Sample report. The business and numbers are made up; the format and checks are what you get. Back to Ad Truth Check
$1,725 billed that spend and the agreed fee don't explain. 10 more findings below, most serious first.
A check, scored by written rules, of what you were billed, what the platforms spent and counted, and what came back as booked jobs. We changed nothing in your account.
The bill, month by month
| Month | Billed | Platform spent | Agreed fee | Unexplained | Counted results | Booked jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 2026 | $8,200 | $6,100 | $915 | $1,185 | 64 | 18 |
| Sep 2026 | $6,670 | $5,800 | $870 | $0 | 58 | 16 |
| Oct 2026 | $7,900 | $6,400 | $960 | $540 | 70 | 20 |
| Total | $22,770 | $18,300 | $1,725 | 192 | 54 |
Agreed fee: 15% of spend. The agency pays the platforms and bills you for spend plus its fee, so each invoice should equal platform spend plus the agreed fee.
Is it working?Not as reported
The platform counts 192 results; you booked 54 jobs
That's 3.6 counted results for every real job. The platform reports, and optimizes for, the bigger number, so it's buying more of whatever is being over-counted.
1 lead action counts every repeat, not once
"Calls from ads" is set to count every conversion, so one person calling twice counts as two leads.
1 non-lead action is counted as a result
"Thank you page view" is set as a primary goal. The platform treats a page view like a lead and spends to get more of them.
$1,100 spent on campaigns that recorded no results at all
Display - Brand Awareness ($1,100).
Google changed your account 2 times on its own
Auto-applied recommendations: Sep 2026, Match type broadened: phrase to broad (14 keywords); Oct 2026, Budget raised from $80.00 to $95.00. These often widen targeting or raise budgets without anyone deciding to.
42.6% of spend went to Display, Performance Max or partner sites
$7,800 ran outside Google Search, where clicks are cheaper but far more often accidental or junk for local service businesses.
Can you afford it?No
Each ad-booked job loses $26 before overhead
Each booked job costs you $422 in ads and fees. A $1,100 job leaves about $396 after materials and direct labor (the average for profitable plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors (IRS, tax year 2023)), so winning it uses 106% of that. That leaves little or nothing for rent, trucks, office and profit.
Cost per booked job: $422. Gross profit per job: $396. For comparison, profitable plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors firms spend 0.6% of sales on advertising; money-losing ones spend 2.5% (IRS Statistics of Income, corporations, tax year 2023).
Is your agency straight with you?Not fully
$1,725 billed that spend and the agreed fee don't explain
In 2 of 3 months the invoice came to more than the platform spend plus the agreed fee. Aug 2026: billed $8,200, expected $7,015; Oct 2026: billed $7,900, expected $7,360. Counting it, you paid 24.4% of spend in fees, not the 15% agreed.
The agency owns your ad account
If you part ways, your account history, data and conversion tracking may stay with them. That history takes months to rebuild.
Little visible work in 1 of 3 months
The account's change history shows fewer than 2 changes by a person in Sep 2026. Fees for those months: $870. Some good work doesn't show here (reporting, calls), so this is a question, not a verdict.
You don't have admin access to your own account
Without admin access you can't see everything, or remove anyone, without the agency's help.
What's fine
- The fee you agreed works out to 15% of spend, inside the usual range for your spend.
Your fix list
- Ask the agency for a line-by-line breakdown of Aug 2026 and Oct 2026, with the platform receipts behind it. ($1,725 at stake)
- Before adding budget, cut the spend that books nothing, then raise the average job value or follow-up rate. ($1,386 at stake)
- Ask the agency to transfer the account to your business login, or to add you as an admin owner.
- Judge results on booked jobs, not the platform's count, until the conversion settings are fixed.
- Set "Calls from ads" to count "One" per click.
- Make "Thank you page view" a secondary action so the platform stops optimizing for it.
- Pause Display - Brand Awareness, or ask what it is for. ($1,100 at stake)
- Ask the agency what they worked on in Sep 2026. ($870 at stake)
- Ask for admin access for an email at your business.
- Turn off auto-apply in Recommendations, and review each change listed.
- Ask for booked jobs from Display, Performance Max and partner campaigns separately; pause any that book nothing.
Most serious first. Your agency, or anyone you choose, can act on it.
How we checked
Three records side by side: your agency's invoices; the platforms' own spend, results, conversion settings and change history (read with view-only access); and the jobs you booked from ads. Affordability uses the average for profitable plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors (IRS, tax year 2023). "Unexplained" means the invoice is higher than spend plus the fee you agreed; there can be an innocent reason, which is why each one comes with a question to ask. This is a review of records, not legal or accounting advice. We also run a separate ad agency. This check uses the same written rules whether or not you hire anyone, the agency sees this report only if you ask, and we take no referral fees.