How to audit an agency media plan before signing the contract

A twelve-page PDF arrives with one Google line, a management percentage, and a blended cost per lead. It does not name campaign types. It does not name the conversion.

That plan can look cheap because brand Search already converts. The rest of the budget can still buy inventory nobody agreed to fund.

Read the plan for waste before anyone signs. This is not a dashboard rebuild, and it is not a brief on who to hire.

Split brand Search from demand you have to buy

Brand queries are people already looking for the company. Non-brand queries are people looking for the job. A blended cost per lead hides how much of the plan is navigational.

Ask for brand Search in its own campaign, with its own budget line. If the PDF cannot split those two, the efficiency number is not a buying decision. It is a mix.

Performance Max and some Search setups will still spend on brand terms unless a brand list is applied. That leak, and how to exclude those queries, is covered in stop Performance Max from bidding on your brand name. A plan that never mentions a brand list is betting the mix stays pretty.

A media plan that never lists search impression share also cannot tell you whether the budget even competed. Lost auction share is a different report, covered in why search impression share dropped while budget stayed flat. If the PDF only shows spend and leads, you cannot see missed auctions.

Name the conversion the plan is allowed to bid on

If the contract does not name the action, the agency can optimize to whatever fills the Conversions column. That column is not a scoreboard of every tracked event. It is the set of primary actions used for bidding.

Primary actions versus observation

Google Ads primary and secondary conversion actions split that job. Primary actions report in the Conversions column and feed bidding when the campaign uses that goal. Secondary actions are for observation in All conversions, not for bidding, unless they sit inside a custom goal.

A plan that treats page views, video views, or add-to-cart as the win, while sales is a form submit, will spend toward the easy event. Put the form or the purchase as primary. Leave the rest as observation unless you truly want to buy those clicks.

Google Analytics events imported into Google Ads start as secondary. They stay observation until someone marks them primary in Google Ads. A PDF that says tracking is done because Google Analytics 4 is linked has not named the biddable action.

One Google line that mixes Search and Display

The Google Display Network reaches people on websites, apps, YouTube, and Gmail while they browse. Search reaches people who typed a query. Google's own help text treats those as different moments in the buying cycle.

A single Google budget that does not split Search from Display, Demand Gen, or Performance Max is not a channel plan. It is a permission slip to move spend wherever the interface is cheapest to fill. Ask for named campaign types and a cap per type, or do not sign.

View-through conversions on Display count people who saw an ad and later converted without a click. That number can pad a plan that is really buying impressions. If Display is in the mix, ask whether success is clicks to a form, or views that later get credit.

Refuse a plan that hides the account or the mix

The advertiser should hold a Google Ads login with enough access to export campaigns, change history, and billing. An agency-only login is not a media plan. It is a lock on the history you will need when the retainer ends.

Ask to sit in the account during the first week, not only in a slide. Change history should show who paused Search, who raised Display, and which conversion was marked primary. If that trail lives only in the agency's login, you will not have it later.

These gaps are enough to send the PDF back. None of them require a full strategy engagement to spot.

• Brand and non-brand Search share one campaign and one blended cost per lead.
• Performance Max or Search has no brand list, so navigational queries pad results.
• Display, YouTube, or Demand Gen sit inside one unnamed Google budget line.
• Page views or video views are primary, while the sale is a form submit.
• The agency owns the ads login and will not grant export access.
• Success is clicks, impressions, or an organic ranking the ads product does not sell.
• No geo, language, or schedule, so spend can run in markets you do not serve.

A management fee as a percentage of spend rewards more spend, not a tighter mix. Ask how the fee behaves if you cut brand Search, which should be cheaper to hold. If the answer is that the fee drops only when you spend less everywhere, the incentive is still volume.

Write the named campaign types and the primary conversion into the statement of work. A slide deck is not the contract. The contract is what you can enforce when the mix drifts.

Unlike a full digital strategy and fractional CMO engagement, this post covers only how to read a media plan for waste before the contract. For a look at whether a live proposal splits brand, conversion, and channel, start with Get Free Assessment.