Everything, Start with the Right Goal

The first rule is absolute: own your Google Ads account, your website, your landing pages, and your tracking phone numbers. If you rent your PPC infrastructure from an agency, you lose everything when you switch—your account history, your conversion data, your momentum. Make them work inside your account.