Hiring a Google Ads Specialist for Performance Max: What to Ask and Pay

Before a specialist runs Performance Max for you, ask who owns the Google Ads account, which actions count as conversions, what the six-week test will cost and how it will be judged, how reporting works, how the fee is built, and how you leave. If any answer is vague, do not sign.

Performance Max is Google's campaign type that places your ads across Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps from one budget, using Google's AI to choose where and to whom. That makes it hard to inspect, so the person running it matters more than with a classic Search campaign. The questions below are the ones I would ask, in the order that protects you most.

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Why Performance Max raises the stakes when you hire

A traditional Search campaign shows you every keyword you bid on. Performance Max hides most of that. You give it a budget, a goal, a set of assets (text, images, video) and some audience signals, and it decides the rest. Google's help page recommends at least 20 text assets (15 headlines and 5 descriptions), at least 7 images and at least 1 video, which is a lot of material for a small firm to supply.

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Two consequences follow. First, the quality of the instructions you feed the system, above all what it is told to count as a win, decides almost everything. Second, a weak specialist can hide behind the automation: "the algorithm is still learning" can excuse six months of nothing. Your questions have to pin down what you will see, when, and what happens if it does not work.

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For basics on budgets and how clicks are charged, read Google Performance Max pricing and the minimum budget first; this tutorial assumes you have decided to go ahead and are choosing the person.

The worked example: a mortgage broker's six-week test

Illustration only. Take a four-person mortgage brokerage that wants enquiry calls and form fills. It can spend about $700 a week on ads, so a six-week test is $4,200 of media. A specialist offers three fee structures for the same work:

The fees are assumed figures, not market rates, but the lesson is real. Over a short test the setup-plus-flat option looks most expensive, yet over twelve months it can be the cheapest because the setup is paid once. The percentage option is cheapest now but grows every time you raise the budget. Whichever you pick, divide the all-in cost by the enquiries you can verify yourself, not the ones the specialist reports. The rest of this tutorial is about making sure that denominator is honest.

Question 1: Is the account in my name, and am I an administrator?

This is the question that decides whether you can leave. Google Ads lets the account owner invite other people by email and choose an access level, and Google's help page notes that an account with only one administrator can lose control of its tags if that person becomes unavailable, so it suggests adding at least one more. For you, the practical rule is simple: the account is created with your business email and your payment method, you hold Admin access, and the specialist is invited with the level they need to do the job.

Some specialists propose running your campaigns inside an account of their own, or inside a manager account they control with your campaigns copied across. The risk is plain: the conversion history and learning that make Performance Max work belong to that account. If you part ways, you start from zero.

A good answer sounds like this:

"The account is yours. You create it (or we do it together on a call),
you stay Admin, and I'm invited as Standard access. Billing stays on your card.
If we part ways you revoke my access under Admin > Access and security
and everything stays where it is."

A bad answer: "We handle billing through our agency account to simplify things." Simplicity for them, lock-in for you.

Question 2: What exactly will you count as a conversion?

Performance Max optimises towards whatever you tell it counts. If the only conversion is "page view of the thank-you page", it will find cheap people who reach that page, whether or not they ever speak to a broker. Ask the specialist to list every conversion action, the value assigned to each, and how they know it fires correctly.

For the mortgage broker, a sensible starting set might be:

• A tracked click-to-call from the ads (primary).
• A submitted enquiry form (primary).
• A booked consultation from the calendar page (primary).
• A newsletter signup (secondary, so it is recorded but not optimised towards).

Then ask the harder follow-up: "How will you tell good enquiries from junk?" The strongest specialists will set up a way to feed your real outcome back to Google, for example by uploading which enquiries became appointments. If they cannot explain this in plain words, you are paying for volume, not quality. The tutorial on Performance Max conversion tracking and what Smart Bidding needs first covers the mechanics so you can judge the answer.

Question 3: What does the six-week test look like?

Google's help page on Performance Max best practice says to run new campaigns for at least six weeks, and to avoid frequent changes to budget, bid strategy or campaign status in that period because they can reset the learning phase. It also says that after a significant change to an existing campaign you should allow a shorter learning period of one to two weeks, or at least one full conversion cycle. That gives you the vocabulary for a written test plan.

Ask for the plan on one page before any spend:

Test plan (to be agreed in writing)
Start date:            [date]
Weekly budget:         $[amount]  (no changes in weeks 1-6 unless agreed)
Primary goal:          [enquiry calls and forms]
What we will NOT do:   change budget, bid strategy or pause the campaign
                       during weeks 1-6
Week 3 check:          assets, search terms, tracking sanity only
Week 6 decision:       continue, change or stop, against these numbers:
  - enquiries (verified in your own CRM)
  - cost per enquiry no higher than $[figure]
  - share of enquiries that were qualified: at least [percentage]
Stop rule:             if tracking is found to be broken, we pause and fix it
                       and the six weeks restart.

