Google Ads Specialist for Hire:
Work Directly With Ishant Sharma

This page covers what I do in an account, what it costs, how the first 90 days work, and the results that accounts I led have achieved, so you can decide if I am the right fit.

Quick Answer: Should you hire a freelance Google Ads specialist?

Hire a freelance Google Ads specialist when you spend enough on ads for waste to hurt, roughly $1,000 a month or more, and you want one senior person running the account. You get direct access, lower fees than most agencies, and decisions made from your own conversion data (WhatConverts spend guide).

This table shows which kind of help fits your situation.

Spend thresholds: WhatConverts. Free call: Google Ads Expert support.

What does a Google Ads specialist actually do in your account?

A Google Ads specialist plans, builds and manages your campaigns so that ad spend turns into sales or leads at a cost you can afford. The work is weekly and ongoing: search terms, negative keywords, bids, ads, product feeds and conversion tracking all need attention after launch.

Here is what that work looks like in a typical week on an account I manage.

• Conversion tracking checks. I confirm GA4, Google Tag Manager and enhanced conversions still record real sales or leads, because bidding learns from that data.
• Search terms and negatives. I read what people actually typed and block waste with account-level negatives in phrase and exact match.
• Campaign structure. Brand, non-brand, Shopping and Performance Max stay separate, so budget goes where the returns are.
• Bidding. I move to target ROAS or target CPA only once the account has stable data to support it.
• Ads and assets. I write and test responsive search ads, sitelinks, callouts and images.
• Merchant Center and feeds. For online stores, I fix disapprovals and improve product titles using real search demand.
• Reporting. You see spend, revenue, ROAS, cost per lead and what changed since the last report.

A specialist is different from a general digital marketer in depth, not in title. A generalist may launch campaigns and leave them on default settings. A specialist knows when Performance Max is pulling sales from your brand terms, when broad match is matching irrelevant searches, and when a drop comes from tracking rather than the market. I share more of these account lessons on my Google Ads blog.

Who is Ishant Sharma, and what has he managed?

Ishant Sharma is a Google Ads specialist based in Zirakpur, India, who has worked in paid search since 2013 and founded the agency Hustle Marketers in 2020. He manages Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising and Meta Ads for ecommerce, local service and B2B clients worldwide.

These are the facts you can check before we speak.

• Upwork Top Rated Plus. Upwork gives this badge to the top 3% of talent on its platform (Upwork help center).
• Upwork record. $400K+ earned across 268 jobs, with 144 client reviews, as of November 2026 (my Upwork profile).
• Certifications. Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising certifications, listed on the same Upwork profile.
• Agency track record. Client accounts my team and I have worked on have generated $780M+ in trackable revenue across 2,500+ brands (founder profile on Hustle Marketers).
• Client reviews. Hustle Marketers has 591+ client reviews across Clutch, Google, Trustpilot, G2, Upwork and other platforms (Trustpilot page).

You can also hear from clients in their own words. My client video reviews on YouTube include ecommerce brands, lead generation businesses and agencies that use me for white label work.

Freelancer vs agency vs in-house: which fits your ad spend?

A freelance specialist suits businesses that want senior hands on the account without paying for agency overhead. An agency suits brands that need several channels and a team. An in-house hire makes sense when ad budgets justify a full salary, which Upwork puts at $43,000 to $75,000 a year for a PPC specialist (Upwork cost guide).

This table compares the three options side by side.

Sources: percentage fees from FreelanceNation; salary range from Upwork. My own fee is shown separately and is not a market average.

The hybrid row is the reason I work this way. You get one specialist who knows your account in detail, and if you later need SEO, Meta Ads or extra hands, my agency team can step in without you hiring a second supplier.

How much does a freelance Google Ads specialist cost?

Freelancers in paid search usually charge in one of three ways: by the hour, a flat monthly fee, or a percentage of ad spend. My fee is a flat $600 to $800 per platform a month, month to month with no lock-in, and your ad spend goes straight to Google (market ranges from FreelanceNation).

The table below shows market figures next to my own fee.

Market figures: Upwork Google Ads experts, Upwork PPC cost guide, FreelanceNation. These are third-party estimates, not my price.

I charge a flat fee per platform on purpose. A percentage fee rises every time your budget rises, even when the work does not. A flat fee keeps my attention on profit rather than on getting you to spend more. I wrote about how I set and raised my own rates without losing clients if you want the reasoning in full.

Here is what the monthly fee includes.

• Hands-on management by me, not a junior account manager.
• Conversion tracking checks before any optimization starts.
• Regular reports that show spend, revenue, ROAS or cost per lead.
• Month to month terms, so you can stop when it stops paying off.
• Full account ownership: the ad account, data and assets stay yours.

Is Upwork good for hiring a freelance Google Ads specialist?

Upwork is a good place to hire a freelance PPC expert if you check the right signals: earnings, job history, recent reviews and badges. Top Rated Plus goes to the top 3% of talent on Upwork, and every review comes from a real contract, which makes the record harder to fake than website testimonials (Upwork badge rules).

Check these five things on any Upwork profile before you hire.

