Agency, freelancer or just let the AI handle it?
For two years we have been hearing the same sentence: surely the AI does this by itself now. The answer is not no. It is: the AI does exactly what you tell it to. And that is where the problem sits.
Four ways, one job
Each of them works for somebody. Just not for everybody.
In house with AI tools
You run it internally, supported by Smart Bidding, Performance Max and an assistant that writes ad copy. Cheap to buy, expensive in learning time.
Freelancer
One experienced person, per project or a few days a month. Quick to start, often very good, but a single calendar and a single holiday.
Full service agency
Google, Meta, TikTok, SEO and newsletters from one place. Convenient to manage, rarely deep anywhere.
Specialised management
One channel, one fixed person, responsibility for the number at the bottom. That is our model, and it is deliberately not for everyone.
KI
We work with the same AI you do.
Which is why we will spare you the scaremongering. Automation is the best thing that has happened to this channel in years. It just has one property that few people say out loud.
What automation genuinely handles
- Bidding in real time, millions of times a day. No human can do that, and nobody should try.
- Testing ads, assets and combinations faster than any team.
- Connecting signals that appear in no report.
- Moving budget to wherever the given target is reached most cheaply.
What it cannot do
- It does not know your cost of goods. What you do not pass on does not exist for it.
- It does not notice that your tracking has been sending wrong values since the shop update. It keeps optimising, just on garbage.
- It does not decide which products you should be advertising in the first place.
- It never tells you that you are burning money. It reports success, measured against the target you set.
The algorithm is not the problem. The target it optimises for is. Our job is not to replace the AI but to teach it what a good customer looks like for you.
The comparison in one table
Four columns, eleven rows, no asterisks. The last column is us, so weigh it accordingly.
| Criterion | In house with AI | Freelancer | Full service | Mearchy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who decides the strategy | You, on the side | Together | The account lead | Us, agreed with you |
| Who is actually in the account | Changing hands | That person | Often a junior | Always the same person |
| Depth in the channel | Whatever the interface shows | Usually high | Broad rather than deep | This one channel only |
| Contribution margin as the target | No | Partly | Partly | Yes |
| Feed and Merchant Center | No | Partly | Partly | Yes |
| Fixing tracking, not just using it | No | Partly | Partly | Yes |
| Reachable day to day | Instantly, but it is you | Subject to availability | Via ticket or meeting | Slack, same day |
| When somebody is out | Everything waits | Everything waits | Handed to the team | Cover is arranged |
| An honest no is possible | No | Partly | No | Yes |
| What it costs | Tool licences plus your own time | Day rate times days | Retainer, often a share of ad spend | Fixed monthly fee, never a share of your budget |
| The hidden price | Learning time and mistakes nobody spots | Dependence on one person | Depth that is not enough for Google | We only suit a small number of stores |
When each route is the right one
We are not selling you the model that suits us, but the one that leaves you with more.
Do it yourself with AI tools if
your budget is small, your range stays manageable and somebody on your team enjoys getting into it. Below roughly €15,000 a month this is often the sensible call. A clean one off setup plus training will take you further than any retainer.
Hire a freelancer if
you have a clearly defined job, cleaning up an account for example, and you carry the strategy yourself. Factor in that a holiday, an illness or a bigger client alongside you can push your project back.
Hire a full service agency if
you run five channels at once and coordination is your actual problem. Just do not expect anyone to segment your feed by margin. A full service retainer has no room for that.
Talk to us if
Google is your most important channel, your range is big enough for feed work and you want to know what is left after returns and cost of goods. Then we are the right choice. If not, we will say so in the first call.
FAQ
What we get asked most about this
Can I have an AI run Google Ads completely?
The execution yes, the decision no. Smart Bidding and Performance Max bid better than a human ever could. But both optimise for the value you hand to Google. If that value is order value rather than contribution margin, the AI optimises perfectly for the wrong target. No model takes that decision off your hands.
We use an AI tool that optimises our campaigns automatically. Is that not enough?
It depends on what the tool can see. Most of these tools work on the data inside the Google Ads account. Cost of goods, return rates and shipping costs are not in there. As long as those numbers are missing, even the best tool optimises for revenue and calls it profit.
What does an agency do that Performance Max does not already do?
Everything that happens before the click: structuring product data, cutting campaigns so the algorithm can learn separately, excluding brand queries, building tracking so the values are right. Performance Max is a very good driver. Somebody has to build the road.
Is a freelancer not simply cheaper?
By the hour, often yes. The difference is continuity and breadth: feed, Merchant Center, tracking and campaigns hang together. If one person covers all of it while serving five other clients, one of them will slip. For clearly scoped projects a freelancer is still often the better choice.
Will agencies not lose their purpose as AI keeps improving?
The part that consisted of clicking and rules is long gone, and rightly so. What remains is the work on the data foundation and the decisions above it. The better automation gets, the more expensive it becomes to give it the wrong target.
Contact
Give us 30 minutes inside your account.
No pitch deck, no five-meeting sales process. We look at your campaign structure and tell you where we see margin on the table. If it fits, we talk about working together.
- An honest assessment within 24 hours
- No sales pitch, no slide deck
- Account, data and documentation stay with you
What happens after you send it
- 1We get back to you within 24 hours.
- 2You give us read access to Google Ads and Merchant Center. Read only, nothing changed.
- 3You get a written assessment with the biggest levers, and we walk through it together in 30 minutes if you want.
No obligation · Confidential · Reply within 24 hours