Notice what this does. It stops the specialist fiddling in week two and then blaming the algorithm. It gives you a decision date. And it separates a tracking fault, which is a reason to restart, from poor performance, which is a reason to judge. The detailed logic of when to run a test and when to skip it is in Is Performance Max worth it for a small business?.

Question 4: What will I see in reports, and can I open them myself?

Because you are an administrator in your own account, you can see everything the specialist sees. The reporting question is therefore about interpretation and habit: how often, in what form, and with which numbers.

Ask for a monthly report with a fixed layout, and for these items in it:

• Spend, conversions by action, and cost per conversion, matching what Google Ads itself shows.
• The search terms and search categories your ads appeared for, with irrelevant ones flagged and what was done about them.
• Which channels the money went to, so you can see whether most of it went to Display or YouTube when you expected Search.
• What changed since last month, with dates, so you can connect changes to results.
• Your own CRM or phone-log count of enquiries, beside Google's count.

One trap: asset "ratings" used to be quoted as evidence of what works. Google's current Performance Max asset-reporting help pages no longer describe those performance labels, and version 23 of the Google Ads API (January 2026) removed the aggregate asset performance-label metrics. If a specialist's report leans on them, ask what they are using instead. For what good asset reporting looks like, see how agencies explain Performance Max asset results.

Question 5: How do you handle brand searches and bad queries?

Performance Max can show your ads to people who were already looking for you by name. That is cheap to win and flatters the numbers, because those people would likely have found you anyway. Ask how the specialist separates brand searches from new-customer searches, and how they will report the two apart.

Then ask about negative keywords, the words that stop your ads showing for unwanted searches. Google's negative-keyword help says negatives now automatically account for casing and misspellings, but synonyms, singular and plural forms still have to be added by hand. A competent specialist knows this and can show you the list they maintain. For the mortgage broker, the list might begin with "jobs", "salary", "course", "template" and "free download".

A filled-in example of the answer you want:

"Week 1 I add an account-level negative list: jobs, careers, salary,
training, course, template, free. Week 2 I read the search terms and
categories report and add anything irrelevant, singular and plural both.
Brand searches are reported separately so you can see new-customer
enquiries on their own line."

Question 6: Which AI features will you switch on?

Google Ads keeps adding AI controls around Search and Performance Max. AI Max for Search campaigns is the main one at the moment. Google's API documentation says that in Search campaigns the text customisation and final URL expansion settings default to opted out and that enabling AI Max only turns on search-term matching by default. Google's help page for ads in AI-powered Search experiences, though, recommends turning both on. Text customisation lets Google rewrite headlines and descriptions from your own material; final URL expansion lets it send people to a different page on your site than the one you chose.

Neither is wrong in principle, but each changes what the public sees under your name. For a regulated business such as mortgage broking, wording matters. Ask for these commitments in writing:

• No AI-generated headlines or landing-page changes go live without your approval.
• You get a list of which AI settings are on and when they changed.
• If a new Google feature auto-enrols campaigns, the specialist tells you within a week and says whether they switched it off.

If you are deciding between the two campaign types for a local firm, AI Max or Performance Max for a local business sets out the trade-off.

Question 7: What does the fee cover if I cut the budget?

I will not quote a market-rate percentage, because I cannot verify one from a vendor page and rates vary a lot between freelancers and agencies. What you can do is compare quotes on a like-for-like task list. Ask each candidate to price these separately:

1. Account setup and conversion tracking (one-off).
2. Asset creation: who writes headlines, who makes images and video, and who pays for stock or tools.
3. Monthly management: how many hours, which tasks, how many calls.
4. Reporting: format and frequency.
5. Extras: landing-page changes, call tracking, feed management.

A second illustration, again with assumed fees rather than market rates. Two quotes for the same signage company with a $2,000 monthly budget:

Quote A feels cheaper at the start and costs more once you scale. Ask both specialists: "If I halve the budget in a bad month, what do I owe?" A percentage fee falls with spend, which some owners like, but it also means the specialist earns more when you spend more, and may push you to spend more. A flat fee protects you from that push but does not reward a growing account. Neither is wrong. Choose the one whose incentives you can live with, and make sure the task list is identical before you compare prices.

Question 8: How do we part ways?

Exit terms are where good relationships stay good. Ask for these in the agreement:

• Notice period: ideally one month, not a fixed twelve-month lock-in. If there is a minimum term, ask what you receive for it.
• Access: you keep Admin throughout; they are removed on your say-so, the same day.
• Assets: headlines, images and video made for you are yours, and handed over in a shared folder on exit.
• Documentation: a one-page handover listing conversion actions, negative lists, audience signals, and the date of every major change.
• Third-party tools: if call tracking or a landing-page tool is billed through them, who pays after you leave, and can the number or page be transferred?

Phrases in a proposal that should make you pause

Here are the lines I would circle, each with what is wrong with it.

