PPC management services: what a month of work should include
PPC management services are the recurring work that keeps a Google or Microsoft Ads account from wasting money: search terms read and negative keywords added every week, budgets paced, bids steered by leads that became paying jobs, and Google's automatic changes checked. Every one of those jobs leaves a dated line in the account's change history, which Google keeps for 2 years, so you can verify the work yourself in ten minutes. Eloari runs PPC management for a flat fee from $900 a month, never a percentage of ad spend.
- The cadence good management follows: weekly, monthly, quarterly.
- Work you can check in change history, not just in a report.
- Bids judged on booked jobs and sales, not raw form fills.
- Flat fee, month to month, and the ad accounts stay yours.
Free account review
Tell us where you are. We reply within two business days with what we would fix first.
We will reply within two business days.
01 — The service
What are PPC management services?
PPC management is the ongoing operation of pay-per-click ad accounts after they are built: deciding which searches you pay for, how much you bid, how the budget is spread across the month, and which leads count as wins. It is a weekly job, not a launch. In the U.S., "ppc management services" is searched about 1,000 times a month, and advertisers bid up to $117.54 for the top of the page on that term (Google Keyword Planner, October 28, 2026).
Most proposals list the same nouns (keywords, bids, ads, reports) and none say how often, or how you would know. The agency pages ranking for "ppc management services" on October 30, 2026 list the same tasks; none we read mentioned change history, auto-applied recommendations or how often each job is done.
Search terms are the exact words people typed before your ad showed; keywords are what you told Google to bid on. Negative keywords are words that stop your ad from showing. Budget pacing is how evenly spend lands across the month. Offline conversion import sends Google the leads that became paying customers. Change history is Google's log of every edit made to the account.
02 — The cadence
What should a month of PPC management include?
Good management is a fixed rhythm of small jobs, each with a frequency and a trace. Search terms and lead quality move every week, so they are read every week; bid targets and ad tests need a month of data; account structure and channel mix are quarterly decisions. If a provider can't tell you how often each job happens, the honest answer is "when someone remembers."
| Job a manager should do | Common frequency | What it protects | What to ask your provider |
|---|---|---|---|
| Read search terms, add negatives | Weekly | Spend on searches you would never choose (jobs, DIY, wrong service, wrong city) | Show me the negatives added in change history |
| Check lead quality with you | Weekly | Bids chasing spam forms and short calls | Which leads did you mark qualified, and are sales uploaded? |
| Budget pacing | Weekly | A month spent by the 20th, or money left unspent on good days | When did you last change a budget, and why? |
| Review Google's recommendations and auto-applied changes | Weekly | Settings Google changes for you (broader match, new assets) | Is auto-apply on? Show me the Recommendations "History" tab |
| Adjust bid targets and test ads | Monthly | Cost per qualified lead drifting up unnoticed | Which test is running now, and what will it decide? |
| Structure, channel mix, offer | Quarterly | Budget stuck in what worked last season | What is the written plan for next quarter? |
These frequencies are a common industry standard for an active account, not a Google rule. Smaller accounts move slower; what matters is that the provider can name the rhythm and show the trace.
03 — Check the work
How can you tell if your PPC agency is actually doing the work?
Open change history in your own Google Ads account. Google says it lists the changes made to your account, campaigns and ad groups during the past 2 years, can be filtered by type of change, and shows in the "User" column the email address of whoever made each change through the interface (Google Ads Help, read October 30, 2026). A managed month leaves dated edits most weeks; a month of reporting alone leaves none.
| Step | Where | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Open the log | Campaigns menu → Change history | Set the date range to the last 30 days. |
| 2. Filter by type | Keyword edits, budget changes | Negative keywords added in most weeks, not one batch at launch. |
| 3. Read the User column | Each change row | A named person. "Google Ads system" or an API tool means a machine made it. |
| 4. Match it to the report | The timeline above the list | Every change the report claims should appear here, on its date. |
| 5. Ask about the gaps | Email to your manager | Two weeks with no edits and rising spend deserves a one-line explanation. |
Google notes that some account-level settings and changes made by Google representatives may not be listed, so treat the log as strong evidence, not a complete record. You can only read it if the account is yours: an agency that holds your account inside its own manager can also hold this log. For a one-time deep check, see our Google Ads audit.
