The guide

Two hands in your pocket: Google's, and the agency's

Google earns when you spend, so its defaults are set to spend. Management firms earn when you keep paying them, so some are built to keep you in the dark. Neither is illegal. Both cost small businesses money they don't need to spend. Here's the list, with where to find each switch. No agency is named; you'll know if it's yours.

What Google does on its own

Default · quietly on

Auto-applied recommendations

Google can switch on "auto-apply", so its suggestions go live in your account without anyone clicking: broader keywords, bigger budgets, new keywords it thinks you'd like. The "optimisation score" nags you until you say yes.

Check: Recommendations → Auto-apply
Default · quietly on

Search partners and Display expansion

A Search campaign can also show on Google's partner sites and across the Display network. Both are usually on. Both usually convert far worse. You pay the same.

Check: Campaign settings → Networks
Default · quietly on

"Presence or interest"

The default location setting shows your ad to people interested in Auckland, not people in Auckland. Someone in Perth reading about the Waitematā can click your emergency-plumber ad.

Check: Settings → Locations → Location options
Default · quietly on

Broad match, and "exact" that isn't

New keywords default to broad match: Google decides what they match. Even exact match now includes "close variants", so the tidy account you set up drifts on its own.

Check: Insights and reports → Search terms
Nudge

"Limited by budget" and the 2× rule

Google labels campaigns "limited by budget" and suggests raising it. And your daily budget can be spent up to twice over on any given day. It evens out across the month, but the spikes are real and the label is a sales pitch.

Check: budget vs 30-day spend
Phone call

"Your Google Ads specialist"

The friendly person who rings is often an outsourced sales rep. The advice is almost always the same: switch on smart bidding, go broad, raise the budget. You can opt out of the calls in your account settings.

Check: who benefits from the advice

None of this means Google Ads doesn't work. It works well for the businesses that know which switches to turn off. Most people were never shown. The $595 audit lists every one that's on in your account and how to turn it off; the $695 setup builds a new account with them off.

What some management firms do and hope you won't notice

What they say
"We'll need to run it through our agency account."
A manager account is a normal tool. The problem is when you never get admin access to your own account, or the billing and conversion tracking are set up in a way that only works while they're attached. Leave, and you find out.
Moon DigitalYou hold admin on your own account, on your own billing. We're a user you can remove.
What they say
"Our fee is 15% of your ad spend."
They earn more when you spend more, not when you make more. Guess which direction the recommendations go.
Moon DigitalFlat monthly fee. Ad spend goes straight to Google and we never touch it.
What they say
"Impressions are up 340%."
Impressions cost nothing to make and are worth nothing to you. The only numbers that matter are calls, forms and bookings. If those aren't on page one of the report, ask why.
Moon DigitalOne page. Spend, real leads, cost per lead, next step.
What they say
"You had 58 conversions last month."
Ask how a conversion is defined. Often it's a page load, a button hover, or the same tag firing twice. 58 becomes 9 very quickly.
Moon DigitalA conversion is a call, a form or a booking, and we check the tag by hand.
What they say
"It's a 12-month agreement, 90 days' notice."
A contract that long is a bet that you'll want to leave before it's up. Nobody locks in a client they expect to keep.
Moon DigitalMonth to month. Leave any time. Keep everything.
What they say
"We'll host the site on our platform."
Your website, on their login, on their server, sometimes on their domain. When you leave, it doesn't come with you, and the rebuild quote arrives the same week.
Moon DigitalYour domain, your hosting, your login, and a handover so you can edit it yourself.
What they say
"We'll get you to number one on Google."
Nobody can promise a ranking. Anyone who does is either about to bid on your own business name and call it SEO, or making it up.
Moon DigitalLocal SEO with no guarantees, except that you'll see every piece of work.
What they say
"Your brand campaign is the best performer!"
That's people who searched your name, many of whom would have found you anyway. Sometimes a brand campaign is worth running (a competitor bidding on you, or a message you need to control). Counting it as growth without saying so is the trick.
Moon DigitalWe report brand clicks separately, say when a brand campaign is justified, and never count them as growth.

None of this is illegal. Most of it is just what happens when the client can't see inside the account. We started Moon Digital because we're sick of watching people pay these fees for work they don't need to buy. Once the account is set up right, most small businesses can run it themselves. The audit shows you how.

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