How to Choose a London PPC Agency in 2026

The right London PPC agency should cut your cost per lead, not just manage your bids. In a market where hero-term CPCs regularly hit £18–£35, the difference between a good and bad agency is tens of thousands of pounds per quarter.

What a good PPC agency actually does

Most London PPC agencies focus on bid management. The best ones focus on account architecture — the structure of your campaigns, ad groups, and keyword matching — because that's where the real leverage is. A badly structured account wastes 30–50% of spend before a single bid is optimised.

Red flags to watch for

• They want to own the ad account. You should always own your Google Ads and Meta accounts. An agency that insists on owning them is creating lock-in.
• Reporting on impressions and clicks, not revenue. Vanity metrics disguise poor performance. Demand CPL, CAC, and ROAS reporting.
• Long lock-in contracts. 12-month minimum contracts protect the agency, not you. 90 days is reasonable for PPC.
• No conversion tracking audit. If they don't start with a tracking audit, they're flying blind.
• Percentage-of-spend pricing without a cap. This incentivises them to increase your spend, not your efficiency.

Questions to ask

1. What's your average CPL reduction in the first 90 days?
2. Do you set up server-side tracking and Conversions API?
3. Do you do landing page CRO or just bid management?
4. Can I see the account any time I want?
5. What's your process for account architecture reviews?

What to expect from London PPC pricing

London PPC management fees typically run £390–£4,150/month depending on ad spend volume and platform count. Meridian's Growth tier manages up to £25k/month across 3 platforms for £990/month — 40% below the market average of £1,650.

How much should you spend on Google Ads in London?

Minimum viable budgets in London are higher than national averages. For competitive service terms, £4,000/month in ad spend is the floor for sustained top-3 placement. Below that, restrict to long-tail and exact-match campaigns to avoid auction-position decay.