Three questions to ask anyone who wants to manage your ad budget

Before I take an account, I answer three questions out loud. I recommend you ask the same of anyone offering to manage your advertising.

Question one: what happens if it does not work?

A manager who flinches answers with volume. More impressions, more time, more budget. An operator answers with the verdict rule: what happens on which date, with which evidence, at whose cost.

The answer should contain a date and a dismount. If there is no date, there is no plan.

Question two: how do you measure success?

If the answer starts with clicks, impressions, or cost per lead, the conversation is over. These are activity metrics. The account exists to produce booked jobs at a known cost. Any other primary metric is decoration.

Follow up with: what does your report measure at month end. The correct answer is confirmed booked work, tied to dollar values when the client can confirm them.

Question three: who owns the account and the data?

The correct answer is you. The ad account, the tag container, the conversion history. You own it from day one, and if the engagement ends, everything stays with you.

Any answer involving “we will migrate it later” or “that is on our infrastructure” is a hostage arrangement dressed as an agency arrangement.

The fourth question

Ask what has a budget cap and a written verdict date. Anyone who hesitates has not run a bounded test before.

I count conservatively. Every untracked job is your upside, not my credit.