Choosing a Paid Ads Partner in the Gulf: Questions Before You Sign

Most companies choose an ads partner on the strength of a pitch deck: a few campaign screenshots, a cost-per-lead figure from another client, and a promise to “scale”. The decisions that actually protect you sit elsewhere. Who owns the ad accounts and the tracking? How does the fee move when the budget moves? What should the first two months prove, and what will you see every month after that?

This guide treats hiring an ads partner as a procurement decision rather than a creative one. It is written for owners, CEOs and marketing directors in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Qatar who are about to sign with an agency or freelancer for Meta, Google, TikTok, Snapchat or LinkedIn campaigns, or who are wondering whether their current arrangement is set up correctly. If you are on your second or third agency already, read why companies keep changing marketing agencies alongside this guide.

1. Settle ownership before you discuss strategy

If the partner relationship ends, you should be able to remove their access in an afternoon and keep everything: campaign history, audiences, conversion data and the pixel that has been learning from your website traffic. That only works if every asset was created in your company’s name and the partner was given access to it, not the other way round.

Each platform has a structure built for exactly this:

• Meta (Facebook and Instagram). Ad accounts, Pages, Instagram accounts and catalogues are held in a Meta business account (shown as Business Manager or a business portfolio, depending on the screen you use). Meta’s business asset documentation records a business’s access to an ad account as either owner or agency, and defines an agency as a business that can manage or access assets owned by another business (Meta for Developers). Your business should be the owner; the partner’s business should hold agency access.
• Google Ads. Agencies usually work from a manager account that links to your account. Google explains that a manager account can be given ownership of a client account, but that users with administrative access to the client account can unlink the manager account at any time (Google Ads Help). Keep at least one Admin user from your own company on the account. Google notes that only Admins can manage access, accept or reject manager link requests and unlink managers, and suggests adding at least one additional administrator (Google Ads Help).
• TikTok. TikTok Business Center lets a business hold advertiser accounts, TikTok accounts, pixels, catalogues and audiences in one place, and invite partners with permissions set per role (TikTok Business Center). The business that adds a partner chooses which assets it shares, at Admin or Operator level for ad accounts, and can remove the partner’s access (TikTok, TikTok).
• Snapchat. Snapchat’s Ads API documentation says the only way to set up an Organization is to sign up for a Business account with Snap Business Manager, and ad accounts sit beneath each organization; users then hold roles on each ad account, with admin, creative and reports among the examples given (Snap for Developers). Create the organization in your company’s name, keep an admin from your own company on every ad account, and check Snapchat’s Business Help Center for the current steps to share access with a partner.
• LinkedIn. Campaign Manager works through user roles on the ad account. LinkedIn’s developer documentation lists roles from viewer up to account manager, plus a single billing admin who is billed for the account (LinkedIn Marketing API documentation). Keep the billing role and at least one account-manager role with someone inside your company, and give the partner the role its work needs. Role names in Campaign Manager can differ from the developer labels and may change, so check the current role names in LinkedIn’s help centre before you assign them.

The same rule covers what sits around the ad accounts: your website analytics property, your tag manager container, your WhatsApp Business account and the domain itself. The partner gets access; you hold ownership. Our guide to choosing an SEO agency covers analytics and Search Console ownership in more detail. When RX Designer runs campaigns, the ad accounts stay in the client’s name for exactly this reason.

2. Understand how the fee relates to the spend

An ads quote mixes two very different kinds of money. Media budget goes to the platforms and buys reach and clicks. The management fee pays the partner for planning, setup, creative coordination, optimisation and reporting. Before you compare any two proposals, put these on separate lines. Our guide to what drives a marketing agency’s monthly fee covers the wider retainer; for paid media specifically, look at three things.

Then check how the media budget is paid. The cleanest arrangement is that your company’s card or invoice billing sits on your own ad accounts, so platform invoices come to you and you can see every riyal, dirham or pound spent. If the partner pays the platforms and re-bills you, ask for the platform invoices behind every re-billed amount. Google’s guidance for advertisers says that at a minimum you have the right to know the number of clicks, impressions and the total cost of your Google ads, and that partners often charge a fee on top of advertising costs (Google Advertising Policies). Google’s third-party transparency requirements say that partners who share cost data must report the exact amount Google charged, excluding their own fees, and that a separate management fee must be disclosed on customer invoices (Google Advertising Policies).

Tax and billing checks by market. Put every proposal on the same tax basis before comparing. Then check these points for the market where your ad accounts are billed.

