Blog > When to Hire a Paid Ads Agency
How to When Know When It's Time to Hire a Paid Ads Agency (And What to do Next)
By Cullen E
Most founders ask the wrong question.
It's not "should I hire a paid ads agency?" - it's "is my business actually ready for one?"
There's a big difference. Hiring an agency too early is one of the fastest ways to burn cash, get frustrated with paid media, and walk away thinking ads "don't work" for your business.
Hire one too late, and you've left growth (and a lot of your own time) on the table.
In this article, I'll walk you through the 5 clear signs that it's time to bring in an agency, the situations where you should absolutely wait, and what to do in both scenarios.
Key Takeaways:
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Most brands are ready for an agency once they're spending £5-10k+ per month and have validated their offer
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Below £3-5k monthly ad spend, management fees eat too heavily into margins
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Agencies amplify what's already working - they don't validate your business idea
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Creative output is the biggest bottleneck for most brands in 2026, and the right agency can (and should) fix it
5 Clear Signs You're Ready to Hire a Paid Ads Agency
Before you sign any contracts or pay any retainers, you need to be honest about whether your business is at the right stage for paid ads management.
Here are the 5 signs to determine whether your brand is ready for a paid ads agency:
1. The Business Fundamentals are in Place
The foundations have to be there before you spend a penny with an agency.
Which means:
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You've found product-market fit: You know exactly why customers buy from you, what problem you solve, and what they love about the business
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You're seeing organic growth: Word-of-mouth, referrals, SEO, organic social - there's demand pulling at you from multiple channels
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Your website converts: Organic traffic is buying, not just browsing
If these three are in place, an agency has something real to work with - which is a good sign that the business is ready for paid advertising.
2. You've Hit a Ceiling You Can't Break Through Alone
This is the most common reason founders reach out to me.
You've started running ads yourself. You've had some success. But every time you try to push spend higher, performance plateaus. ROAS drops. CPAs creep up. Whatever was working at £3k a month stops working at £10k.
This is usually a messaging, creative, or account structure issue - and it takes experience to diagnose which one. We cover this in detail in our article on the most common bottlenecks that stop ad accounts from scaling.
You don't need an agency to manage early-stage ads. You need one when you've proven ads can work for your business, but you can't figure out how to take them further.
3. The Economics Make Sense
Here's where I see a lot of founders get it wrong.
A good agency will cost you around 10-20% of your ad spend, with most having minimum retainers in place. At £3-5k monthly spend, those fees eat into your margins and there's not enough budget left for proper testing.
At £10k+ monthly spend, the maths changes.
A 20% performance improvement at £10k/month is £2,000 in additional efficiency every single month. That comfortably covers a typical agency retainer - and a competent agency should be delivering more than a 20% lift over what you're doing alone.
The rule of thumb: if you can't comfortably absorb the agency fee AND still have enough budget left to test creatives, audiences and offers - you're not ready.
4. Your Time as a Founder is Better Spent Elsewhere
This one is less about the ad account and more about you.
If you're spending 10, 15, 20+ hours a week inside Meta Ads Manager or Google Ads, that's time not being spent on product, hiring, business development, partnerships, or any of the other things only you as the founder can do.
I worked with the founder of Battle Royale Golf who came to me with this exact problem.
He was spending 20+ hours a week managing ad accounts, which meant new product launches were delayed, inventory management was slipping, and business development conversations weren't happening.
The cost of keeping ads in-house wasn't the £0 he was "saving" on management fees. It was every other part of the business that wasn't getting his attention.
If the ad account is pulling you away from running the business, the business has outgrown DIY management.
5. Ad Creative is Becoming a Bottleneck
Since Meta rolled out Andromeda, creative output has become the single biggest lever for performance.
The algorithm is doing more of the targeting and optimisation work than ever before. What it can't do for you though is produce the volume and variety of creative needed to keep an account fresh.
Most brands hit ad fatigue fast. They run the same 3-4 creatives until performance tanks, then scramble to produce new ones, then plateau again.
It's not realistic to expect a founder or small in-house team to consistently produce ad-ready creative at the volume paid social demands. The skillset is different from organic content. The hooks, formats, pacing and structure all need to work specifically within a paid context.
