The change history doesn't lie
Google Ads logs every change anyone makes in your account. Ask for access (you should own the account anyway) and look at the last ninety days. Real management shows steady activity: search term reviews, negative keywords added, bids and budgets adjusted, ads tested. Autopilot shows a flurry at setup and silence since.
Monthly work that matters
Search term hygiene, because broad match spends your money on nonsense unless policed weekly. Budget reallocation toward what's converting. Ad copy tests with actual conclusions. Landing page feedback, because clicks that land on a weak page are money burned at the last step.
And measurement checks. Conversion tracking breaks quietly all the time, and an agency optimising to broken data is optimising nothing.
Questions that separate the good ones
What did you change last month and why? What's our wasted spend percentage? Which keywords would you cut tomorrow? A good Manchester PPC team answers from memory. A bad one sends you a dashboard link.
On pricing
Percentage-of-spend pricing rewards agencies for spending more, not better. Flat fees tied to scope age better. Whatever the model, the test stays the same: is the work in the change history worth the invoice?