The Truth Behind ‘Google Ads Don’t Work’: You Didn’t Hire the Right Google Ads Expert

If you spend time in founder groups, you’ll notice the same story repeated almost word-for-word:

“We tried Google Ads. Didn’t work.”
“We burned $5K on Google Ads in two months.”
“Our specialist said the niche was too competitive.”
“No matter what we did, CPA kept rising.”

Everyone blames the platform.

Very few blame the person running it.

But after screening 100+ offshore Google ads experts, and hiring 23 operators who now manage real budgets for our clients, the pattern became too obvious to ignore:

Google Ads succeeds or fails based on the competence of the person interpreting buyer intent – not the platform.

The painful part for founders is this: you don’t realize you hired the wrong person until thousands of dollars have already evaporated.

And offshore hiring amplifies this risk.

Not because offshore talent is weaker – in fact, some of the strongest Google Ads operators we’ve seen are based offshore – but because the variance is wide, the market is global, and there’s no easy way to separate genuine experts from “I watched a few YouTube videos” candidates.

This article breaks down:

• why so many PPC hires fail (onshore or offshore)
• how to actually identify A-player offshore talent
• what we discovered after screening 100+ candidates across 5 continents
• and why the ROI of offshore talent is unmatched if you hire correctly

The Actual Issue: You Don’t Need a New Strategy – You Need the Right Google Ads Expert

The biggest misconception we see from founders is: “Google Ads didn’t work, so we need a new strategy.”

That’s not true. In fact, Google Ads have the highest ROI at 200% (on average).

You need a Google Ads expert who knows how to interpret what Western buyers mean when they search, because that alone determines whether your campaigns are profitable.

When we tested candidates at Pavago, 70% struggled with buyer intent mapping, specifically around:

• How U.S. and European buyers research
• Which keywords indicate comparison vs. readiness
• How to avoid mid-funnel drift
• When to scale without breaking efficiency
• What signals indicate lead quality, not just volume
• How to blend search + landing page psychology

These aren’t Ads Manager problems. These are talent selection problems.

If you hire someone who can “run campaigns,” you get screenshots and surface-level optimizations.
If you hire someone who understands Western buying behavior, you get revenue.

Where Most Founders Go Wrong When Hiring A Google Ads Expert

Here’s what most founders don’t realize: A candidate’s portfolio, certifications, and interview confidence are the least predictive indicators of PPC performance.

They don’t tell you:

• why something worked
• whether the candidate actually made the decisions
• if the campaigns were profitable
• whether they understand the psychology behind search behavior
• if they can adapt to Western buyers
• how they communicate under pressure
• whether they can challenge weak offers
• if they know what’s normal vs. noise in an account

In other words: Hiring a Google Ads expert is not about evaluating skill – it’s about evaluating thinking. And unless you have a structured way to test their thinking, you will almost always choose the wrong person.

The Patterns We Saw After Screening 100+ Offshore Google Ads Candidates

After 100+ screens, the differences between A-players and everyone else became extremely consistent.

1. Offshore agencies train for speed, not strategy: Candidates can build campaigns fast – sometimes faster than domestic hires – but were rarely trained to think commercially.

2. Portfolio screenshots mean nothing: Nearly everyone had “great” CPA screenshots, but very few could explain why something worked.

3. Communication quality is the biggest differentiator: A-players communicate like proper consultants, while others communicate like task-doers.

4. Only 10-15% demonstrate “A-player thinking.” These candidates diagnose, simplify, challenge, and prioritize. They think in CAC and LTV, not CTR and CPC.

5. The strongest offshore specialists could easily be $120K+ domestic hires. The only difference is geography, not competence.

This is why offshore hiring is misunderstood. Founders assume lower cost = lower skill, but the real dynamic is:

The offshore market gives you access to the same caliber of Google Ads expert – at 40–70% lower cost – if you can identify them correctly.

What Offshore A-Players Do Differently

Here’s what the top 10–15% of offshore Google ads specialists do that makes them elite:

1. They begin with business model clarity. They ask about CAC targets, LTV, sales cycles, and margins before touching campaigns.
2. They instinctively classify keywords by intent. A-players see subtle differences like “cost to…” = late evaluation, “best…” = comparative, “near me” = transactional, and so on. B-players simply treat them as categories.
3. They provide structured, insight-driven communication. The reports they provide read like structured analysis, with proper suggestions and recommendations.
4. They’re not afraid to challenge you. If the offer is weak, they say it. If the landing page has friction, they call it out.
5. They adjust seamlessly to Western expectations. Communication, clarity, and decision-making match what SMBs need.

