My local agency sends me a monthly report with good-looking numbers but my actual enquiries have not gone up in 9 months.” RankFast hears a version of this every time a local business owner requests a mid-campaign audit before deciding whether to switch local ppc agency providers.
Across 22 of these audits, spanning different categories and different previous agencies, every single account showed at least 3 of the same 4 structural issues. Not similar issues. The same 4, appearing regardless of whether the previous provider was a national franchise, a boutique shop, or a freelancer.
Here is what those 4 patterns are, how to check your own account for them before signing anything, and the 5 questions that separate an agency worth keeping from one that is hoping you never ask.
Key Takeaways
- Across 22 mid-campaign audits, every account showed at least 3 of 4 patterns: broad match cannibalisation, no call tracking beyond basic call extensions, the wrong conversion goal, and no negative keyword maintenance in 60-plus days.
- Broad match keywords with no commercial intent consumed 40 to 70 percent of budget in the audited accounts. Separately, a WordStream account study found the average Google Ads account wastes $1,127.54 of a $3,127.38 monthly spend, which is directionally consistent with what RankFast found.
- Most local business owners do not actually own their Google Ads account; it was created inside the agency’s Manager Account (MCC) instead, which means switching agencies can mean losing years of historical data, not just changing who logs in.
- The single fastest way to evaluate a current agency honestly is requesting 90 days of search term reports and the account’s change history, not the monthly performance summary they already send.
What RankFast Found In 22 Mid-Campaign Audits
Every one of the 22 accounts reviewed showed at least 3 of the following 4 issues, regardless of category or previous agency. This is what a struggling local business PPC account looks like from the inside, not from the monthly report: broad match keywords consuming 40 to 70 percent of budget on queries with zero commercial intent (a search for “what is [service]” appearing in a campaign built for bookings), no call tracking beyond the basic Google Ads call extension, so calls were counted as conversions without recording the outcome, the conversion goal set to a form submission or phone tap instead of a confirmed booking, and no negative keyword additions in the past 30 to 60 days, meaning the account was effectively running on autopilot.
SAMPLE DATA, NOT REAL: the breakdown below shows the format for a per-pattern frequency count. Confirm the real numbers against the 22 audit files before using this anywhere external.
| Pattern | Accounts Affected (of 22) | Share |
| Broad match cannibalisation | 19 | 86% |
| No call tracking beyond call extensions | 17 | 77% |
| Wrong conversion goal (form fill, not booking) | 20 | 91% |
| No negative keyword maintenance in 60+ days | 15 | 68% |
Amber shading marks this as sample data built to show format only. Replace with real counts from the 22 audit files before publishing.
How To Audit A Local PPC Account Before Switching Agencies
Evaluating local Google Ads management honestly means requesting the underlying data, not the summary an agency chooses to send. Four requests reveal almost everything:
| What To Request | What It Reveals |
| Search term reports for the last 90 days | Proportion of queries with zero commercial intent still being funded |
| Conversion tracking settings | Whether the tracked event is form submission, phone tap, or confirmed booking |
| Campaign change history | When a human last added negative keywords, modified bids, or updated ad copy |
| Last 6 months of CPL, by campaign and keyword | Real cost efficiency, not a blended number that hides which campaigns are failing |
A legitimately performing agency provides all four without hesitation. An agency that offers only the monthly performance summary is protecting something, and it is usually one of the 4 patterns above.
The Call Tracking Setup A Local Business Campaign Actually Needs
Dynamic number insertion (DNI) through a platform like CallRail or CallTrackingMetrics, tracking at the keyword level so each campaign gets a unique number and calls attribute back to their actual source, not just to “Google Ads” as a channel. The intake team then tags every call as connected, left voicemail, booking made, or not qualified, and the booking-made outcome imports back into Google Ads as an offline conversion via the Google Click ID (GCLID).
This is the only setup that shows cost per booking rather than cost per ring, which is the number that actually determines whether the campaign is working. Basic call extensions count that a call happened. They say nothing about whether it turned into a job.
Who Actually Owns Your Google Ads Account
Google Ads agencies manage client campaigns through a Manager Account, formerly called an MCC, which lets one login control many client accounts at once. That structure is standard and legitimate. The problem is what happens one level down: the right way is for the client’s account to exist independently, created under the client’s own login, with the agency requesting manager-level access to it. The wrong way is for the agency to create the account directly inside their own Manager Account, making it a child asset the agency owns outright, with the client holding only user-level access (Kampaio; Ritner Digital). Most business owners never ask which setup they got, and most agencies never volunteer the answer, which is exactly how a switch turns into losing years of historical conversion data instead of a clean handoff.
Checking this takes five minutes: log into Google Ads, go to account access settings, and see whether the account itself is independently owned with the agency listed as a manager, or whether the account lives inside the agency’s Manager Account as a child. Anyone searching local PPC management near me while evaluating a new provider should ask this question before signing anything, not after the relationship sours.
Five Questions To Ask Before Signing With A Local PPC Agency
Generic local ads agency 2026 pitches tend to lead with case studies and creative examples. None of the following questions are about creative, and all five are non-negotiable:
- Who owns the Google Ads account? Can I log in right now with my own email?
- What conversion event will the campaigns optimise toward, a form fill or a confirmed booking?
- How will you track whether calls from ads convert to booked jobs or appointments?
- What is the reporting cadence, and what specific numbers will be in each report?
- What is your negative keyword maintenance process, and how often do you actually update it?
An agency that cannot answer the first question with “it is your account, here is your admin login” should not receive the business, regardless of how the rest of the pitch sounds.
What Wasted Ad Spend Actually Costs A Local Business
Broad match cannibalisation is not a rounding error. In accounts running Google Ads small business campaigns at a typical local budget, 40 to 70 percent of spend going to zero-intent queries turns a $2,000 monthly budget into an effective $600 to $1,200 budget once the waste is removed. That range is broadly consistent with a WordStream account study, which found the average Google Ads account wastes $1,127.54 out of an average $3,127.38 monthly spend, a little over one third gone before it ever reaches a genuine prospect (WordStream account study, via Uproas).
The business owner reading a monthly report that shows steady impressions and clicks has no way to see this from the summary alone. It only shows up in the search term report, which is exactly why requesting it is step one of any real audit.
Results After Fixing All Four Patterns
The table below is the shape of the before-and-after RankFast reports back once broad match is scoped, conversion tracking moves to booking-level events, call tracking is added, and negative keyword maintenance resumes. Fill in one anonymised account’s real numbers before this section publishes, consistent with every other piece in this batch.
| Metric | Before Fix | After Fix (Day 90) |
| Cost per booking | [insert] | [insert] |
| Percent of budget on zero-intent queries | [insert] | [insert] |
| Bookings tracked monthly | [insert] | [insert] |
Left as a template deliberately. Replace with one real, anonymised account’s figures before publishing.
The Report Was Never The Problem
A monthly report with rising impressions and steady clicks can sit directly on top of an account wasting most of its budget on the wrong queries, tracking the wrong event, and running on autopilot. That is not a coincidence across 22 different businesses and 22 different previous agencies. It is what happens when nobody checks the search term report, the conversion settings, or the change history, because the summary always looks fine on its own. Good local PPC agency work is measured in those three places, not in the report itself.
This is the same audit RankFast runs before every local PPC engagement it takes on, and the same standard applied across every service RankFast offers: if the underlying data cannot be shown without hesitation, the summary on top of it is not worth trusting either.
