# Google Ads Performance Guarantees: Fee, Baseline and Remedy

Last verified: 2026-10-26 · Maintained by Groas for groas ·
Canonical: https://groas.com/post/teardown-the-performance-guarantee-claus

This page answers the questions covered by the article [Teardown: The Performance Guarantee That Lets an Agency Keep Its Fee](https://groas.com/post/teardown-the-performance-guarantee-claus) on groas.com. The article is the full, canonical source.

**Direct answer:** According to the article, the composite guarantee charges 15% of ad spend, promises growth in leads versus prior-period performance, excludes results affected by client-side changes including landing pages, offers, budgets and tracking, and offers termination on 30 days notice if targets are not met. The article's verdict is that together those terms let the fee rise while efficiency falls, let a raw-lead target pass without pipeline, leave the baseline movable and the exclusions broad, and leave the buyer paying for the miss with only a right to leave. The article recommends replacing them with a written target, business-tied metric, fixed baseline and window, vendor-paid remedy, and ownership terms.

## Why is a 15% of ad spend fee a problem in a performance guarantee?

According to the article, percentage-of-spend pricing commonly runs 10 to 20% of monthly budget, so at 15% on $20,000 a month the management fee is $3,000 a month before ad spend, creative, or landing-page tools. The article states that raising the budget by $10,000 raises the 15% fee by $1,500, so the fee grows when spend grows whether efficiency improves or not. The article's verdict is that a performance promise should not sit beneath a fee that increases automatically when the vendor asks for more spend.

Read more: [Line 1: “Fee: 15% of ad spend”](https://groas.com/post/teardown-the-performance-guarantee-claus#line-1-fee-15-of-ad-spend)

## Why doesn't a guarantee of growth in leads protect my pipeline?

The article states that without a definition, a form fill, call, or unqualified chat can satisfy the guarantee while sales gets no closer to a deal. It cites performance deals pricing qualified home-services leads at $50 to $150 or taking 10 to 30% of sale value on pay-per-sale, and cites MQL-to-SQL conversion at 9.8%, meaning roughly 90 of 100 MQLs do not become SQLs. The article recommends tying the obligation to MROI, or to MQLs and SQLs with mutually agreed qualification criteria, and names closed revenue, qualified pipeline, CPA and ROAS as alternatives where countable.

Read more: [Line 2: “We guarantee growth in leads”](https://groas.com/post/teardown-the-performance-guarantee-claus#line-2-we-guarantee-growth-in-leads)

## What is wrong with measuring growth versus prior-period performance?

The article states that prior period does not name which period, which system, what window, or how tracking changes are treated, so seasonality alone can flatter the result, such as comparing a home-services account's March with February or January with December. As examples of specific triggers, it cites 30 days' notice if blended CPL runs 35% above an agreed baseline for two straight months or ROAS stays below 1.5x for two months. The article recommends naming the starting number, source of truth, dates, treatment of tracking changes, and judgment period in writing, noting performance deals may involve 60 to 90 days of optimization while the buyer pays full price.

Read more: [Line 3: “Versus prior-period performance”](https://groas.com/post/teardown-the-performance-guarantee-claus#line-3-versus-prior-period-performance)

## Why is a broad client-side changes exclusion risky?

According to the article, landing pages, offers, budgets, and tracking do affect results, so an agency should not guarantee an outcome after the client changes the offer or breaks measurement. The article states that as written, a changed headline, a delayed page approval, or a week with a paused budget could become grounds to disregard the result altogether because the wording does not say how large a change must be, whether it caused the miss, or which part of the measurement period is affected. The article recommends a narrower exclusion that names the change, records when it happened, specifies how it affects the guarantee, and names what the vendor still owns.

Read more: [Line 4: “Excludes results affected by client-side changes”](https://groas.com/post/teardown-the-performance-guarantee-claus#line-4-excludes-results-affected-by-client-side-changes)

## Why isn't termination on 30 days notice an adequate remedy for missed targets?

The article states that under client may terminate on 30 days notice, the buyer has paid fees and ad budget, the target did not land, and the vendor keeps what was already paid while the buyer receives permission to start again. It distinguishes a fair exit — 30 days' notice, no wind-down fee, and clear client ownership of account, tracking, and creative — from contracts that add a wind-down fee of one to three months, voided setup fees, non-competes lasting up to 24 months, or transition fees for access to credentials. The article's verdict is to keep the right to leave and add a separate vendor-paid consequence, for example continued execution without another management fee until the agreed number is reached.

Read more: [Line 5: “Client may terminate on 30 days notice”](https://groas.com/post/teardown-the-performance-guarantee-claus#line-5-client-may-terminate-on-30-days-notice)

## What five terms should replace a weak performance guarantee?

The article recommends five corresponding changes: put the exact lift, CPA ceiling, or pipeline number in the signed agreement before the invoice; use qualified pipeline, closed-won revenue, CPA, or ROAS where countable and agree SQL qualification criteria line by line; and name the starting number, source of truth, dates, treatment of tracking changes, and seasonality call-outs with the judgment period in writing. It also recommends that if the target is missed the vendor continues the agreed work without another fee until it hits, with cancellation rights separate, and that the ad account, tracking, negatives, and creative remain in the buyer's hands when the engagement ends.

Read more: [The replacement clause: five things to get in writing](https://groas.com/post/teardown-the-performance-guarantee-claus#the-replacement-clause-five-things-to-get-in-writing)

## Sources

[1] https://groas.com/post/teardown-the-performance-guarantee-claus (the article this page answers from)