Paid Media

What’s Actually Included in a PPC Management Retainer in Pakistan (and the Sneaky Exclusions)

By Haris Ahmed Siddiqui · · 11 min read

If you’re about to sign a PPC management retainer in Pakistan and you can’t tell from the proposal whether ad spend is included, who writes the ad copy, or what happens if your landing page is broken — this is for you. I’ve run Google Ads and Meta accounts for Pakistani clients since 2009, and the single biggest cause of a soured agency relationship isn’t bad performance. It’s a vague scope of work that let both sides assume different things. This is the line-item breakdown nobody hands you up front.

First, the one thing that should never be inside the retainer: ad spend

Let’s kill the most expensive misunderstanding immediately. Your ad spend (the budget you give Google or Meta) is not part of the management fee. They are two separate amounts.

The management retainer is what you pay the agency for their time, expertise, and labour. The ad spend is what gets paid directly to the platform and shows up as clicks and impressions. A reputable agency in Pakistan will quote these as two distinct numbers, and ideally the ad account is billed to your own card or business account so you own the data and the spend history.

Where this goes wrong: an agency quotes “PKR 80,000/month, all inclusive” and you later discover PKR 50,000 of that was meant to be media spend, leaving PKR 30,000 of actual management — or worse, they pocket the difference in a low-spend month. If anyone offers an all-in number, ask them to split it on paper. A clean ppc management retainer Pakistan agreement always separates fee from spend.

How management fees are usually structured here

  • Flat monthly fee — most common for SMEs. Predictable. Typically PKR 30,000–120,000/month depending on number of campaigns and platforms.
  • Percentage of ad spend — often 10–20%. Fine for big budgets, but it quietly rewards the agency for spending more of your money, so watch it.
  • Hybrid — a base fee plus a small performance bonus. Honest if the targets are sane.

Be wary of pure percentage-of-spend on a small budget. On a PKR 100,000 ad spend, 15% is PKR 15,000 — that barely covers a few hours of a competent specialist’s attention, so you’ll get a junior on a checklist, not a strategist.

The build phase: a one-time inclusion, not an ongoing one

The most common scope confusion in a Google Ads retainer is between the initial build and the ongoing optimization. They are different work and they should be priced differently.

The build (sometimes called onboarding or account setup) is a one-time project at the start. A proper build should include:

  • Account audit if you already have an account, or a clean build if you don’t
  • Conversion tracking setup — Google Ads tag, GA4, and event tracking for calls, form fills, and WhatsApp clicks (critical for Pakistani lead-gen, where most enquiries come via WhatsApp or phone)
  • Keyword research and a negative keyword list
  • Campaign and ad-group structure
  • First set of ad copy and assets
  • Audience and location targeting setup (e.g. Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad, or nationwide)

Some agencies fold a free build into a longer retainer; others charge a one-time setup fee of PKR 25,000–80,000. Both are legitimate. What’s not legitimate is charging you a “build” every few months because they keep “restructuring.” A rebuild should happen once, then iterate. If you see a build line item recurring, ask why.

Ongoing optimization: the real meat of the ppc retainer scope

This is what you’re actually paying the monthly fee for. A serious month-to-month scope of work includes the following, and you should see most of these spelled out in the contract:

  • Bid and budget management — adjusting bids, shifting budget toward what converts, pacing spend so you don’t blow the month in week one
  • Keyword expansion and pruning — adding winners, cutting losers, growing the negative list every single week
  • Search term review — reading the actual queries triggering your ads and blocking the junk (this alone saves real money in Pakistan, where broad match wastes spend on irrelevant Urdu/English mixed queries)
  • A/B testing of ad copy and assets — at least a rolling test running at all times
  • Audience and placement refinement — especially on Meta and Display, where placements bleed budget on cheap app traffic
  • Conversion tracking maintenance — checking the pixel/tag still fires after your dev team pushes a site update
  • Reporting and a strategy call

Ask the agency a blunt question: how many hours per month does this retainer represent? You don’t need a stopwatch, but the answer tells you whether you’re getting active management or a “set and forget” account that someone glances at before sending a report.

What “optimization” quietly leaves out

Here’s a sneaky exclusion. “Optimization” usually covers the platforms named in the contract. If your retainer says Google Search and you later want Performance Max, YouTube, or Meta added, that’s frequently treated as new scope with a new fee. Not unreasonable — but get the platform list written down so “we also want to run Facebook” doesn’t turn into a surprise invoice.

Creative and ad copy: included, but read the fine print

Text ad copy is almost always included — writing and testing headlines and descriptions is core to ad management deliverables. Where it gets fuzzy:

  • Static image ads / banners — sometimes included (a few per month), sometimes billed separately as design work. If you need a steady stream of fresh creative, that may belong with a dedicated graphic design service rather than buried in the PPC fee.
  • Video ads — almost never included by default. Video production is its own line item, full stop.
  • Urdu / Roman Urdu copy — make sure it’s specified if your audience responds to it. Some agencies only write English by default, and for a lot of B2C campaigns in Pakistan, Roman Urdu pulls a noticeably better response.

The honest framing: the agency will write and test ad copy as part of management. Heavy graphic or video production is a separate creative budget. Don’t expect 20 designed creatives a month inside a PKR 40,000 management fee — that math doesn’t work for anyone.

