You can check without asking them. The ad account's change log, the ads actually running, the pages they say they wrote and Search Console all show the work or its absence. Here is where to click, in the platforms' own words.
Check 1Read the ad account's own log
Every Google Ads account keeps a record of what was changed, by whom, and when. Google's help page: "Change history allows you to revisit the changes you've made to your campaign over the last 2 years." To find it: "Go to Change history within the Campaigns menu." The first tab is By user, which Google describes as "Shows the most recent change made to the account, and who made it", and the second is By campaign.
It catches more than clicks in the interface: "In addition to changes made directly in your Google Ads account, your change history also displays changes made via automated rules, Google Ads API (AdWords API), and Google Ads Editor." An agency that works through tools shows up there too.
What you are looking for is not volume. A good account can be right to leave alone for a week. A quarter with nothing in the log, on an account you are paying someone to manage, is the finding. Read the names in the By user tab as well: if every change was made by a login you do not recognise, ask whose it is.
If you cannot sign in to the account without the agency, or you have never had a login of your own, the first problem is ownership, not activity: who owns my website, ad account and data if I leave the agency.
Check 2Look at the ads that are actually running
Google describes its record this way: "Google provides a searchable repository of advertisers and the ads they've served on Google platforms like Search, Display, Gmail, and YouTube." In Google's words, "You can search for an advertiser via the Ads Transparency Center using the advertiser or website name and filter your search results by details like date and targeted location." Search your own business name at adstransparency.google.com.
Meta has the same thing. Its help page: "The Ad Library contains all active ads that are shown across Meta technologies." And: "Anyone can view and search the Ad Library. You can search for any term, name or Page in the Ad Library." It is at facebook.com/ads/library.
If the agency's report says campaigns are live and neither library shows an ad under your name, ask the question today, in writing, and ask for a screenshot of the campaign with the date on it.
Check 3Open the pages they say they wrote
Content work leaves URLs. Ask for the list of pages and posts published this month and open each one. Look at the date on it, read it, and ask whether a patient would. Then check that Google can see it. Search Console's URL Inspection tool "provides information about Google's indexed version of a specific page, and also allows you to test whether a URL might be indexable." Its two verdicts, in Google's words: "URL is on Google means that the URL is eligible to appear in Search results, but is not guaranteed to be there. URL is not on Google means that the URL can't appear in Search results."
A page that exists but is not on Google is half-finished work. A page that does not exist is an invoice.
Check 4Read Search Console yourself
Search Console is free, it is yours, and it does not care what the report says. Google's description: "The Performance report shows important metrics about how your site performs in Google Search results." By default it "shows click and impression data for your site in Google Search results for the past three months." The two numbers that matter are defined plainly: "Clicks: The number of times a user clicked your site from Google Search results." "Impressions: How many times your site appeared in Search results."
Set the date range to compare this quarter with the last. Organic work is slow, so judge the shape of the line over months, not a week. If the agency has been doing search work for six months and the line is flat, you have a question; if it is rising, you have your answer.
One more line from the same help centre: "A verified owner has the highest degree of permissions in Search Console." That owner should be you, with the agency added as a user. If you are not an owner of your own site's Search Console, fix that first.
What a report should showThree things every month
A report should answer what we spent, what it produced, and what changes next month, in sentences a person can read. If it is a wall of charts with no decisions in it, the charts are doing the agency's job of looking busy.
Ours: a full written report every month, and a written update every two weeks from the Growth tier up; the two largest tiers' terms are not published yet. The pricing page says what else each tier includes.
If you find nothingThree questions, in writing, with a date
Ask for the change history for the last 90 days, the list of ads live today with a screenshot, and the URLs published since you signed. Give a date for the answer. The reply, or its absence, is the rest of the information you need.
We are a marketing agency, and the four checks above work on us too; that is the point of writing them down. The questions to ask before you sign with the next one are in what to ask a marketing agency before you hire them, and the one that matters most on the day you leave is in who owns my website, ad account and data if I leave the agency.
Sources, read 2 October 2026, Pacific time: Google Ads Help, Review your account history; Google Advertising Policies Help, Ads transparency; Meta Business Help Center, About the Meta Ad Library; Search Console Help, Performance report (Search results), Verify your site ownership and URL Inspection tool. Labels and sentences are quoted as the pages read on that date; the platforms change them without notice, so check the live page before you click.
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Book a Strategy Call Get a free Growth CheckFAQMore questions people ask
Can I see what my marketing agency changed in my Google Ads account?
Yes, without asking them, if you can sign in. Google's change history "allows you to revisit the changes you've made to your campaign over the last 2 years"; it is under Change history in the Campaigns menu, and its By user tab shows who made each change. Changes made through automated rules, the Google Ads API and Google Ads Editor appear there too.
How do I see the ads my agency is running?
Search your business name in Google's Ads Transparency Center, "a searchable repository of advertisers and the ads they've served on Google platforms", and in Meta's Ad Library, which "contains all active ads that are shown across Meta technologies". Meta says that for age-restricted ads "the ad creative won't be shown to people who are underage or not logged into Facebook".
Is it a bad sign if nothing changes in my ad account?
Not for a week; a well-built account can be right to leave alone. A quarter with nothing in the change history, on an account you are paying someone to manage, is the thing to ask about.
What should a monthly marketing report include?
What was spent, what it produced, and what changes next month, in sentences a person can read. Charts without decisions attached are a way of looking busy.
What if I cannot log in to my own ad account or Search Console?
Then the first problem is ownership, not activity. The ad account should be yours with the agency linked as a manager, and you should be a verified owner of your site's Search Console with the agency added as a user. How to check, and what to ask for, is in our post on who owns the account, the website and the data.