Google Ads Agency vs Freelancer vs In-House: Which Fits Your Store?
Who should run your Google Ads: an agency, a freelancer or your own hire. The real trade-offs for an ecommerce brand, and how to decide.
For most ecommerce brands, the choice comes down to the size and stage of the account. A freelancer suits a small, stable account that needs steady care. An in-house hire suits a brand big enough to keep a specialist busy full time and to give them support. An agency suits a brand that needs strategy, building and reporting from people who see many accounts at once. Each one can work. Each one fails in its own way.
Here is how to tell which fits your store, and the warning signs for each.
What the job actually involves
Before comparing options, be clear about the work. Running Google Ads for a store is several jobs:
- Tracking. Making sure every purchase is recorded once, at the right value, and that the numbers match your store.
- The product feed. Titles, product types, custom labels and fixing disapprovals in Merchant Center.
- Campaign structure. Deciding what Search, Shopping and Performance Max each do, and how budget moves between them.
- Weekly management. Reading search terms, adding negatives, adjusting budgets and bids, testing ads.
- Reporting and strategy. Turning the numbers into decisions you can act on.
Ask of each option: who does each of these jobs, and how well?
A freelancer
A freelancer is one person who runs your account, usually alongside several others.
Where freelancers shine: You talk to the person doing the work. There is no account manager in between. A good freelancer with ecommerce experience can be very sharp, and the cost is usually lower than an agency because there is less overhead.
Where they struggle: One person is a single point of failure. Holidays, illness or a bigger client can leave your account untouched for weeks. Most freelancers are strong in one or two of the jobs above and weaker in the rest. Few are expert in tracking, feeds and strategy at once.
Best for: stores with a smaller budget, a simple catalog and an owner who is happy to stay close to the work.
Ask them: “Who covers my account when you are away?” “How many accounts do you run right now?” “Show me a feed you fixed.”
An in-house hire
An in-house specialist works only for you.
Where in-house shines: Full attention. Deep knowledge of your products, margins and stock. Fast changes, because they sit next to the people who make decisions. They can work across your other channels too.
Where it struggles: A single in-house person only sees one account. They miss what is working across many stores at once, which is how agencies spot changes in Google’s products early. They also need managing, training and tools, and someone has to judge their work. If the founder cannot judge Google Ads, a weak hire can run for a long time before anyone notices. And when they leave, the knowledge often leaves with them.
Best for: larger brands with enough spend and complexity to keep a specialist busy, and someone senior who can review their work.
Ask yourself: “Who will judge this person’s work?” “What happens to the account if they quit?”
An agency
An agency puts a team on your account: usually a strategist, someone who builds and runs campaigns, and support for tracking, feeds and creative.
Where agencies shine: Breadth. A good agency has solved your problem before in other accounts. It has people for each of the jobs above, and cover when someone is away. It sees changes in Google’s tools across many accounts at once, so it knows sooner what works.
Where they struggle: You may be one of many clients. Some agencies pitch with senior people and then hand the work to a junior account manager. Process can slow things down. And some agencies are paid in ways that reward spending more, not spending better. Our guide on how much a Google Ads agency costs explains how fee models shape behavior.
Best for: brands that want strategy and execution in one place, need help across several of the jobs above, and want someone outside the business to hold the account to a standard.
Ask them: “Who will be in my account each week, by name?” “Who sees my account who has run ecommerce before?” “Can I talk to the person doing the work, not only the account manager?”
A side-by-side view
| Freelancer | In-house | Agency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who does the work | One person | Your employee | A team |
| Attention on your account | Shared | Full | Shared |
| Breadth across accounts | Some | Low | High |
| Cover when someone is away | Low | Low | High |
| Tracking, feed and strategy depth | Varies | Varies | Usually high |
| Knowledge stays when they leave | No | Often no | Yours, if the account is in your name |
Mixed setups work well
These are not either-or choices. Some of the best setups combine them:
- In-house lead plus agency. Your marketing lead owns strategy and the numbers. The agency does the building and weekly work. Your lead holds the agency to account.
- Agency for the build, freelancer to maintain. An agency fixes tracking, rebuilds the account and documents it. A freelancer runs it afterward. This can work for smaller stores once the account is clean.
- Founder plus agency. For a founder-led brand, an agency that puts a senior person close to the account can act like a part-time head of paid search.
The rule that applies to all three
Whoever runs your account, you own it. Your Google Ads account, Merchant Center, Google Analytics and tag manager should all be in your name, with the freelancer, employee or agency added as a user. Then you can change who runs it without losing years of data. If you are already in a setup that broke this rule, read how to switch Google Ads agencies without losing your data.
Where TheCMO fits
TheCMO is an agency, but it is founder-led. Nathan Synoground has managed $20.5M in Google Ads across 150 client accounts since 2018, and he stays close to the work. That gives you the breadth of an agency without handing your account to someone you never meet. See how Google Ads management works, or start with a free Google Ads audit and judge us on what we find.
For a wider view of your options, see our ranking of the best Google Ads agencies, and the questions to ask before you hire anyone.