Operations
Part of Why UK PPC agencies need named account owners before choosing tools
When to redraw a PPC agencies operating workflow before handovers break
How UK PPC agency teams can redraw their operating workflow: the triggers to watch, one owner per stage, and the handover evidence clients ask for.
What to take away
- A workflow breaks once the same task has two owners, so name one accountable person per stage before adding tools.
- Intake, build, QA and handover need written entry and exit criteria, not verbal agreements between account managers.
- Redraw the workflow when a stage owner leaves, an account moves mid-build, a platform migration lands or the same QA failure repeats — then review it each quarter regardless.
- Handover packs should show the client what changed and why, with a dated audit trail.
- A small PPC agency can run the same structure as a larger one by keeping the stages few and the evidence visible.
Why the operating workflow needs a review now
Paid search delivery has become more procedural. Platform setup wizards, consent checks and client-side approval steps all sit inside the same fortnight. If your team still runs on memory, mistakes cluster around handover points.
A workflow is not a project plan. It is the repeatable route a task takes from request to signed-off result. When that route is unclear, clients see it as slow replies and unexplained changes.
The triggers that mean redraw the workflow now
A date in the calendar is the weakest reason to rebuild a workflow. These are the signals that say the current one has stopped working:
- A stage owner leaves and nobody else can describe that stage's exit criteria.
- A client leaves, or an account moves between teams mid-build, and the handover stalls.
- A platform migration changes campaign setup steps, whether that is a move between Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising or a change to how conversion tracking is installed.
- An agreed service level is missed, or the same QA failure appears on a second launch.
- Stage owners are keeping a personal workaround that never reaches the shared document.
Treat any one of these as a reason to act rather than background noise. Redrawing the workflow is a short job for a small team, and it costs far less than losing the account.
Name one owner per stage
Every stage needs a single accountable role. Shared ownership sounds fair but hides delays. If two people can approve a budget shift, neither will.
Four stages, one owner each
- Intakewritten brief and named approver
- Buildcampaign assembled to spec
- QAsecond person signs checklist
- Handoverdated pack with change log
Write the owner next to the stage name on one page. Use roles, not names, so the document survives staff changes. A three-person agency might have four stages: intake, build, QA, handover. A shared board in ClickUp, Asana or Jira holds the same information; so does a spreadsheet. The tool matters less than the named owner.
For each stage, record the entry criteria and the exit criteria. Entry says what must exist before work starts. Exit says what proves the stage is finished.
Set intake rules that stop rework
Most rework starts at intake. A vague brief produces a campaign that has to be rebuilt. Require a written objective, a target metric and a named client approver.
Intake must-haves
- Written objective
- Target metric
- Named client approver
- One form only
Where a client asks for a new channel, the setup steps differ by platform. Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising and Amazon Ads each run their own build sequence, and paid social runs alongside them. LinkedIn publishes a step-by-step route for creating a campaign in its guide to building your first LinkedIn campaign, which is useful when intake covers multiple networks.
Keep intake to one form. Extra fields slow clients down and rarely improve the brief.
Build and QA: keep the checks visible
QA should be a checklist someone signs, not a feeling. Cover tracking, targeting, budget caps, ad copy and landing page links.
Two checks belong on that list for UK accounts. Consent and tracking have to satisfy UK GDPR and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, which the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) enforces. Ad copy and price claims have to follow the CAP Code, which the Advertising Standards Authority polices, with the Competition and Markets Authority able to act on misleading claims.
The person who built the campaign should not be the only person who checks it. A second pair of eyes catches broken conversion tags and duplicated keywords.
Where staff need to prove their platform knowledge, certification routes exist. Google Ads certification runs through Skillshop, and Meta runs professional certificate exams through its certification programme. Both sit alongside in-house training.
For skills beyond platforms, the digital marketing training courses from CIM cover the wider craft of paid search work.
Before and after: what changes in practice
Before and after
Before
- Ownership
- Shared across the team
- Intake
- Verbal or email request
- QA
- Informal review
- Handover
- Summary email
- Review
- Annual tidy-up
After
- Ownership
- One named role per stage
- Intake
- Single form with exit criteria
- QA
- Signed checklist by a second person
- Handover
- Dated pack with change log
- Review
- Quarterly workflow check
The same shift runs through the rest of the route. QA moves from a personal read-through to a signed checklist checked by someone else. Handover moves from a verbal update to a dated pack with results and live-asset links. Review moves from an ad-hoc tidy-up to a fixed quarterly walk-through with the stage owners.
Handover evidence clients now expect
Handover is where trust is won or lost. Clients want to know what changed, when, and on whose instruction. A dated change log answers all three.
A change log that survives scrutiny records five things for every entry:
- The date the change went live.
- What changed, named by campaign or asset.
- Why it changed, and which client instruction or result prompted it.
- Who approved it.
- A link to the live asset, so the record can be checked.
Keep the pack short. One page of changes, one page of results, and links to the live assets. Anything longer goes unread.
The pack is only as good as its record. A dated entry naming the approver, the change and the live asset is what turns a list of edits into evidence, and it is the first thing a client asks for when results dip.
Run a quarterly workflow check
Set a fixed date each quarter to walk the workflow end to end. Ask each stage owner two questions: what slowed you down, and what did you fix informally?
Informal fixes are the signal. If people are working around a step, the step is wrong. Update the document and tell the client what changed.
Keep the workflow to one page. If it needs more, the stages are too fine.
Common questions
How often should a PPC agency review its operating workflow?
Quarterly suits most teams, because platform setup steps and client approval habits shift within a year. A shorter cycle creates churn; a longer one lets workarounds harden.
Who should own quality assurance in a small agency?
Someone other than the person who built the campaign. In a three-person team, that may be the founder or a senior account manager who did not touch the build.
What belongs in a client handover pack?
A dated list of changes, the results those changes produced, and links to live assets. Add the name of the person who approved each change.
Can a workflow work across several platforms?
Yes, if intake and QA stay platform-neutral and only the build stage changes. Keep platform-specific steps in a short appendix rather than the main route.
