Hiring a Google Ads agency should not begin with a rushed campaign launch. A structured onboarding process gives the agency enough context to make sensible decisions while keeping the business in control of its account, billing, data and approvals.
This Google Ads agency onboarding checklist for Malta businesses covers the information, access, measurement and governance that should be agreed before campaigns are created or materially changed. It applies whether you are advertising only in Malta or using a Malta-based agency to reach overseas markets.
1. Confirm the commercial objective
Start with the business outcome, not the campaign type. State what a useful result means: an ecommerce purchase, qualified consultation request, confirmed booking, telephone enquiry, application or visit to a physical location.
Document the products or services to prioritise, target markets, capacity constraints and sales process. A campaign that creates more enquiries can still fail commercially if the enquiries are unsuitable or the business cannot respond promptly.
2. Define a qualified conversion
List the customer actions that matter and rank them by importance. Decide which actions should guide automated bidding and which should remain observation-only. Google distinguishes primary conversions used for bidding from secondary conversions used for observation, so an incorrect setup can encourage optimisation towards a less valuable action.
- Completed purchases or bookings
- Forms that contain enough information to assess the lead
- Calls that meet an agreed duration or outcome
- Appointments confirmed in the booking or CRM system
- Secondary actions such as brochure downloads or contact-page views
Agree how duplicates, spam, existing customers and irrelevant enquiries will be handled. The agency needs lead-quality feedback, not just a total conversion count.
3. Preserve business ownership of the Google Ads account
The business should know the individual Google Ads account ID and retain appropriate administrative access. An agency can normally work through its manager account without becoming the sole owner of the advertising history.
Google provides administrative, standard, read-only, email-only and billing access levels. Grant the level needed for the work and keep at least one responsible person within the business who can review access. Do not share passwords when user or manager access can be granted properly.
Before access is changed, read our detailed guide on Google Ads account ownership for Malta businesses.
4. Inventory the connected accounts and assets
Prepare a list of systems that may affect advertising or measurement:
- Google Ads and any linked manager account
- Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager
- Search Console and Merchant Center where relevant
- YouTube channel and business profiles
- Website content management system
- Consent-management platform
- CRM, call tracking, booking or ecommerce platform
- Product feeds and offline conversion sources
Record the owner and correct property or container for each system. Similar names and old test properties can lead to campaigns being connected to the wrong data source.
5. Audit conversion measurement before launch
Do not assume existing conversions are correct because numbers appear in the interface. For every conversion action, record the source, trigger, value, counting method, attribution settings, primary or secondary status and last successful test.
Google Ads can measure website, app, call and imported conversions. If conversions are imported from Google Analytics, the correct Analytics property must be linked and the relevant event must be marked appropriately. Test the complete journey, including thank-you pages, booking confirmations, telephone links and purchases.
Use the more detailed Google Ads conversion-tracking checklist to document the setup.
6. Check Analytics linking and auto-tagging
Confirm that the intended Google Ads and Analytics accounts are linked and that auto-tagging is working through any redirects. Google explains that auto-tagging adds a click identifier to landing-page URLs and supports conversion measurement and campaign-data imports.
Some websites or redirect systems remove URL parameters. Test a real landing-page journey before relying on the data. If the business also uses manual campaign tags, document the naming convention so reports do not become fragmented.
7. Establish the baseline
Before restructuring campaigns, export or record a baseline covering the agreed comparison period. Include campaign settings, budgets, search terms, conversions, conversion values, impression share where relevant, landing pages, geographic performance and lead-quality observations.
Note major promotions, outages, tracking changes and seasonal factors. Without this context, a later comparison may credit the agency for demand that already existed or blame it for changes outside advertising.
8. Agree markets, locations and exclusions
Define where the business can actually serve customers. For Malta campaigns, clarify whether the offer covers Malta and Gozo, only selected localities, people currently in the area, or people showing interest in Malta from abroad.
For international campaigns, document countries, languages, delivery restrictions, currencies, time zones and excluded regions. Location settings should follow the commercial plan rather than being left as an unexplained default.
9. Set the budget and financial controls
Separate media spend from agency fees and other production costs. Agree the initial budget, who can change it, the approval threshold for increases and what happens if spending or lead volume moves outside the expected range.
Confirm the billing profile, payer details, payment method and internal contact for failed payments. Google notes that billing information must be submitted before ads can run. The business should understand whether charges are paid directly to Google or handled through another arrangement.
10. Prepare approved claims and creative inputs
Give the agency accurate service descriptions, differentiators, trading names, contact details, opening hours, service areas and current offers. Identify claims that require evidence or internal approval. Do not encourage invented urgency, guarantees, accreditations or results.
Provide brand guidelines, logos, approved images and legal wording where applicable. Record who approves ad copy and how quickly decisions are expected, especially for regulated or time-sensitive offers.
11. Review landing-page readiness
Match each important search theme to a relevant landing page. Check mobile usability, message consistency, contact options, form behaviour, confirmation states, privacy information and page speed. Sending all traffic to a generic homepage can make both measurement and user decisions harder.
Use our Google Ads landing-page checklist for Malta businesses before campaigns are activated.
12. Confirm advertiser verification and policy responsibilities
Check the account for advertiser-verification tasks and deadlines. Google states that only an account administrator can complete the required tasks and that an account may be paused if a verification deadline is missed.
Agree who supplies company documents, licences, identity information or policy evidence. The agency can coordinate the process, but the business must provide accurate information and remain accountable for its products, claims and customer experience.
13. Define change control and approvals
Write down what the agency may change without prior approval and what requires sign-off. Consider budgets, new markets, new offers, landing-page edits, conversion definitions, automated recommendations and experiments.
Use a simple change log for material decisions. It should show the date, reason, owner and expected effect. This makes later performance reviews more useful and reduces disputes about why a campaign changed.
14. Agree the reporting and communication rhythm
Define the reporting period, meeting frequency, dashboard access and primary contacts. Reports should connect media data with lead quality or sales feedback. Include limitations, tests completed, planned actions and decisions required from the business.
Agree the response route for urgent problems such as disapprovals, payment failures, broken landing pages or a sudden loss of conversion data.
A concise onboarding pack
- Business objective and priority services
- Target customers, markets and exclusions
- Definition of a qualified conversion
- Account IDs, owners and access levels
- Connected analytics, tags and business systems
- Conversion inventory and test results
- Historical baseline and known tracking changes
- Media budget, billing owner and approval limits
- Approved claims, creative assets and landing pages
- Verification or policy tasks
- Change-control rules
- Reporting, lead feedback and escalation contacts
Questions to resolve before the first campaign change
- Does the business retain administrative access?
- Are we using the correct Ads, Analytics and Tag Manager properties?
- Which conversions guide bidding, and have they been tested?
- Who can approve budget, targeting and website changes?
- How will the sales team return lead-quality feedback?
- Are billing and advertiser verification complete?
- What baseline will be used to judge progress?
- What will be returned or transferred if the relationship ends?
Start with a controlled handover
A good onboarding process protects continuity while giving the agency enough information to improve performance. Preserve the existing account and history, verify measurement before changing bidding, and document commercial decisions in language both the agency and business can understand.
Digital Consulting Pros provides Google Ads management for businesses in Malta and other markets. You can also review our guide to evaluating a digital marketing agency proposal or contact DCP to discuss your objectives.
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