A good ads agency will combat this with proper creative briefs, direction based on what's actually working in your account, and in many cases full production for an additional fee.
If your creative output is the thing holding you back, that's a clear signal it's time.
How to Know If You're NOT Ready to Hire an Agency
Just as important as knowing when you're ready is knowing when you're not.
Hiring an agency at the wrong stage is a fast way to spend a lot of money on management fees, get average results, and blame the agency for problems that were never theirs to solve.
Here's how to know you should wait.
You Haven't Validated Your Core Offer or Message Yet
If you can't clearly answer "why do customers buy from us, and what message resonates with them?" - you're not ready.
Early-stage marketing exists to teach you these things. It's how you learn what your customers actually care about, what language they use, what objections they have, and what makes them pull out their wallet.
An agency amplifies what's already working. If you don't know what's working yet, you're asking an agency to validate your business idea for you. That's bad for both parties - they'll spend their time guessing at messaging and creative angles, and you'll spend your money funding their guesses.
Do the early work yourself.
Once you know what resonates, an agency has something to scale.
The Spend Level Doesn't Justify Agency Fees
I touched on this above but it's worth repeating.
If you're spending below £3-5k a month, agency fees eat too heavily into your margins. There's no room for the testing and learning that paid ads require.
At that spend level, you're often better off keeping it in-house, learning the platforms yourself, and building up the data you'll eventually need to make an agency relationship work.
Check out our Paid Advertising Cost Guide for a full breakdown of what to expect to spend at different stages.
You're Hoping Better Ads Will Solve the Wrong Problem
Every founder wants more customers. That's normal.
But ads only solve marketing problems.
They don't fix:
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A website that doesn't convert
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A product that doesn't have demand
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Unclear pricing or offer structure
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A checkout process with too much friction
If organic traffic isn't converting on your website, paid traffic won't either. You'll just be paying to send people to a leaky funnel.
Fix the underlying issue first. Then come back to paid ads.
Real Example - Uthful
I spoke with the founder of Uthful - he'd been running ads, working with an agency, and felt that things weren't quite clicking.
Instead of pushing harder on spend or trying to scale through paid, he made the call to pull back on ad management entirely. He wanted to figure out what customers actually loved about the brand, what message should be at the centre of the marketing, and what was genuinely resonating organically.
Two weeks later: more organic growth than they'd had in months, and a significant saving in monthly spend.
Sometimes the most valuable move is stepping back before scaling up.
Ready to Grow Your Brand with a Paid Ads Agency?
Use the contact form below or contact me on 07837211760 for a free consultation on paid ads for your online brand.
Cullen Evans
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No Commitment
Free Consultation & Advice
Phone, Video Call or Email
"Cullen has helped to grow our online sales by 40% month on month over the last 6 months."
What to Look For When You Do Hire an Agency
When the time is right, here's some advice on how to find the right agency for your business.
Proven Industry Expertise
Look for case studies, testimonials, and referrals from projects similar to yours.
An agency that's worked with brands in your industry (or close to it) will understand the buyer, the competition, the seasonality, and the typical creative angles that work. That shortens the learning curve dramatically.
Service Offering That Fills in Missing Gaps in Your Organisation
Be clear about what you need before the first call.
Do you need creative production, or do you have that in-house? Do you need strategic direction, or just execution? Do you need help on Meta only, or across Meta, Google and TikTok?
The right agency fills the gaps your team can't cover. Hiring an agency that duplicates work you're already doing in-house is wasted spend.
Business Understanding
This usually shows up on the discovery call.
A good agency will ask about your margins, your unit economics, your customer LTV, and what scalability looks like for you. They'll talk about CPA and ROAS instead of vanity metrics like impressions and reach.
They want to understand the business, not just the ad account.
Account Ownership and Data Transparency
Make sure any contract stipulates that your business retains full ownership of all ad accounts, pixels, datasets and creative assets.
If you part ways with the agency, you should walk away with everything intact. Any agency that pushes back on this is one to avoid.
Flexible Contracts
If it's your first time hiring an agency, avoid 12-month lock-in contracts.
Most reputable agencies offer month-to-month or short initial term agreements. They're confident enough in their work to know you'll stay if it's working - and they don't need to trap you with a contract.
