Plenty of American, British and Canadian companies now run their Google, Meta and LinkedIn campaigns with teams in India. Some of those partnerships work brilliantly. Others end with a locked ad account and three months of wasted spend. The difference is almost never the country. It comes down to a handful of checks you can make before you sign anything.
1. Your company owns the ad accounts
This is the non-negotiable one. Your Google Ads, Meta Business Manager and LinkedIn Campaign Manager accounts should be created under your business, with the agency added as a user or a linked manager account. If the agency wants to run your campaigns inside its own account, walk away. You lose your data and history the day you part ways.
2. You know who actually runs the campaigns
Ask for the name and LinkedIn profile of the person who will build and optimise your account, not the person on the sales call. A senior strategist who hands everything to a junior buyer is the most common complaint people share about offshore agencies.
3. Reporting is about leads, not impressions
Ask to see a sample report before you sign. It should show spend, leads or sales, cost per lead, lead quality and what changes next month. A report full of reach, impressions and "engagement" is a sign the agency is not tracking what matters to you.
4. Tracking comes before launch
A good partner sets up conversion tracking for forms, calls and booked meetings in week one, and connects it to your CRM where possible. Our guide to tracking which ad brought which customer covers what that looks like.
5. Communication fits your working day
India is about 4.5 to 5.5 hours ahead of the UK, and 9.5 to 13.5 hours ahead of US and Canadian time zones. That works well when it is planned: a fixed weekly call in your morning, written updates in between, and campaign changes made overnight so you start the day with fresh numbers. Ask exactly how they will handle an urgent question.
6. They know your rules for following up leads
Lead forms and email follow-up need the right consent wording for your market: CAN-SPAM in the US, CASL in Canada, and UK GDPR and PECR in the UK. Your own legal team should approve final wording, but the agency should raise it without being asked.
7. Real numbers from real accounts
Ask for screenshots from live ad accounts, with client names hidden if needed, and for one or two references you can speak to. Logos on a website prove very little on their own.
8. Pricing is clear and ad spend is separate
The management fee should be separate from ad spend, which goes straight to Google, Meta or LinkedIn. Be wary of prices so low they only make sense with junior staff. Our breakdown of PPC management pricing models explains the common options.
9. A short notice period
Thirty days is reasonable. An agency that is confident in its results doesn't need to lock you in for a year before you have seen a single report.
10. They tell you when ads are not the answer
Sometimes the real problem is the offer, the website or how fast your team replies to enquiries. A partner worth hiring will say so in the first audit, even if it means a smaller contract.
A simple way to test before committing
Start with an audit or a 60 to 90 day pilot on one channel, with an agreed cost-per-lead target. You will learn more about how a team works in two months of real reporting than in any number of sales calls. If you want a second opinion on your current campaigns, see how we work with US, UK and Canadian companies.