04 — Budget pacing
Why does budget pacing need a person?
Because Google's daily budget is an average, not a cap. On a given day a campaign might spend up to twice its average daily budget, and over a month it will spend no more than 30.4 times that budget (Google Ads Help, read October 30, 2026). A $100 daily budget can spend $200 on a Monday and up to $3,040 in a month.
A garage door company bidding on "garage door repair near me", a term with about 165,000 U.S. searches a month and top-of-page bids from $13.73 to $77.05 (Google Keyword Planner, October 27, 2026), can spend up to twice its daily budget on a busy day and run out before month end if nobody checks. Pacing means checking spend against the month's plan and moving money toward what produces booked jobs.
05 — What Google changes for you
What does Google change in your account without asking?
More every year. Since September 1, 2026, Search campaigns using automatically created assets or campaign-level broad match are upgraded to AI Max for Search. Recommendations can be applied automatically at the account level once someone turns that on. And Google omits low-volume search terms from the search terms report for privacy, so part of what you pay for is never listed by name.
| Change (date) | What it does | What a manager should do |
|---|---|---|
| Auto-apply recommendations (account setting) | Applies chosen recommendation types on a schedule; logged in "History" and change history | Keep it off, or limit it to types the owner would accept anyway, and review what it applied |
| RSA auto-creation removed (January 26, 2026) | The "Add responsive search ads" recommendation no longer applies new ads | Write and launch ad tests on purpose, with a stated hypothesis |
| Offline imports move to Data Manager API (June 15, 2026) | Old Google Ads API uploads of offline conversions are blocked | Check that lead-to-sale uploads still arrive, so bidding sees paying customers |
| AI Max auto-upgrade (September 1, 2026) | Broader matching to searches you never listed, plus rewritten ad text in some cases | Read the search terms it adds and choose the settings deliberately, with the owner |
| Privacy threshold (ongoing) | Low-volume search terms are left out of the report | Watch the gap between reported terms and total cost; tighten match types if it grows |
Sources: Google Ads Help pages 10279006, 2998031, 13389795 and 2472708, read October 18 to 30, 2026; PPC Land, August 6, 2026, on the AI Max upgrade. Our guide What is Performance Max? covers the campaign type where you see the least.
06 — After the click
Does PPC management include what happens after the lead arrives?
It should, because bidding learns from whatever you count as a win. Google Ads can count a call as a conversion when it lasts longer than a minimum length you set; that measures duration, not whether a person answered or a job was booked. Across all industries, only 56% of calls to businesses are answered by a person, according to Invoca, a call tracking company (Lead Conversion Benchmarks Report, July 2026).
In a 2011 Harvard Business Review audit of 2,241 U.S. companies, 23% never responded to a web lead, and the average reply took 42 hours. Firms that reached a lead within an hour were nearly 7 times as likely to qualify it as firms that waited longer. A manager can't answer your phone, but can show you how many paid calls went unanswered and send Google only the leads that became customers.
How to Get More Business Leads You Already Paid For. Eloari, October 28, 2026 (11 min). The garage door company in the video is a made-up example.
The setup is covered on our conversion tracking setup page. Management is keeping it true every week afterward.
07 — Fee models
How much do PPC management services cost?
By Eloari's own survey of U.S. agency pricing (see the main page), flat retainers for small and mid-sized accounts run $1,000 to $5,000 a month, percentage pricing runs 10% to 20% of ad spend, most often 15%, and setup fees of $2,500 to $10,000 are common. Eloari charges a flat fee from $900 a month, with no setup fee and no markup on media.
| Monthly ad spend | 15% of spend | Eloari flat fee (tier) |
|---|---|---|
| $3,000 | $450 | $900 (Starter) |
| $6,000 | $900 | $1,500 (Growth) |
| $10,000 | $1,500 | $1,500 (Growth) |
| $25,000 | $3,750 | $2,500 (Full) |
Our arithmetic, October 2026. On small budgets a 15% fee is cheaper. The difference is the incentive. A percentage fee rises when your costs rise; a flat fee doesn't, so the only number a flat-fee manager can improve is your cost per customer. Judge any fee against your total budget: $900 is 18% of $5,000 in ad spend, in line with the market, and 45% of $2,000. The full breakdown of click costs is in How much does Google Ads cost?
