Google Ads in-house or externally managed? Choosing a management model

The decision is not a comparison of salary and agency fee. It is a question of organisation: which tasks need doing, who is the accountable owner, what happens during an absence or outage, and what does the whole arrangement cost? Four tools structure the answer – a function model, a full-cost sheet, a capacity log and a RACI matrix. All four are static templates: copy the blank tables into a spreadsheet or a working document and complete them there.

Which six functions must Google Ads operations cover?

Define the work first, then the organisation. A complete operation covers six functions. Each function needs exactly one accountable owner – even when several people carry out the work.

Mark every row as covered, partly covered or open. «The agency does Google Ads» is just as imprecise as «the marketing team does it itself»: neither names an accountable owner per function.

The way this table is divided up is the real make-or-buy decision. Business direction (1), the meaning of measurement (2) and the approval of consequential changes (5) usually stay in the company, because they need business knowledge and budget authority; a clearly bounded delegation to an external role remains possible and is set out in the contract. Campaign operations (3), parts of creative and landing page (4) and the implementation of approved changes can be covered externally or with managed support. Anyone who gives away goal-setting or the meaning of conversions entirely is buying execution without clear objectives. This is how maitiq works: the managed service takes on the tasks that can be outsourced – campaign operations and only separately agreed work on creative and landing page; business direction, the meaning of measurement and approval stay with named people in your company.

When is an in-house team the better choice?

In-house is strong when Google Ads is closely tied to prices, product range, sales, inventory, seasonality or ongoing product decisions. Internal specialists experience these changes directly and can judge more quickly whether a movement in the account is an advertising problem or a business effect. Business knowledge stays in the company, priorities can be adjusted without a briefing, access stays central, and what is learned from tests flows straight back into marketing and product.

In-house only works with genuine capacity, however. A person who «also handles» Google Ads alongside SEO, CRM, the website, events and reporting is not a dedicated operation: recurring reviews are then squeezed out by urgent projects. So before you plan the role, examine the capacity log further below – not the advertising budget.

When is an agency the better choice?

An agency fits when several specialist disciplines have to be coordinated or external capacity is needed at short notice. Good agencies combine campaign management with tracking, creative, strategy or further channels and organise cover through a team.

This advantage only materialises if the agreed scope of services actually contains these services. Ask who works on the account operationally, how much attention is agreed and how business context reaches the team. A broad agency presentation does not prove that every discipline works on the account regularly. The model is less suitable when decisions become slow through many handovers, when the price rises with the media budget without the scope of services growing, or when changes of contact person cost context. These are contract and operating questions – and this is exactly where maitiq takes a different approach: the fee is not tied to the media budget – maitiq does not earn more when your advertising spend rises. Context sits in the decision log per proposal and with a named Client Success Manager; both preserve context even when contacts change.

What maitiq takes on for the internal team

A managed service separates business responsibility from recurring execution. The internal team defines goals, the meaning of conversions, budgets, limits and permissions; maitiq takes on campaign operations (3), agreed parts of creative and landing page (4) and the implementation of approved changes. Workflows deliver proposals at an agreed cadence with the action, the rationale and the supporting data; a Client Success Manager supports setup and reviews. People in the company own objectives and permissions and decide which proposals may be approved and implemented under a configured standing authority; the implementation is documented and guarded. Only proposals that require manual review or a human decision need a person.

How do you compare the three models fairly?

Rate every criterion as «present», «partly present» or «missing». A hybrid model makes sense when it closes gaps; it is harmful when two parties claim the same task or nobody owns it.

How do you calculate the full costs of both models?

Compare only once both columns cover the same scope of functions. The sheet below is a static template: copy the blank table into a spreadsheet or a working document and fill it in there with company data only. The comparison covers the first year of twelve months; enter all annual figures as annual values. Two quantities must also be kept as their own rows: the internal full-cost hourly rate (CHF/hour) and external specialist work (CHF/year).