Landing pages: the exclusion that kills more campaigns than bad bidding

This is the big one, so I’ll be direct. Most PPC retainers do not include building or fixing your landing page. The agency optimizes the traffic; what happens after the click is usually your responsibility.

That’s a problem, because a slow, ugly, or non-mobile landing page tanks your conversion rate no matter how good the ad management is. In Pakistan, where a huge share of traffic is on mid-range Android over patchy mobile data, a page that takes seven seconds to load will quietly waste half your ad budget.

What a good PPC retainer does include:

  • Landing page recommendations — they’ll tell you what’s broken and what to change
  • Conversion rate feedback based on what they see in the data
  • Sometimes minor tweaks if they have access

What it usually doesn’t include: actually designing and building the page. If you need that, scope it separately with a web design team, or check whether the agency offers it as an add-on. The best outcome is when PPC and the landing page sit under one roof so nobody can point fingers — pairing campaign management with proper landing page and web design is how you actually move the conversion number, not just the click number.

Reporting cadence: what you get, and how often

Reporting is where agencies either build trust or hide. Your ppc contract inclusions should name the cadence and the format. A reasonable standard:

  • Monthly report — spend, clicks, conversions, cost per conversion, and a plain-language summary of what changed and why. Not a 40-tab data dump nobody reads.
  • A monthly or fortnightly call — 30 minutes to discuss results and next steps
  • A live dashboard (Looker Studio or similar) — increasingly standard, so you can check numbers any day without waiting

Two non-negotiables in any ppc agency scope of work: you own the ad account and the data, and you keep admin access. If an agency refuses to give you owner-level access to your own Google Ads or Meta account, walk away. That’s a hostage situation, not a partnership. When the relationship ends, the account and its entire history stay with you.

The sneaky exclusions checklist — print this before you sign

Run the proposal against this list. If any of these aren’t addressed, ask before signing, not after:

  1. Ad spend — separate from the fee, billed to your account?
  2. Platforms covered — exactly which ones, and what’s the cost to add more?
  3. Build vs ongoing — is setup one-time or recurring?
  4. Creative limits — how many designed assets/month? Is video included? (It isn’t.)
  5. Landing pages — recommendations only, or actual build/fix?
  6. Account ownership — do you keep owner access and data?
  7. Reporting — what format, how often, live dashboard or not?
  8. Contract length and exit — month-to-month or locked in? Notice period?
  9. Number of campaigns — is there a cap before the fee goes up?
  10. Who pays platform fees and currency conversion — Google bills in USD; the FX and any card surcharge matters on a tight budget.

One more honest note on contracts: a one-month lock-in or a short notice period is fair — PPC needs a runway of at least 60–90 days before the data is meaningful. A 12-month lock-in with no performance clause is a red flag. Good agencies keep you because the numbers are good, not because the contract trapped you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is ad spend included in a PPC management retainer in Pakistan?

No, and you should be suspicious of anyone who says it is. The management retainer pays for the agency’s time and expertise; the ad spend goes directly to Google or Meta and is a separate amount. Always get the two split on paper, and ideally have the ad account billed to your own card so you control and own the spend.

How much does PPC management cost in Pakistan?

For SMEs, flat fees typically run PKR 30,000–120,000 per month depending on the number of campaigns and platforms, on top of your ad budget. Percentage-of-spend models usually sit around 10–20%. If a quote looks unusually cheap, you’re likely getting a junior running a checklist rather than active strategy.

Does a PPC retainer include building my landing page?

Almost never. Most retainers include landing page recommendations and conversion feedback, but not the actual design and build — that’s separate web design work. Since a weak page wastes ad budget regardless of how well the campaigns are run, it’s worth keeping PPC and your landing page under one team so the two are aligned.

Who owns the Google Ads account — me or the agency?

You should. Insist on owner-level access to your own Google Ads and Meta accounts from day one. If an agency refuses, that’s a deal-breaker, because it means you lose your entire account history and data the moment the relationship ends.

What’s the difference between the build and ongoing optimization?

The build is a one-time setup at the start — account structure, conversion tracking, keyword research, and the first ads. Ongoing optimization is the recurring monthly work of managing bids, pruning keywords, testing copy, and reporting. They’re priced differently, and you should never be charged a fresh “build” every few months.

Should I sign a long-term PPC contract?

PPC needs roughly 60–90 days to produce meaningful data, so a short lock-in or a 30-day notice period is reasonable. But a 12-month contract with no exit clause is a warning sign. A confident agency keeps clients on results, not on contractual handcuffs.

Talk to One Source Soft before you sign anything

If you’ve got a PPC proposal in front of you and you’re not sure what’s included, send it over — we’ll tell you honestly where the gaps and sneaky exclusions are, even if you don’t end up working with us. Our PPC management service spells out the scope line by line: ad spend separated from the fee, full account ownership on your side, clear reporting, and no surprise invoices for things you assumed were covered.

We’ve managed Google Ads and Meta accounts for Pakistani businesses across Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad since 2009, and you can read what clients say in our public Google reviews. Start with a free account audit and consultation — we’ll look at your current campaigns (or your competitors’ if you’re starting fresh) and give you a straight answer on what’s worth spending on. Get in touch and let’s build a retainer where you actually know what you’re paying for.

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