Google Ads in Germany from abroad: agency, freelancer or in-house

You can run Google Ads in Germany from anywhere. The account does not care where you sit. What decides the result is who writes the German, who reads the German search terms every week, and who owns the account when the contract ends. A foreign company has three ways to organise that: its own team, an agency, or a freelancer.

I am the third option myself, a single Google Ads consultant working on the German market, so read the comparison with that in mind. I will say where the other two fit better.

1. What German-language ads and landing pages change

Who should run the account follows from what the work is. Five things differ from running the same campaign in English.

The language of your ads now does the language targeting. Starting in September 2026, Google is removing the campaign-level language setting for Search campaigns. In the words of Google Ads Help, “Search ads will automatically match based on the language of your ads”. The same page says Google checks whether the user understands the language of the ad and the landing page, and that for searches with a clear language it prioritises the ad and landing page that match it. An English ad pointed at Germany is therefore an ad for people Google believes understand English. To be the preferred match when someone searches in German, the ad has to be in German, and the page behind it should be too, because Google also checks that the user understands the landing page.

Translated copy does not fit the format. A responsive search ad gives you up to 30 characters per headline and 90 per description. “Terrassenüberdachung”, the German word for a patio roof, takes 20 of those 30 on its own. I write German ads in German from the start, around the words people search with. I would not run English ads through a translator.

You have to pick a form of address. German has a polite form, Sie, and a familiar one, du (Duden, rules D 83 and D 84). I would decide once per brand and keep it the same in the ad, on the landing page and in the confirmation email.

German is more than one market. In Switzerland and Liechtenstein the letter ß is generally replaced by ss (Duden, rule D 160), so copy written for Germany does not carry over to Switzerland unchanged. Two of the 17 industries in my click-price data come from Swiss accounts. I would give Switzerland its own campaigns and its own copy.

The location setting has a default worth checking. By default, Google reaches people who are in your target area and people who have shown interest in it. The “Presence” option limits the ads to people who are in, or regularly in, the area (Google Ads Help). If you only deliver within Germany, I would switch to “Presence”.

The landing page has to carry things your home-market page may not have: an Impressum, a consent banner that runs before any tracking, and prices including VAT for consumers. I have covered those, with the legal sources, in Advertising in Germany.

And after launch, the search terms report comes back in German. Someone has to read it and decide which queries are customers and which are waste. I would not hand that to a person who needs a translation tool for it.

What the combination looks like in one account: for friLingue, a Swiss provider of language and holiday camps, the early work was aligning campaigns with target markets, languages and camp offers, followed by dedicated landing pages per camp built with their team. In Google Ads, the conversion rate of the Swiss campaigns (counting bookings, enquiries and contact clicks, with the measurement reworked in the same period) went from 0.42% to 1.63% by April 2026. That is the in-platform figure, not a count of confirmed bookings, and it is one account, not a promise for yours.

2. Agency, freelancer or in-house: when each fits

In-house

This fits when you already have someone who runs Google Ads well in other markets, and a native German speaker within reach, on staff or as a copywriter, for ads, landing pages and search terms. You get product knowledge and speed. The risk is that German becomes a translation step at the end and that nobody on the team knows the five points above. In that setup I would keep the daily work in-house and buy the German setup once, as a project or as a Google Ads audit.

Agency

An agency fits when several channels have to move together (Google, Meta, a product feed, creative production), when you need cover for holidays and illness, or when the account is too large for one head. An agency in your home country is easier to brief. An agency in Germany is closer to the market. In both cases I would ask the same question: who exactly works on the account, and does that person write German as a native speaker. Whether the fee is in proportion to your ad budget is a division I walk through in Is a Google Ads agency worth it?.

Freelancer

A freelancer fits when Google Ads, tracking and landing pages are the core of the job and you want to talk to the person who does the work. The limits are real: one person has no creative studio, limited capacity and no built-in cover. When several channels need coordinating every day, I would take an agency.

I have written about this choice from the German side in three articles: the trade-offs in Google Ads freelancer instead of an agency, the selection criteria in Finding a Google Ads freelancer in DACH, and the prices in What a Google Ads freelancer costs.

3. What to check before signing with anyone

Google’s own rules for third parties give you most of this list.

1. The account is yours. Google requires third parties to use a separate account for each advertiser they manage (third-party policy). I would create it myself and keep Admin access. Only an Admin can give others access, accept or reject a manager account’s link request, and unlink a manager (access levels). The provider then links its manager account to yours.
2. Currency and time zone are set once. Both are permanently set when the account is created and cannot be updated (Google Ads Help). One more reason to create the account yourself.
3. Verification runs in your name. After advertiser verification, Google shows an ad disclosure with your name and location. The third-party policy lists “verifying your customer’s account as your own” as an example of misrepresenting identity.
4. The fee is shown separately. A third party that charges a management fee has to tell new customers in writing before the first purchase and disclose the fee on every invoice. When it shares Google cost data, it has to report the exact amount Google charged, without its own fees (transparency requirements). If an offer gives you one total for media and management, ask for the split.
5. You get the numbers. Google’s guide for advertisers working with third parties says that at a minimum you have the right to know the clicks, impressions and total cost of your Google ads, and that a specific ad position cannot be guaranteed. A provider also has to give you your customer ID when you ask.
6. Who writes the German. Ask for the name, and for five headlines for your product at 30 characters each.
7. How conversions are measured. Which consent setup, which events, and what happens when a visitor declines. Measurement is where I look first; I worked for Google on measurement implementation. The background is in Tracking and cookie consent in Germany.
8. A data processing agreement, where one is needed. If the provider gets access to leads or customer data, the GDPR requires processing by a processor to be governed by a contract (Art. 28(3) GDPR). Whether your provider is a processor in your setup is a question for your lawyer or data protection officer. This is not legal advice.
9. Minimum term, and month three. I would not sign a long minimum term, and I would ask what exactly happens in month three, when the setup is done.

Conclusion

• Decide the language question first: German ads and a German landing page, or no campaign yet.
• Create the Google Ads account yourself, with your currency, your time zone, your Admin login and your verification.
• Choose the model by the work: in-house if the German and the Google Ads skill are both there, an agency for several channels, a freelancer if Google Ads is the core.
• Take the nine checks into the first call with any provider, me included.

If you want to go through your plan for Google Ads in Germany before you commit to a model, book an intro call.