• "We guarantee a return of X." No honest specialist can guarantee it. You can agree a test plan and decision rule; you cannot buy a result.
• "We will have it optimised in two weeks." Contradicts the six-week guidance on Google's own page.
• "Reporting is in our private dashboard." Fine as an extra, but not instead of your own access to the account.
• "Performance Max for everything." A local firm with a small budget may do better with a plain Search campaign first, and a store with a product feed might compare Performance Max with standard Shopping. A good specialist recommends the cheapest structure that works, not the most fashionable one.
• No questions for you. If they do not ask about margins, your best customers and which enquiries convert, they cannot set the goal properly.

For a catalogue of mistakes that cost small firms money, see nine costly Performance Max mistakes.

How the thank-you-page trap tends to look in practice

Here is how the commonest failure tends to appear. A signage company hires a specialist, who sets one conversion: a visit to the "thanks for your enquiry" page. Two weeks in, the report shows 40 conversions at a low cost each and everyone is pleased. The owner then checks the inbox: 14 real enquiries, six of them from people asking for a job. The thank-you page was also reachable from a link in a confirmation email, so repeat visits counted too.

How to catch it: compare Google's conversion count with your own tally every week for the first month. The two should be in the same region. If Google shows three times your number, ask the specialist to show which action produced the extras. The fix is usually to count the form submission itself, remove duplicates, and add a call conversion, then restart the six-week clock honestly.

A scoring sheet for comparing two or three specialists

Score each candidate from 0 to 2 on every row (0 no or vague, 1 partly, 2 clear and in writing). Anyone scoring 0 on ownership or exit terms is out, whatever the total.

Using an AI assistant to check a proposal for gaps

You do not need to be an advertiser to test a proposal. Paste the proposal (remove names and prices you would rather not share) into an AI assistant and ask it to find gaps against this list. A prompt that works:

I am a small business owner about to hire a Google Ads specialist to run
Performance Max. Below is their proposal. Check it against these eight
points: account ownership and admin access; named conversion actions;
a written six-week test with a decision rule; reporting contents;
brand versus non-brand separation; AI features needing my approval;
itemised fees; exit terms. For each point say "covered", "vague" or
"missing", quote the sentence that supports your verdict, and write
the one question I should ask them. Do not guess: if the proposal is
silent, say "missing".

[paste proposal]

A typical illustrative output flags "missing" on exit terms and "vague" on reporting ("monthly performance summary" with no contents) and drafts the question "Which reports will you send, in what format, and will they include my own enquiry count?" Use it as a prompt for your own judgement, not a verdict. If you would like someone to sit with you while you compare quotes, that is what my AI implementation consultation is for.

The first month after you sign, day by day

1. Day 1: confirm you are Admin and that billing is on your card.
2. Days 1 to 5: test every conversion yourself: make a call from the ad, submit the form, and check each appears in Google Ads.
3. Day 7: read the search terms and categories report together on a call; add negatives.
4. Week 3: the light-touch check from the test plan; resist the urge to change anything else.
5. Week 6: the decision meeting, with your CRM count on the table.

If it works, you will have a campaign you own, a specialist you can trust, and a record of why. If it does not, you will have a clean exit and an account with data that the next person can use.

Questions owners ask before signing

Should the specialist run my ads from their own Google Ads account?

No. The account should be created in your name, with you as an administrator, and the specialist invited with the access level they need. If they run your campaigns inside an account they own, your conversion history and learning leave with them when the contract ends.

How long should I give Performance Max before judging it?

Google's own help page says to run a new campaign for at least six weeks and to avoid frequent budget, bid-strategy or status changes in that period, because they can reset learning. After a significant change to an existing campaign it suggests allowing one to two weeks or one full conversion cycle.

Is a percentage of ad spend a fair fee?

It can be, but it pays the specialist more when you spend more, whether or not results improve. Compare it with a flat monthly fee for the same list of tasks, and ask what happens to the fee if you cut the budget in a weak month.

What if the specialist says reporting is confidential?

Treat it as a red flag. You own the account, so you can always open it yourself and read the numbers. A specialist should be glad to walk you through the same screens you can see, not offer a polished summary in place of them.

Further reads

• Can AI Manage Your Google Ads Without an Agency? — Find out which jobs AI can take on before you pay anyone.
• Performance Max vs Standard Shopping for a Small Online Store — Product sellers: check whether Performance Max beats standard Shopping.
• AI Consultant vs Agency vs Freelancer: Which Should You Hire? — Compare the three kinds of help before you shortlist anyone.
• How to Hire Your First AI Automation Specialist — A general hiring checklist you can reuse for other specialists.
• AI Max Negative Keywords: How PPC Agencies Control Search Term Spend — A weekly routine for the lead approving AI Max spend: AI sorts the search terms, a protect check guards converters, and negatives go in at the right level.
• AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.

Sources: Google Ads Help (Performance Max optimisation tips, managing access to your Google Ads account, negative keywords, AI Max and text customisation), Google Ads API documentation.