In-house full costs (first year, 12 months) = (employer full costs per year × actual share of the role / 100) + recruitment + training + cover + tools + introduction, setup and transition (one-off) + (management hours per month × 12 × internal full-cost hourly rate) + external specialist work

External full costs (first year, 12 months) = (fee per month × 12) + services not included + ((briefing + management hours per month) × 12 × internal full-cost hourly rate) + tools + introduction, setup and transition (one-off)

Five rules make the comparison robust: unknown stays unknown and is never summed as zero; a missing input blocks only the metric that depends on it, not the whole comparison. If an item is demonstrably not applicable, it is excluded with a reason instead of being carried as zero. In both cases the media budget goes to Google and is not a management fee. Expected performance is not a credit in the cost calculation. And hours are measured or explicitly marked as a planning assumption; if they are already included in the full-cost rate of a role, they are not counted a second time. The complete annual calculation, including creative, tracking and transition costs, belongs in the total cost calculator; this sheet compares only the operating model.

This is how maitiq works: the «external» column shows a quote per account instead of a percentage of the media budget; the services included and not included are named in that quote, and internal time is spent on context, approvals and decisions.

How much internal capacity does Google Ads need?

The capacity needed cannot be read off the advertising budget. Its drivers are the number of accounts, markets and languages, campaign types, conversion goals, tracking and feed complexity, the frequency of promotions, regulatory approvals, documentation quality and the response time you want. So measure over a defined period – four weeks are an illustrative start, not a prescribed window; if your business is seasonal, extend the observation. Record one row per task:

The log deliberately contains no «correct» number of hours and no productivity benchmark. After the observation period, evaluate five things: how time is distributed across the six functions; the share of unplanned work; the highest weekly peak rather than the average; waiting times for sales, IT, legal or creative; and the list of tasks that were left undone for lack of capacity. A model that only works out on average fails in the peak week. The log measures your internal time; which tasks in the account are actually covered today is shown by the read-only audit from maitiq, based on the available account data – per check, with an assessment of whether it is fully covered, partly covered or not covered.

How do you safeguard operations against outages?

Resilience is a criterion in its own right, not a side effect of the model you choose. Check four points – with the same questions in every model:

• Cover: Who takes over during holidays, illness, resignation or a change of provider – with a name, not a job title?
• Knowledge store: Are goals, conversion definitions, exceptions, tests and rejected recommendations documented outside personal chats?
• Access: Does the advertising company permanently hold administrative access through its own company accounts, regardless of who works on the account operationally?
• Restart: How long does it take until a new person or a new provider can work productively, and how is that measured?

If only one person understands the campaign logic, the tracking and the historical exceptions, that is an operating risk – internally as well as externally. A team alone does not solve it; only a documented and rehearsed arrangement does. In maitiq's managed service, proposals, decisions and rejected recommendations are recorded in the decision log on the account, and a named Client Success Manager provides support. Who takes over exceptions during an absence is settled in the contract.

How do you build a RACI matrix as a template?

Every recurring task needs four roles: Responsible (carries out the work), Accountable (owns the final responsibility), Consulted (provides context) and Informed (receives the result). The RACI matrix below is a static template: copy it into a spreadsheet or a working document and adapt it to the actual contract. The rows show the starting allocation in maitiq's managed service.

Three rules keep the matrix honest: exactly one role per row is Accountable. Accountable is always a named person or a named organisation – never «AI», «software» or a blanket «the agency». And an empty cell is an open gap, not a tacit «everyone does it». The three maitiq rows show the division of labour in the managed service: workflows and service carry out the analysis, the Client Success Manager is accountable for it, your Google Ads leads decide on proposals, and approved proposals go through a documented, guarded implementation under the configured standing authority; only proposals that require manual review or a human decision need a person.

How does a pilot reduce risk?

Start with a read-only diagnosis. The read-only audit from maitiq shows which evidence is available, which tasks arise and where measurement or governance gaps lie – via a connected account or reports from Google Ads. Only after that do you decide whether to hire internally, appoint an agency or introduce a managed service.

A pilot needs a clearly bounded account and time window, no changes during the diagnosis phase, named internal decision-makers, measurable operating goals, an exit and a separate assessment of advertising performance. A pilot reduces commitment and risk; it cannot eliminate risk.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and how to read them

Platform documentation explains features and limits; for access and account questions it is the primary source. Information about how maitiq works is available at maitiq.com.

To compare fees and services, we also include your existing quote or invoice; that information is not held in the Google Ads account.

Have maitiq review your specific case.