Hiring an Ecommerce PPC Agency? What to Expect Before You Sign

As the founder of Interlace Digital, a Shopify-focused performance marketing agency in Buffalo, I've opened a lot of ad accounts. Plenty of them looked great on the dashboard... and were losing money underneath.

That's the risk when you hand your pay-per-click (PPC) ads to someone else. These are the Google and Meta ads you pay for every time a shopper clicks.

If you run a Shopify store or lead marketing for a direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand, the right partner can turn that spend into new customers and real profit. The wrong one can burn through your budget for months before anyone notices.

So it pays to know what good looks like before you sign anything.

TL;DR on Hiring an Ecommerce PPC Agency

Here's the short version before you start talking to agencies:

• An ecommerce PPC agency plans, runs, and improves the paid ads that bring shoppers to your store.
• A good one judges success by your total sales, profit, and new customers.
• Creative testing, honest tracking, and a store that converts matter as much as the ads.
• You should always own your ad accounts, even when an agency runs them.
• Red flags include results that look too good, static-only ads, and long lock-in contracts.
• Give a new agency about 90 days before you judge the results.

What Is an Ecommerce PPC Agency?

An ecommerce PPC agency is a team you hire to run the paid ads that bring shoppers to your online store and turn them into buyers.

For a Shopify store, that usually means 2 ad platforms: Google and Meta (the company behind Facebook and Instagram).

Each platform reaches shoppers in a different way:

• Google Search: Your text ads show up when someone searches for what you sell, like "organic dog treats."
• Google Shopping: Your product photo, price, and store name show up right in the search results. These ads run on the product data you keep in Merchant Center (Google's home for your product catalog), according to Google.
• Performance Max: This is Google's automated campaign type. It can show your ads across Search, YouTube, Display, Gmail, Maps, and more from a single campaign, per Google's help docs.
• Meta ads: Your ads show up on Facebook and Instagram while people scroll. This is where you reach shoppers who haven't heard of your brand yet.

The agency decides how much to spend on each platform, what the ads say, who sees them, and when to scale up or cut back.

IMO, the best ones also care a lot about what happens after the click.

What an Ecommerce PPC Agency Does Week to Week

Once your campaigns are live, a good agency keeps working them every single week.

Here's what that work should include:

• Tracking checks: They confirm every sale gets counted once, in both Shopify and the ad platforms. If tracking is off, every decision after that is a guess.
• Budget moves: They shift money toward the products and campaigns that make you money. They also pull it from the ones that don't.
• Search term cleanup: On Google, they review the actual searches your ads showed up for. Then they block the ones that were never going to buy.
• Creative testing: They launch new ads on a steady schedule, because even your best ad wears out. We're producing 130+ new ads every month (as of the time of writing) across static images, video, and user-generated content (UGC). UGC is video made by real customers and creators.
• Landing page feedback: They flag product pages or offers that get plenty of clicks but very few sales.
• Plain-language updates: They tell you what changed, why it changed, and what they plan to test next.

If your agency only touches the account when the monthly report is due... I'd call that a problem.

When Your Shopify Store Is Ready for a PPC Agency

An agency works best when it has something proven to scale.

I'd rather tell a brand to wait than take its money too early.

You're probably ready if most of these sound like you:

• You already have customers: People buy your products today. Some of them come back for more.
• Your margins can support ad spend: You know roughly what you keep on each order after product, shipping, and fees.
• You can fund a real test: You can cover the ad budget and the agency fee for at least 90 days without betting the business.
• You've hit a ceiling on your own: You or your team ran the ads and saw some results. Then growth stalled.
• You want steady growth: You're after profitable growth that lasts, over a quick spike that fades.

If you're still figuring out whether people want your product, hold off for now. Paid ads will only help you find out faster (and more expensively).

Ecommerce PPC Agency vs In-House Team vs Freelancer

You have 3 common ways to run your paid ads.

Each one trades off cost, speed, and depth in its own way:

My take? An in-house hire makes sense once your spend is big and steady enough to keep a full-time buyer busy.

Until then, I think an agency gets you more skill for every dollar you spend on help.

How Much Ecommerce PPC Management Costs

There's no standard price for ecommerce PPC management.

