PERFORMANCE MARKETING & PPC AGENCY IN GURGAON · DLF CYBER CITY

Think of it as three numbers: the agency’s fee, your ad spend, and 18% GST on that spend. Most founders only budget for the first two.

Published Indian guides put agency retainers anywhere from about ₹20K to ₹200K+ a month, or 10 to 20% of ad spend, and startup-focused guides put fuller engagements at ₹50K to ₹300K a month plus a share of spend. Those are agency claims, so treat them as bands. What sits inside the fee matters more than the number. Is the tracking fixed? Is creative included? Who decides where budget moves each week?

The real worry behind this question is paying a lot and getting nothing measurable. That usually happens when the fee and the result aren’t tied to the same number. Agree one number up front, like cost per qualified lead or return on spend measured from your store after returns.

For transparency, we scope every engagement after an audit and agree the retainer in writing. Your ad spend goes on your own card, never through us, so there’s no hidden markup. We’re not the cheapest option in India, and we’re worth it when your spend is large enough for better decisions to pay for the fee several times over.

My rule: never compare agency fees without comparing what they’ll be measured on.

A fixed fee is usually cleaner, because a percentage of spend rewards the agency for spending more, not for spending well. Percentages aren’t always wrong, but you should know what you’re buying.

The worry founders raise about this is exactly right. If the fee grows when the budget grows, who on the agency side ever argues for cutting spend? With a percentage model, the honest agency has to recommend smaller budgets against its own interest. Most don’t.

A percentage can make sense at very small budgets, where a flat fee would be too high, or when spend swings a lot across the year. What matters more is transparency. Watch for fees hidden inside the media bill, where the agency pays Google and invoices you a marked-up total. That’s why the ad account should bill your card directly.

Some founders ask for revenue share instead. It sounds fair, but it only works if the agency can see and trust your revenue data, and if returns and refunds are counted properly.

Whatever model you choose, tie it to one agreed number and a monthly review.

My rule: pay for judgement, not volume. If the fee rewards spending more, ask who is protecting your money.

You should. Always. Your Google Ads and Meta ad accounts should sit in your own Google account and Business Manager, billed to your card, with your team holding admin access. The agency gets access as a partner, not the other way round.

This keeps coming up because people get burned. There are threads from business owners whose agency won’t hand over the Google Ads account when they leave, or whose account sits inside the agency’s manager account so the ownership invite never quite works. When that happens you lose years of conversion history, audiences and learnings, and the next agency starts from zero.

Here’s how to set it up properly. Create the ad accounts yourself, or have the agency create them inside your Business Manager. Keep yourself as primary admin. Add the agency as a partner. Put billing on your card. Make sure your pixel, Conversions API setup and analytics properties are yours too.

If you already have an agency, check today. Log in and see whether you’re an admin and whose card is paying. If you can’t log in, that’s your answer.

With us it’s simply how we work: your accounts, your data, your card. If we part ways, nothing leaves with us.

My rule: if you can’t fire your agency without losing your account, you don’t own it.

Yes. Google India invoices 18% GST on your ad spend, and if your GSTIN is on the account you can usually claim it back as input tax credit. Meta billing works similarly for registered businesses, but check your own invoices.

The practical problem is budgeting. If you plan ₹100K of spend and forget GST, you’re ₹18K short before the month starts, or the platform quietly delivers less than you expected. So decide whether your budget means spend before tax or total cost, and tell your agency which.

On TDS, ClearTax notes that section 194C at 2% applies only when a single invoice crosses ₹30K or annual payments cross ₹100K, so smaller advertisers often don’t need to deduct it. If your account is billed by a Google entity outside India, the treatment changes and you may need to self-assess GST under reverse charge. That one is worth confirming with your CA.

The mistake I see is founders paying GST for months without their GSTIN on the account, so the credit is simply lost.

My rule: put your GSTIN on every ad account before you spend anything, and budget the 18% explicitly.

