Before you grant access, ask these questions.

What do you need to understand before changing anything?

Listen for questions about the business: what you sell, to whom, at what margin, what you can deliver and where the sale gets stuck. A team may need account access to investigate, but the account cannot explain the whole business. If the discussion jumps straight to campaigns, bring the product and customer back into it.

Do not demand a perfect plan before analysis. Ask what the team will investigate and how findings become priorities. “We’ll see” and “we can already guarantee the result” sound different, but neither replaces that explanation.

What will “working well” mean for us?

Agree the objective, data source and period. An attributed order, a sales enquiry and a paid contract are different things. Starting with different definitions can leave you with attractive reporting and an impossible conversation at the end of the month.

Ask what the report cannot establish too. A test with little traffic may leave the hypothesis unresolved. A team explaining that limit gives you useful decision information. It does not need to manufacture certainty to sound confident.

What can you change, and what needs my approval?

Separate technical permissions from the working agreement. Google Ads has access levels with different permissions, documented by Google. Reading an account and changing a campaign may require different access. Give the permissions needed for the work and retain account administration within the business.

Then discuss budgets, creative and website changes. Who confirms product information? Who approves an offer? What adjustments can the team make within agreed limits? Clear answers make fast work easier than turning every decision into a surprise.

Ask how an uncomfortable situation would work.

What happens if creative is late, the advertised product runs out or the agreed deadline arrives without the target being met? The answers reveal more about the working relationship than a presentation where everything goes to plan.

A guarantee should make sense for your business. Which target, by when, measured where, and what specifically happens if it is missed? Our agreed terms can mean working without an agency fee in month four if the objective is not reached by the end of month three. Advertising spend remains separate. That is a commitment about our fee and work, not profit automatically arriving in your account.

Record the dependencies too: available budget, products, access and approvals. Discuss the consequences when one changes. That is healthier than discovering at month end that each side was judging performance under different conditions.

Agree where the team can act independently.

Approving every small adjustment leaves you managing both the business and the campaigns. Unlimited freedom to change spend, pricing or customer promises creates obligations you never chose. Clear boundaries give the team room to work without either problem.

For example, you agree the direction, spending ceiling and product facts. The team tests executions within that framework. Changes to the offer or total budget get a separate discussion. Decide how you will see the work without needing a call about every button someone presses.

Also establish who owns the accounts, materials and data, and how they are handed over if the engagement ends. A good relationship deserves a clear beginning and an equally clear way to finish.

What should exist after the first week?

Ask for something concrete: the important findings, priorities and dependencies. You do not need an endless list of things that might happen someday. You need to know what starts now, why and what requires your input.

Reporting can be straightforward: what was done, what was observed, what was decided and what is waiting. A table with many columns cannot compensate for a missing explanation. A long meeting does not guarantee a clear next step either.

Take these questions to the next conversation and ask for answers in the language of your business. Good work can begin before every detail is known. Both sides should still understand how they will find out, who decides and what happens next.