08 — How we work
How does Eloari start managing a PPC account?
Tracking first, then spend. Onboarding takes about two weeks: the first week covers account access, conversion and call tracking, and a check that leads actually reach you; the second is the campaign build. Campaigns launch around day 14, real optimization decisions start between day 21 and day 30, and meaningful cost-per-lead improvement usually shows in month two or three.
| Stage | When | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Review | Day 0 | We look at your accounts and say whether we can help. Free. |
| Access | Days 1–7 | Tracking, call tracking, and a check that leads actually reach you. |
| Build | Days 8–14 | Campaign structure, ad copy, audiences, landing page changes. |
| Launch | Day 14 | Live at a controlled budget. |
| First read | Days 21–30 | Enough data to cut what fails and fund what works. |
PPC management covers paid search on Google and Microsoft Ads; the work covers budget pacing, search term mining, quality score, and wasted-spend control. How often we review depends on the tier: a monthly report on Starter, a biweekly review on Growth, a weekly review on Full (see pricing).
09 — Who runs it
Jonatã Ariel Silveira
President, Eloari Management Group · Meta Business Partner
The founder runs the accounts personally, with no handoff to a junior after the sales call. Eloari's founders, Jonatã Ariel Silveira and Eloisa Cola, bring more than 20 years in paid media and currently manage more than $100,000 per week in advertising spend across client accounts, from Davenport, Florida.
10 — Pricing
What does Eloari charge for PPC management?
A flat monthly fee by ad-spend tier, never a percentage of spend. There is no setup fee on any tier, the contract is month to month with thirty days' notice, and you pay the ad platforms directly. Every account is opened under your business and stays yours if you leave.
| Tier | Monthly fee | Suited to | Review rhythm |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $900/mo | Ad spend under $5,000/mo | Monthly report |
| Growth | $1,500/mo | Ad spend $5,000–$20,000/mo | Biweekly review, call tracking |
| Full | $2,500/mo | Ad spend $20,000+/mo | Weekly review, full tracking stack |
The fit is an established business spending $2,000 or more a month on ads, where one customer is worth several hundred dollars or more. Below roughly $2,000 to $3,000 a month in paid search there is rarely enough data to tell a working campaign from a lucky one.
11 — Related
12 — Questions
PPC management services: questions
What is included in PPC management services?
Good PPC management covers search-term review and negative keywords, budget pacing, lead-quality checks, bid-target and ad tests, and a periodic look at structure and channel mix. Ask any provider how often each job happens and where you can see it. Eloari's PPC management covers budget pacing, search term mining, quality score, and wasted-spend control, with a monthly report, biweekly review or weekly review depending on the tier.
How much do PPC management services cost?
By Eloari's survey of U.S. agency pricing, flat retainers for small and mid-sized accounts run $1,000 to $5,000 a month, percentage pricing 10% to 20% of ad spend, and setup fees $2,500 to $10,000. Eloari charges a flat fee from $900 a month with no setup fee.
How do I know if my PPC agency is doing anything?
Open Change history in your Google Ads account. It lists changes from the past 2 years, filtered by type, and the User column shows who made each change. A managed month leaves dated edits most weeks; a month of reporting alone leaves none.
Is a percentage of ad spend or a flat fee better?
On small budgets a 15% fee is often cheaper; at $3,000 of spend it is $450. But a percentage fee rises when your costs rise, so it rewards spending, not results. A flat fee keeps the manager's only lever on your cost per customer.
What is the minimum budget for PPC management?
Roughly $2,000 to $3,000 a month in paid search is the sensible minimum in the U.S. to generate reliable data. Below that, a management fee is a large share of the budget.
How long before PPC management shows results?
Campaigns usually launch around day 14, optimization decisions start between day 21 and day 30, and meaningful cost-per-lead improvement usually appears in month two or three.
Should I turn on auto-apply recommendations in Google Ads?
Usually not across the board. Auto-apply makes changes on a schedule at the account level, and you can see them in the Recommendations History tab and in change history. Apply only the types you would accept anyway, and review what was applied.
13 — Next step
Start with the review.
Send access to your Google or Meta account, or just tell us what you sell. We will tell you what we would change — whether or not you hire us. We reply within two business days.