Because cheap, frictionless forms attract bots, accidental taps and people who were never going to buy, and Meta optimises for whatever you tell it counts as a conversion. If a form fill is success, it will find you more form fills, real or not.

This is one of the most common complaints I hear from Indian founders, and it shows up all over the forums: forms full of fake numbers, names clearly typed by bots, and in competitive sectors like NCR real estate, people reporting deliberate junk submissions. The cost per lead looks great. The sales team calls and nobody answers.

Here’s how I fix it. Add friction where it filters: a higher-intent form type, a qualifying question or two, phone number verification. Connect the form to your CRM and mark which leads became real conversations and customers. Send those outcomes back to Meta through the Conversions API, so the system learns what a good lead looks like. And judge the campaign on cost per qualified lead, not cost per lead.

Sometimes the better move is to take the conversation somewhere harder to fake, like a click-to-WhatsApp ad or a phone call.

My rule: optimise for the lead you want to pay for, not the lead that’s cheapest to get.

Google doesn’t set a meaningful minimum, but your results do. You need enough budget to collect enough conversions for the system to learn, in a reasonable time.

Here’s how I think about it. Take your target cost per lead or per sale and ask how many conversions a month the campaign needs to learn and to be judged fairly. Meta’s guidance for leaving its learning phase is about 50 optimisation events per ad set in a week, and Google’s automated bidding also needs steady conversion data. If your budget can only buy five leads a month, the algorithm is guessing, and so are you.

The mistake I see is spreading a small budget across too many campaigns, keywords or audiences, so nothing gets enough data. With a modest budget, run one tight campaign on your highest-intent searches, track it properly, and expand only once it’s working.

On agencies: if your monthly spend is small, an agency fee can eat most of the value. At that stage a good freelancer, or learning the basics yourself, is often the smarter move. I’ll tell you that honestly if it’s where you are.

My rule: budget for enough conversions to learn from, not the lowest number the platform will accept.

Often, yes, for businesses where a conversation closes the sale: clinics, education, real estate, services and higher-ticket D2C. A WhatsApp chat is harder to fake than a form and easier to follow up.

Click-to-WhatsApp ads run on Facebook and Instagram and open a chat with your business instead of a form. Meta prices conversations a buyer starts differently from messages a business starts, so check the current rates for India before you plan volumes.

The upside is quality. Someone who taps through and types a message has shown more intent than someone who submitted a pre-filled form with one tap. Your team can qualify them in minutes, share details and book a call.

The catch is speed and process. If nobody replies for three hours, that intent is gone. You need staffed hours or an automated first reply, a clear script, and a way to tag chats by outcome so results flow back to Meta through the Conversions API. Without that, you can’t tell which ads brought customers.

We moved one of our clients, Niramaya Soul, from lead forms to a WhatsApp funnel. Cost per lead fell by more than 85%, and monthly revenue grew more than 10x.

My rule: use WhatsApp when a conversation closes your sale and you can reply within minutes.

Hire for the stage you’re at. A strong freelancer is often right for one channel and a modest budget. An agency makes sense when tracking, creative, several platforms and weekly testing all need to work together.

Founders in Indian startup forums describe the dilemma well: agencies feel too expensive and freelancers feel flaky. Both complaints are fair. A freelancer gives you a direct line to the person doing the work and lower costs, but depth and continuity are the risk. An agency gives you a team and cover when someone’s away, but you can end up paying senior prices for junior work.

The questions that matter are the same either way. Who exactly will manage my account each week? Will the accounts be in my name? How will we measure success, and from which data? What happens in the first 30 days? How will you protect me from fake leads and broken tracking?

If your spend is small and you sell on one platform, start with a freelancer and learn alongside them. Once you’re spending across Google, Meta and more, and a bad week costs real money, a team pays for itself.

My rule: hire the person or team whose weekly decisions you can see, whatever the label.