What you pay depends on your ad spend, your goals, and how much work sits on top of the ads.

You're really paying for 2 separate things:

• Ad spend: The money that goes straight to Google and Meta. This money is yours, so it should be billed to your own card or account.
• The agency fee: What you pay the agency for strategy, management, creative, and reporting.

When you compare quotes, ask each agency these questions:

• What's included: Does the fee cover ad creative and landing page work, or only media buying?
• How the fee grows: Does it go up automatically when your ad spend goes up?
• What the commitment is: How long is the contract? What does it take to leave?

At Interlace Digital, we scope pricing to each store's ad spend, goals, and the mix of management, creative, and Shopify design it needs.

Our Shopify PPC management runs Meta and Google ads to a profit target. The same team also designs the pages your ads send shoppers to.

Judge any quote by what's left in your bank account after the agency's fee is paid.

The Numbers a Good PPC Agency Should Report On

Every ad platform grades its own homework.

That's why the numbers you judge an agency on matter so much.

The one you'll hear about most is return on ad spend (ROAS). It's the revenue an ad platform credits to your ads, divided by what you spent on them.

Spend $1,000, get credited with $3,000 in sales... that's a 3x ROAS.

The problem? Google and Meta can both take credit for the same sale. ROAS also ignores what you pay for the product, shipping, and fees.

That's why I'd rather see these numbers on your report:

• Blended return: Your total store revenue divided by your total ad spend across every channel. Some teams call this your marketing efficiency ratio (MER).
• New customer revenue: How much of your sales came from first-time buyers compared with repeat customers.
• Cost to win a new customer: What you spend on ads to bring in 1 new buyer.
• Profit after ad spend: What's left once product costs, shipping, fees, and ads are paid.

I've seen firsthand why this matters.

One new eComm client came to us after their previous agency had put 70% of the budget into a single retargeting campaign. Retargeting means showing ads to people who already visited your store or bought from you.

Here's what we found when we opened the account:

• Audience: Nearly all the spend went to people who already knew the brand.
• Creative: The same 5 to 10 ads had been running for about a year.
• New customers: Almost nothing was going toward finding them.

The dashboard looked fine.

The business wasn't growing.

If your agency can't tell you how many NEW customers you got last month, you don't have the full picture.

6 Red Flags to Watch for in an Ecommerce PPC Agency

I've taken over enough accounts from other agencies to spot these early.

If you see any of these, start asking hard questions:

1. You Don't Own Your Ad Accounts

Your Google and Meta ad accounts should sit under your business.

The agency should get partner access to run them. If an agency wants to create the accounts under its own business, push back.

If the agency owns the account, walking away can mean leaving your ad history and audiences behind.

That's your data. Keep it.

2. ROAS That Looks Too Good to Be True

A high ROAS sounds great.

Sometimes it's a warning sign.

We once took on a new client running at a 6 to 7x ROAS. The catch? Their total sales were down year over year.

Most of those ad sales came from existing customers buying again. Very few new people were finding the brand.

They could have spent more at a 3 to 4x ROAS, stayed profitable, and grown their customer base.

A big ROAS on flat sales usually means your ads are selling to people who'd buy anyway.

3. Only Static Image Ads and No Creative Testing

Ads wear out.

If your account runs the same few static images month after month, results will slide.

When we started with Sticky Brand, their Meta account was running static images only.

Our fix? We rebuilt it around new customer acquisition, launched UGC video, and tested offer-led static ads at volume.

That new creative was part of how Sticky Brand reported $729K in attributed revenue and a 4x MER. We tested 150+ ads along the way.

4. Reports That Stop at the Ad Platform Dashboard

If every report is a screenshot of Meta's Ads Manager, you're only seeing what the platform wants you to see.

A good report ties ad spend to your Shopify sales, your new customers, and your profit. It should also tell you what the agency plans to test next.

Try asking your media buyer how a sale gets credited to a specific ad or channel. If they can't explain it clearly, that's a red flag.

Want a second opinion on your current account? Our team does a free Facebook ads audit by hand.

You keep the findings report and a prioritized 90-day plan, whether you hire us or not.