In every market the cleanest arrangement is the same: platform invoices go to your company, and the management fee is a separate line on the partner’s tax invoice. Rules change, so confirm the current position with your accountant before signing.

3. Define what the first 30 to 60 days should prove

A new partner rarely knows your sales cycle, and the platforms need data before optimisation means much. So do not judge the first month on cost per sale. Judge it on whether the foundations are in place. In our view, a reasonable 60-day plan should deliver:

1. Tracking that you can verify. Conversion events for the actions that matter (form submissions, WhatsApp clicks, calls, quotation requests) firing correctly and recorded in your analytics. Our guide to GA4 key events for lead tracking explains what to set up.
2. An agreed lead definition. What counts as a lead, what counts as a qualified lead, and who in your sales team confirms it. Without this, a partner can hit any cost-per-lead target by buying cheaper, weaker leads.
3. A baseline. Current inquiry volume and quality by source, recorded before the new campaigns start, so later results have something to compare against.
4. Structured tests. Two or three clear tests (audience, offer, landing page or creative angle), each with a hypothesis and a result, not a constant stream of unexplained edits. How much to put behind those tests is covered in our guide to setting a paid ads test budget; this article is about what the first 60 days must prove.
5. Feedback from sales. A simple weekly loop where your sales team marks leads as qualified, not qualified or won. This is often the single most useful input a partner receives.

By the end of the second month you should be able to say which channel, campaign and message produced the best-quality inquiries, and what will change next month as a result. If the partner cannot say this, the problem is usually in setup or lead feedback, not in budget.

4. Decide what every monthly report must show

A report full of impressions and reach is easy to produce and hard to act on. Agree the format before you sign. A useful monthly report for a lead-driven business answers six questions on one or two pages:

• How much was spent, per platform and campaign, matching the platform invoices?
• How many leads came in, by source, and how many did sales mark as qualified?
• What did a qualified lead cost, and how did that compare with last month?
• Which tests ran, what did they show, and what was stopped?
• Which creatives and messages performed, with examples?
• What are the recommended changes for next month, with budget implications?

Ask for read-only access to the platforms as well, so the report is a summary you can check rather than the only view you have. If you report upwards to a board or owner, the same numbers should feed the marketing dashboard your leadership already uses.

Illustrative layout: a one-page monthly ads report. You can hand this to a shortlisted partner and ask them to fill it with a past client’s figures, names removed.

5. Terms to refuse, and what to ask for instead

Raising these terms in a first meeting can feel adversarial. In practice, a capable partner will already work this way and will be relieved that you asked.

6. The questions to bring to the pitch meeting

Score each partner on the same sheet. Professional recommendation. Score each answer from 0 to 3: 0 = no answer, 1 = vague, 2 = clear, 3 = clear and shown with evidence such as a screenshot, a sample report or a named person. Multiply each score by its weight.

How to read the totals:

• The maximum is 48.
• Any 0 on ownership or tracking should end the process, whatever the total.
• Compare totals only between partners scored by the same people.

Use the questions below as the interview script. They are our recommended questions, not a platform requirement. Ask every shortlisted partner the same questions and note the answers in writing.

1. Will every ad account, pixel, page and audience be owned by our business? How will you request access?
2. Which of your team will run our account day to day, and who reviews their work?
3. How is your fee calculated, and how does it change if our budget doubles or halves?
4. Will media spend be billed to us by the platforms directly? If not, will we see the platform invoices?
5. What will you need from us in the first two weeks: access, offers, prices, product details, sales contacts?
6. How will you define and confirm a qualified lead with our sales team?
7. Which conversions will you track, and how can we verify them ourselves?
8. What do you expect the first 60 days to prove, and what would make you recommend pausing?
9. Who writes the Arabic and English ad copy, and is the Arabic written natively for our market or translated?
10. Who produces creative, how many rounds are included, and who approves before ads go live?
11. What does your monthly report contain? Can we see a sample with client details removed?
12. How often will we meet, and who attends from your side?
13. What happens to our files, accounts and data if we end the agreement?
14. What is the notice period, and what work is included during it?
15. Which platforms would you not recommend for our business, and why?

The last question is often the most revealing. A partner who recommends every platform for every client is selling media management, not judgement. For a B2B company with a long sales cycle, the honest answer may be one or two channels done properly rather than five done thinly.

If you want a second view on a proposal, or on how your current accounts are set up, our performance marketing team, whose campaign work includes Facebook campaigns for the air-conditioning startup OX Conditioning, can review ownership, tracking and reporting with you, and the paid business diagnosis session is designed for exactly this kind of decision.