White label PPC exists because of one recurring moment: an agency wins a retainer client who then asks who runs their ads. There are four options — turn it down, hand it to someone junior, spend three months hiring, or find a delivery partner. The fourth is what white label means, and it is unremarkable in every other industry.
How white label PPC works: the mechanics
You keep the client, the contract, the price and the relationship. The partner runs the accounts under your name. Access is granted at partner level on the client’s own Business Manager or Google Ads account, so the client continues to own everything. Reporting arrives in your template, in your voice, on your schedule.
Where a platform displays a managing entity, it displays yours. If the client asks directly whether you use a specialist team, you answer honestly — a partner who would contradict you is the wrong partner.
Why agencies do it
Rarely capability. Usually economics. A senior media buyer is a large fixed cost whether you have three accounts or eleven, cannot cover their own leave, and takes every account’s history with them when they resign.
Per-account pricing flexes with your book. Win four accounts in a quarter and the cost rises with the revenue. Lose two and it falls the same month.
The most common reason an agency calls a delivery partner is that their buyer resigned yesterday. It is always urgent, and it is entirely predictable.
Where it goes wrong
Scope that was never written down. Does creative production sit with you or the partner? Who writes the strategy? Who answers the client at 6pm? Unspoken assumptions surface in month four as resentment.
A partner that disappears into a ticket queue. If you cannot reach a named person who knows the account, you have bought a process, not a team.
Reporting that is just a dashboard. If what arrives is numbers with no decisions, you now have to write the report yourself — which is most of the work you were outsourcing.
No continuity plan. You have swapped one single point of failure for another unless the partner documents the account rather than keeping it in one person’s head.
Four questions to ask before you start
- Who exactly works on my account, and can I speak to them? A named buyer, not an account manager relaying messages.
- What is in scope and what is not? Get creative production answered explicitly; it is the single most common gap.
- What happens if your person leaves? The answer should be a handover document, not reassurance.
- Will you ever contact my client? It should be in a mutual NDA, and the answer should be an immediate no.
Start with one account
Not a framework agreement. One live account you already understand well, one audit, one month. You will learn more from reading someone’s first written audit of an account you know inside out than from any pitch, because you can check every claim in it.
If the audit tells you things you already knew, that is fine — it means they can read an account. If it tells you something you did not know, you have found a partner. If it is generic, you have saved yourself a year.
On pricing it
A fixed monthly fee per account, not a percentage of spend. Percentage pricing means your delivery partner earns more when your client spends more, which is the wrong incentive to introduce into a relationship you own.
Fixed fees also let you price to your client with a predictable margin that does not change as the account scales.
Our own version of this is on the white label page, and the agency vs in-house calculator sizes the alternative honestly, including the costs that only appear after somebody has started.
Questions people ask
Will the client know we are using a white label PPC partner?
Not unless you tell them. Reporting carries your brand, communication goes through you, and the delivery team does not contact your client. That is the arrangement, and a partner who breaks it is not a partner.
Who owns the ad accounts in a white label arrangement?
The client should, with your agency holding access and the delivery partner working inside it. That keeps the relationship yours and means nothing structural changes if you switch partners.
How is white label PPC priced?
Usually a flat fee per account, scaled by complexity and spend level, which you mark up to your own client. Per-lead and revenue-share arrangements exist and create the same incentive problems they create anywhere else.
What is the biggest risk?
Communication lag. Two layers between the client and whoever is in the account slows every decision. The fix is agreeing response times and giving the delivery team direct read access to whatever records outcomes.
White label: Agency partner program · White-label PPC pricing · White-label SEO · White-label reporting