Key facts
- A business is entitled to hold admin level access to its own Google Ads, GA4, Search Console, and Google Business Profile, and confirming that access exists in the owner's own login, not only an agency's, is worth doing before any work begins, not after a relationship ends.
- Recording a simple baseline snapshot, current monthly leads, current organic traffic, current ad spend and cost per lead, before hiring gives a real number to compare against later, rather than relying on memory or a report written by the same party being judged.
- A written agreement that states the business owns its own website, ad accounts, Google Business Profile, and customer data protects against a difficult and sometimes costly account recovery process later if the relationship ends.
- Google Ads has a public minimum useful spend, and an account funded below that floor rarely gathers enough data to optimize well, which is worth knowing before agreeing to a budget too thin to ever show a fair result.
- SEO work typically needs a full billing cycle, often several, before a fair read on results is possible, so agreeing on a realistic evaluation timeline in advance avoids judging too early or too late.
Check What You Actually Own Before Anyone Else Touches It
List every account relevant to marketing that the business already has: GA4, Google Ads, Search Console, Google Business Profile, and any CRM or email platform in use. For each one, confirm whether you personally have admin access under your own login, not a login controlled by someone else.
If an account doesn't exist yet, create it under a login the business controls before handing it to a hire or an agency to manage, rather than letting them create and control it from the start.
Record Today's Numbers Before You Can't Remember What 'Before' Looked Like
Write down current monthly lead count, current organic traffic, current ad spend and its cost per lead, and current Google Business Profile calls and direction requests, pulled from the platforms directly. This becomes the number you compare against later.
Without a real baseline, any future claim of improvement rests on memory or on a report from the very party whose performance you're trying to judge, which is a weak position to evaluate from.
Settle Who Owns the Accounts and Data Before Work Starts
Get it in writing that the business, not the hire or the agency, owns the website, the ad accounts, the Google Business Profile, and the customer data collected through them. This single point prevents one of the most common and disruptive problems when a marketing relationship ends badly.
This is a normal, reasonable request, and hesitation to agree to it is worth treating as information about how the relationship is likely to go later.
Check That the Budget You're Planning Can Actually Work
If starting with paid search, check whether the planned budget clears the minimum level a channel needs to gather enough data to optimize well. A budget set too thin to ever show a fair result leads to an unfair judgment of the channel itself, not just the person running it.
If the budget can't clear that floor yet, it's reasonable to start with the free groundwork, a complete Google Business Profile and basic tracking, and grow into paid spend once the budget can support it properly.
Agree on a Fair Evaluation Timeline Before You Need One
Decide upfront how long the hire or agency gets before a first real evaluation, ideally a full billing cycle for paid work and longer for SEO. Put this in writing alongside the ownership terms, so neither side is negotiating the timeline itself in the middle of a disagreement about results.
Related questions
Not necessarily, but if any of these accounts don't exist yet, it's worth creating them under a login the business controls before handing management to a new hire or agency, rather than letting them create and control the accounts from day one.
Without a recorded starting point pulled directly from the platforms, any later claim of improvement has nothing solid to compare against, and it ends up relying on memory or on a report from the same party whose work is being evaluated.
At minimum, that the business owns the website, ad accounts, Google Business Profile, and customer data, plus an agreed evaluation timeline. These two points prevent the most common problems that surface later in a marketing relationship.
There's a practical floor under which an account simply lacks the volume needed to optimize with any confidence. If the available budget can't clear that floor yet, it's reasonable to build the free groundwork first and grow into paid spend later.
That depends on the scope of work and how specialized it is, but regardless of which you choose, the same access, baseline, ownership, and timeline checks apply before work starts, since they protect the business either way.
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