You have scored your advertising across eight reports, one to ten each — **a maximum of 80.** See [**Score Your PPC Performance**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/score-your-ppc-performance).

**Above 50 is a good sign. Below 50 is a bad one.**

**What you do next depends on that score and on who currently runs your advertising.** Four paths, and picking the wrong one wastes months.

[Watch the walkthrough](https://kb.trackiq.com/kb-assets/kbvideo-nextsteps-explainer-369ab976.mp4)

*Prefer to watch? One hundred and fifty-nine seconds on patching gaps versus rebuilding, the three options when an agency underperforms, and baselining so the next review is not another guess.*

## **If you run advertising in-house**

### **Score 7+ per report — good performance**

**Add only the specific processes that scored badly.**

**If two of eight reports scored low, add those two.** Your existing system is producing good results, so a wholesale replacement risks more than it gains.

**This is a small lift with a clear return** — you are patching identified gaps rather than rebuilding.

### **Score 6 or lower — poor performance**

**Implement the full system.**

**All the reports, on their cadences, with the weekly, fortnightly and monthly rhythm** — see [**The Nine-Report PPC Routine**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/the-nine-report-ppc-routine) and [**The PPC Management Workflow**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/the-ppc-management-workflow).

**Because a low score across several reports usually means several critical processes are missing entirely**, and adding one at a time to a structurally incomplete system does not compound.

## **If an agency runs your advertising**

### **Score 7+ — good performance**

**Same answer: add only the low-scoring processes.**

**Your agency is doing well. Ask them to add the specific missing reports**, and give them the criteria rather than a complaint.

### **Score 6 or lower — poor performance**

**Three options, and there is no single right answer.** It depends on your size, product count, capability and available time.

**Option 1: bring it in-house.**

**Right if you want to build the skill and can commit roughly seven hours a week.**

**It is the strongest long-term position** — see [**In-House PPC or an Agency**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/in-house-ppc-or-an-agency) — and it is the option most people underestimate the time cost of.

**Option 2: switch agencies.**

**Gather free audits and quotes from several**, compare them, and pick the best fit.

**The audits are useful on their own**, because several independent reads of your account will agree on the real problems.

**Option 3: keep the agency and have them add the missing processes.**

**Honestly the weakest of the three**, and worth knowing why before you choose it.

**A low score usually means many critical processes are missing entirely**, which is a large amount of new work for an agency operating a standardised system. **In practice this works sometimes and fails often** — not through bad faith, but because the volume of additional process is beyond what the engagement was priced for.

**Choose it when the relationship is genuinely good and you would rather fix than replace** — with clear expectations about how much you are asking for.

![What the score is measuring, per campaign](/kb-assets/shot-adv-campaigns-view-77ace2.png)

**Whichever path you take, re-score at the same eight reports in a few months** — see [**Campaigns: Budgets, Placement and Audience Adjustments**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/advertising-campaigns). Without a repeatable score you cannot tell whether the change worked, and every one of these paths is expensive to get wrong twice.

## **The decision in one table**

| | **In-house** | **Agency** |
|---|---|---|
| **Score 7+** | add the low-scoring processes | ask the agency to add them |
| **Score ≤6** | implement the full system | in-house, switch agency, or add processes |

## **Whatever you choose, baseline first**

**Record the score before you change anything.**

**Then re-score after a defined period.** That is the only way to know whether the decision was right, and it costs one afternoon.

## **Common mistakes**

**Rebuilding everything on a good score**, and breaking a system that worked.

**Adding one process at a time to a score of 4**, where the gaps are structural.

**Bringing it in-house without the seven hours a week**, and doing it worse than the agency did.

**Skipping the free audits** when considering a switch.

**Keeping a failing agency** and asking them to absorb a system's worth of new process.

**Not baselining**, so the next review is another guess.

## **Related**

- [**Score Your PPC Performance**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/score-your-ppc-performance) — producing the score this decision runs on.
- [**In-House PPC or an Agency**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/in-house-ppc-or-an-agency) — the fuller case on both sides.
- [**The PPC Management Workflow**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/the-ppc-management-workflow) — what implementing the full system involves.