These are some of the points to keep in mind when evaluating or working with both remote performance marketers and offshore marketing agencies.

Related: Is It Better to Hire Remote Performance Marketers or a Marketing Agency?

Why Offshore Hiring Feels High-Risk (and How to Remove the Risk Entirely)

Most founders hire offshore marketing specialists like this:

• Look at portfolio screenshots
• Ask about budget sizes
• Check certifications
• Ask the candidate if they “can handle” the account
• Hope for the best

This is how bad hires happen.

Instead, you need a repeatable system to identify the top 1% talent.

So we built one.

Pavago’s 5-Layer Vetting System

After screening more than 5,000 candidates and successfully placing 500+ professionals across marketing, finance, product, and sales, we developed a vetting process designed to identify people who think and operate at a senior level.

Not people who simply know the tools, but those who understand context, decision-making, and ownership.

Roughly 80% of candidates are filtered out before they ever reach a client.

Here’s how the process works:

1. Market & Context Fluency

We don’t start by testing tools or platforms. Instead, we evaluate whether candidates understand the market they’ll be working in.

For example, in digital marketing roles like Google Ads, we’ll ask: How would a U.S. buyer interpret this search term? What intent does this behavior signal?

This immediately reveals whether someone can think beyond execution and understand buyer psychology and market context – skills that matter far more than platform familiarity.

2. Intent and Decision Mapping

Next, we test how candidates prioritize. They’re given real-world scenarios and asked to classify what matters most, what can wait, and where effort should be focused.

In marketing, this often shows up as intent mapping.
In operational or finance roles, it’s about judgment and sequencing.

Approximately 70% of candidates fail at this stage, not due to lack of skill, but because they’re used to following instructions rather than making decisions.

3. Strategic Thinking With Incomplete Information

Real work rarely comes with perfect data.

So we intentionally remove information and ask candidates to walk through their thinking:

1. What assumptions are reasonable?
2. What would you test first?
3. What risks would you prioritize?

This step highlights who can move forward in imperfect conditions – an essential trait for senior-level contributors.

4. Communication and Clarity of Thought

We then evaluate how candidates communicate their reasoning.

This isn’t about polish or presentation skills. It’s about clarity, structure, and logic.

A-players can explain complex decisions simply, while B-players tend to over-explain or rely on jargon.

We’re not saying that if a candidate is struggling to explain something, that means they’re not an A-player. But after thousands of screenings, we know how to differentiate between momentary nerves and a lack of structured thinking.

5. Ownership and Accountability

Finally, we assess how candidates respond to pressure.

We introduce ambiguity, time constraints, and pushback, then observe how they react.

Do they take responsibility? Do they stand behind their decisions? Do they show a bias toward action?

This stage separates task executors from people who truly own outcomes.

Why This Approach Works

This is why Pavago talent — especially in high-impact roles like Google Ads — rarely feels “offshore” in practice.

Our vetting process prioritizes judgment, context, and ownership over tool familiarity. As a result, the people who make it through operate with the same standards, decision-making discipline, and accountability you’d expect from senior domestic hires — simply based in different economies.

For teams, this shows up in very practical ways: clearer communication, fewer execution gaps, faster ramp-up time, and less day-to-day oversight.

The outcome isn’t just lower hiring costs.
It’s a stronger performance, smoother collaboration, and meaningfully better ROI as teams scale.

Wrapping It Up

If you want the safe, high-confidence version of offshore hiring, get in touch with Pavago.

You can absolutely try to evaluate offshore marketing talent yourself. But it took us:

• 5,000+ screens
• dozens of iterations
• real campaigns
• failed hires
• refined frameworks

…to reliably identify the signals that predict A-player performance.

If you want to skip the learning curve and hire an offshore Google Ads expert who:

• understands Western buyer intent
• communicates clearly
• thinks strategically
• takes ownership
• and performs like a senior domestic hire at a fraction of the cost

You know what to do.

Book a call with Pavago and get 2–3 vetted Google Ads candidate profiles immediately.

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