Should I switch PPC agencies? An honest guide to making the call
I’ll declare my bias up front. A lot of Can-Do’s clients came to us after leaving another agency. So you might expect me to say ‘yes, switch, and switch to us’.
I’m not going to. Switching agencies costs time, money and momentum, and sometimes the problem isn’t the agency at all. Here’s how I’d make the call if I were sitting on your side of the table.
Why people really leave agencies
Setup and the CMO Institute run an annual survey of brands and agencies. Their latest results, published in January 2026, show a big gap between why clients leave and why agencies think clients leave.
Clients said: dissatisfaction with delivery (61%), dissatisfaction with value (61%, up from 36% the year before), and the agency not understanding their business (44%).
Agencies thought: client budget cuts (75%) and changes in client leadership (55%). Only 18% of agencies thought delivery was the reason, and just 3% thought it was not understanding the client’s business.
In other words, most agencies think they lose clients for reasons outside their control. Most clients say they left because the work, or the value, wasn’t good enough. If you’re reading this, you probably already know which side of that gap you’re on.
Signs it’s time to switch
One bad month isn’t a reason to leave. A pattern is. These are the warning signs I see most often when I audit accounts that new clients bring to us:
You don’t own your account. If the Google Ads account sits under the agency’s billing or manager account and you can’t get admin access, that’s a problem whatever else is going on. It’s your data and your history.
The reports don’t show what Google actually charged. Google’s third-party policy says that where an agency sends performance reports, they should show costs, clicks and impressions and ‘the exact amount charged by Google, exclusive of any fees’. Any management fee should be disclosed separately. If you can’t see that, ask why.
Nobody can connect the ads to revenue. Clicks, impressions and ‘conversions’ that don’t line up with sales or qualified leads in your own systems.
You were sold by a senior and handed to a junior. The person who pitched isn’t the person doing the work, and you can tell.
Nothing changes. Same campaigns, same ads, same recommendations for months. Or lots of changes that nobody can explain.
The incentives are wrong. If the fee is a percentage of your ad spend, your agency earns more when you spend more, whether or not it’s working.
You feel locked in. Long contracts and awkward exit terms are a sign an agency is relying on paperwork, not results, to keep you.
When it’s not the agency
This is the bit agencies rarely say out loud, because it sounds like an excuse. But it’s true, and you’ll waste money switching if one of these is the real issue:
Your tracking is broken. If conversions aren’t recorded properly, no agency can optimise properly. Smart bidding only knows what you tell it.
Your website doesn’t convert. Ads bring people to the door. A slow site, a weak offer or a clunky checkout will lose them, whoever runs the ads.
Your budget is too small for what you’re asking. Google says it can take up to around 50 conversion events or 3 conversion cycles for a bid strategy to calibrate. A tiny budget split across lots of campaigns may never get there.
The goalposts keep moving. Changing targets, budgets and priorities every few weeks resets learning and makes results impossible to judge.
The market changed. New competitors, rising costs per click or a drop in demand will hurt results with any agency.
If any of these ring true, fix them first. A good agency should be telling you about them anyway. If yours isn’t, that’s a sign in itself.
Try this before you switch
Have the honest conversation. Tell your agency exactly what’s not working and what ‘good’ looks like, in numbers. Plenty of relationships improve once expectations are clear.
Get an independent audit. A second pair of eyes will tell you whether the account is well run and the problem is elsewhere, or the opposite.
Set a 90-day plan with measurable targets. If those targets aren’t hit, and the reasons don’t stand up, you’ve got your answer.
How to switch without losing ground
If you’ve decided to go, the way you leave matters. A messy handover can cost you months.
Confirm you own everything. Admin access to Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Merchant Center and your Meta Business Manager. Billing should be in your name.
Keep the existing ad account. Don’t let anyone start a new one from scratch. The account history and conversion data are valuable.
Export everything. Performance reports, change history, audiences, negative keyword lists, and anything else that lives outside the account.
Check your contract. Notice period, who owns any creative or scripts, and what happens to data the agency holds.
Plan an overlap. Give the new agency time to audit before the old one leaves, so nothing is switched off by accident.
Don’t change everything at once. New bid strategies, budgets and structures all at the same time will put campaigns back into learning. Expect a settling-in period and change things in stages.
How to choose the next one
Don’t swap one problem for another. Before you sign, ask:
Who will actually work on my account? Meet them, not just the salesperson.
How do you charge? Flat fees, percentage of spend and performance fees all create different incentives. Make sure you understand which one you’re buying.
What are the contract terms? How much notice, and how easy is it to leave?
Will you audit my account first? A good agency will tell you what it would change, and what it wouldn’t, before you commit.
Can I speak to a current client? Not a case study. A person.
The long view
Good client-agency relationships tend to last. An ANA and 4As study in 2025 found average agency tenure has doubled to around seven years, from 3.2 years in 2016. Advertisers without mandatory reviews kept agencies for 8.1 years on average, compared with as little as 3.8 years for those with frequent reviews.
That’s not an argument for staying with a bad agency. It’s an argument for switching for the right reasons, choosing carefully, and then giving the new relationship a real chance to work.
If you’re on the fence, send me your account and I’ll give you an honest view. Sometimes that means telling you to stay where you are.