5. Long Lock-In Contracts Before Any Results

I'd be careful with long contracts signed before an agency has proven anything. Big promises about future returns cost the agency nothing to make.

Good partnerships take time, so a commitment on its own is fine.

Just know the exit terms before you sign.

6. A Generalist Running Your Account

Plenty of "full-service" agencies do everything from search rankings to social media to ads. In my experience, most are strong in one area and spread thin everywhere else.

The rest of your work often lands with whoever has time.

For paid ads, you want a team that lives in Google and Meta every day and knows how Shopify stores make money.

What the First 90 Days With an Ecommerce PPC Agency Look Like

Every account is different.

Still, the first 90 days with a good agency tend to follow the same rhythm.

Here's what that looks like with our team:

Weeks 1 to 2 Cover the Audit and Tracking Fixes

The first job is finding out what's really happening in your account. That means auditing past campaigns, cleaning up the structure, and making sure every sale is tracked correctly.

Niagara Chocolates came to us averaging a 0.32 ROAS in 2022, after working with a large creative firm. That's $0.32 in sales for every $1 spent.

We audited their existing campaigns first, then used what we found to shape a fresh ad strategy.

Within 45 days, Niagara reported its Facebook ROAS had grown to an average of 2.1.

Month 1 Brings a New Account Structure and Fresh Creative

Once the data is clean, the new campaigns go live.

This is when creative volume really starts to matter. I'd say it's the biggest lever we pull for most brands.

For Half Baked Cookies, our team created and tested 75+ creative assets in the first 3 months to find winning ads. We also redesigned their Shopify theme so the store could turn more of that traffic into sales.

The brand reported going from $0 to $10K a month in sales in its first 90 days.

Expect results to bounce around during this stretch. The early weeks are for learning what works.

Months 2 to 3 Are for Testing, Cutting Losers, and Scaling Winners

By month 2, you should see clear winners and losers.

Now the job is to cut what isn't working and slowly put more budget behind what is.

Scale too fast and your costs jump. Scale too slowly and you leave sales on the table.

Marigold Gourmet Popcorn is a good example of this stage.

After a tailored plan, monthly ad creative, and Shopify store improvements, Marigold reported that its online sales doubled within the first 90 days.

By day 90, you should know your numbers, your best ads, and where your next dollar of ad spend should go.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Here are quick answers to the questions brand owners often ask before hiring an agency:

What Does an Ecommerce PPC Agency Do?

It plans, launches, and manages the paid ads that send shoppers to your online store. That covers budgets, targeting, ad creative, tracking, and reporting.

Is an Ecommerce PPC Agency the Same as an Amazon PPC Agency?

No. An Amazon PPC agency runs ads inside Amazon to sell your products on Amazon. An ecommerce PPC agency for a Shopify store runs ads on platforms like Google and Meta that send shoppers to your own website.

Should a Shopify Store Start With Google Ads or Meta Ads?

It depends on whether people already search for your product. Google reaches shoppers who are already looking, while Meta helps new people discover you. Many Shopify stores end up needing both.

How Long Does It Take to See Results From PPC?

Expect the first month to be mostly testing and learning. Give a new agency about 90 days before you judge whether it's working.

What Is a Good ROAS for an Ecommerce Brand?

It depends on your margins. Your break-even ROAS is roughly 1 divided by your profit margin per order. At a 50% margin, you need about a 2x ROAS just to break even.

Can a PPC Agency Fix a Low Conversion Rate?

Partly. Better targeting brings in shoppers who are more likely to buy. But a slow or confusing product page still loses sales, so the fix often needs Shopify web design work too.

Grow Your Shopify Store With Interlace Digital

My advice? Before you sign with anyone, ask them to walk you through their plan for your first 90 days. A good partner can tell you exactly what happens and when.

Interlace Digital is a Shopify-focused performance marketing agency, proudly based in Buffalo. We run Meta and Google ads for Shopify stores and DTC brands. Our team also makes the ads, from static images to UGC video.

We design the pages those ads send shoppers to, as well. Every account is run to a profit target. You get a live dashboard, weekly updates to your campaigns, and a call every 2 weeks.

Book a free discovery call to talk through your growth goals.

Let's build something great together.