Audit and Growth Plans
Any agency worth working with will provide a personalised account audit and/or growth plan before you sign anything.
This shows you two things: that they understand your business properly, and that they have a clear plan for how to grow it with paid ads. If they can't articulate this upfront, what are they going to do once they've got your money?
Communication and Reporting
A huge amount of founder frustration with agencies comes down to feeling left in the dark.
Before working with an agency, make sure the communication and reporting is in line with your expectations:
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Is the reporting cadence weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly?
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Is reporting in plain English or buried in jargon?
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Who's your point of contact?
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Who's actually working in the account - a senior strategist or a junior account manager?
Each founder will have a different view on how they want to be reported to and communicated with, so be sure to get this information up front.
Realistic Expectation Setting
A good agency tells you what's realistic in month 1, month 2 and month 3 - and what success actually looks like for your specific business.
Be wary of anyone who guarantees results or throws around big ROAS numbers before understanding your margins.
On your side, be grounded in what you're expecting.
Set ambitious but reasonable targets. The relationship works best when both sides are honest about what's possible.
Red Flags to Look Out For When Hiring an Agency
A quick checklist of things that should make you walk away:
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Guarantees specific results before understanding your business
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Pushes a 12-month contract immediately
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Talks about impressions and reach without mentioning profitability
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Can't explain their strategy in plain English
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Doesn't ask about your margins or unit economics
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Sends a proposal without a proper discovery call
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Only talks about what they do, never about what they need from you to succeed
What Can I Expect to Pay for a Paid Ads Agency?
Most agencies charge between 10-20% of your monthly ad spend, with the percentage usually scaling down as your spend goes up. Some charge flat retainers, others use performance-based models.
For a full breakdown of pricing models and what to expect at different spend levels, see our Paid Advertising Cost Guide.
What to do if You're Not Ready to Hire an Agency Yet
If you've read the above and realised you're not quite ready, that's fine. Most brands aren't at the start. Here's what to focus on instead.
Fix Your Conversion Funnel
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A landing page that's purpose-built for paid traffic (not your homepage)
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Clear offer and pricing
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Reduced friction in the checkout or enquiry process
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Mobile-optimised, fast-loading pages
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Tracking properly set up (GA4, conversion events, pixel)
Get this right and paid ads become significantly easier when you do start.
Continue Testing In-House
Allocate a budget you're genuinely willing to spend to learn, not necessarily to convert at a high ROAS.
This is your education budget. It's how you build up the data, the creative learnings and the platform fluency that an agency will eventually pick up and scale.
Don't expect every pound at this stage to come back as profit. The return is in what you learn.
Identify Your Core Offer
Speak to your customers. Read your reviews. Look at what people say in your DMs and in your inbox.
Why do they buy? What problem are you solving for them? What language do they use to describe the product?
Validate this organically or with a small test budget on paid. Once you have clarity on the message, everything downstream becomes easier - creative, ads, landing pages, all of it.
Build Up Social Proof
Reviews. Testimonials. UGC. Case studies. A real, engaged audience on social.
This is the raw material that good paid ads are built from. It amplifies the impact of every pound you spend on media. And when you do hire an agency, it gives them something concrete to work with rather than asking them to build trust from scratch.
Hire a Freelancer
If you're spending between £1-3k and want some guidance without full agency management, a freelancer on a consultancy basis can bridge the gap.
You get expert eyes on your account without the full retainer cost of an agency. Good for the in-between stage where you're not ready for full management but want to avoid expensive mistakes.
Summary
Hiring an agency isn't about hitting a specific revenue number or a specific ad spend - it's about being at the stage where an agency has the means to do a great job for you.
That means having a validated offer, a converting website, organic momentum and enough budget to support proper management plus testing. When those things are in place, an agency takes what's already working and scales it past what you could do alone.
If you're not there yet, don't force it. Fix the foundations first. The agency relationship will be far more profitable when you finally do hire one.
If you want a no-commitment chat about whether your brand is ready, book a free 15-minute discovery call and I'll give you an honest answer.
Frequently Asked Questions
Cullen Evans
I've managed paid ads campaigns across Google, Meta and TikTok Ads for 10+ years and share my expertise through online content, guides, articles and videos.