1. Earnings in Google Ads work, not general marketing or design.
2. Recent reviews that mention results, communication and tracking, not only friendliness.
3. Badges and verification, such as Top Rated, Top Rated Plus and ID verification.
4. Hourly contract history. Long hourly contracts usually mean clients kept the freelancer on for ongoing management.
5. Proof of work, such as a video intro or portfolio with real account screenshots.

You can hire me on Upwork or directly through this site. On Upwork, 201 of my 268 jobs were hourly contracts, which is ongoing management rather than one-off setups (job history). Hiring directly suits clients who prefer to pay without a marketplace in the middle.

How do you vet a Google Ads specialist before you hire?

Vet any PPC freelancer or agency by asking how they would run your account in the first month, who will own the account, and how they measure profit. Strong answers mention conversion tracking, search term reviews and break-even ROAS. Weak answers lead with guarantees.

Ask these questions on the first call.

1. Will I own the Google Ads account and all its data? The only good answer is yes.
2. What will you check before you change anything? Tracking should come first.
3. How do you handle negative keywords? Look for a list built up front, not only after waste appears.
4. When would you use broad match or Performance Max? Good specialists wait for conversion data.
5. How will you judge success? The answer should be profit or cost per lead, not clicks.
6. Who will actually work on my account each week?
7. Where can I read reviews from past clients on a third-party site?

What are the red flags when hiring a Google Ads specialist?

Walk away if you see any of these signs.

• A guaranteed ROAS, ranking or lead number before they have seen your account.
• A long lock-in contract with no trial period.
• Refusal to give you admin access to your own account.
• Reports full of clicks and impressions but no revenue or cost per lead.

What is break-even ROAS, and why does it matter?

Break-even ROAS is the return on ad spend at which ad revenue covers product costs and ad costs, leaving zero profit. You work it out as 1 divided by your profit margin, so a business with a 40% margin breaks even at a ROAS of 2.5. I judge every campaign against this number, because a "good" ROAS for one store can lose money for another.

What happens in the first 30, 60 and 90 days?

In the first 30 days I fix tracking, build negatives and run Search on exact match. From day 31 to 60 I test target ROAS bidding, and from day 61 to 90 I scale what beats your break-even point. Plan on 60 to 90 days before judging performance (FreelanceNation).

This is the plan I follow on most new accounts.

Method: my own working process since 2013. Timeline guide: FreelanceNation.

Why do I start new campaigns on exact match?

Exact match costs more per click, but the traffic matches what you sell. Broad match works better once an account already has conversion data, so I run Search on exact for roughly the first 15 days. That builds a relevant audience and clean conversion data, and then Performance Max can do the broad job.

What do I do on low-volume accounts?

On low-volume accounts that run only exact match, cost per click can climb fast. There I test manual CPC to keep click costs under control. Accounts with enough conversions go on Maximize Conversion Value first and then move to target ROAS.

Which guardrails do I set before launching Performance Max?

Performance Max needs limits, or it will spend on traffic that rarely buys. Before launch I set three guardrails.

• Account-level negative keywords in phrase and exact match.
• Exclusions for irrelevant placements.
• URL exclusions for blog posts and other pages that do not sell, so traffic only goes to converting pages.

Which campaigns and platforms do I manage?

I manage Google Ads Search, Shopping, Performance Max, Display, YouTube and remarketing campaigns, plus Microsoft Advertising and Meta Ads. I also handle the setup behind them, including Google Merchant Center, GA4 and Google Tag Manager.

• Google Ads Search: exact match first, tight ad groups and account-level negatives.
• Google Shopping and Performance Max: feed fixes, product grouping and guardrails.
• Display, YouTube and remarketing: audiences built from your own visitors and customers.
• Microsoft Advertising: imported or separate campaigns with their own UET tracking.
• Meta Ads: prospecting and retargeting, run by me or by my agency team.
• White label work for agencies: I manage client accounts under your brand, priced by how many accounts you need covered.

What results have accounts I led achieved?

Accounts I have led have reached a 17.35x ROAS for a US wine retailer and a rise from 4.90 to 17.15 ROAS for a Judaica store, each within 120 days. Each result below links to a full case study with dates and context (CANA Wine Company case study).

This table lists results from accounts I led through Hustle Marketers, most with a published case study.

Case studies: wine retailer, Judaica store, jewellery brand, cleaning equipment, signage company, law firm. Law firm leads are form leads reported by the ad platforms, not signed cases. P-Rex Hobby figures come from the account data, confirmed by Ishant Sharma.

These are past results from specific accounts with their own products, margins and budgets. They are not a promise of what your account will do, and I do not quote ROAS targets to new clients before I have seen their data.

When should you not hire a Google Ads specialist?

You should not hire outside help yet if you spend under about $1,000 a month, have no working conversion tracking, or want a guaranteed return. At that stage the fee can outweigh the savings, and Google's own Ads Expert support offers new advertisers a free one-to-one call within their first 30 days (Google Ads Expert support).

A specialist is also the wrong fix in these cases.

• Your landing page or checkout is broken, slow or unclear. Ads will only send more people to a page that does not convert.
• You cannot ship orders or answer leads faster than you get them today.
• You want someone to follow a fixed plan without changes. A specialist earns the fee by making judgment calls.

If one of these applies, the free audit is still useful. I will tell you plainly whether management makes sense now or whether you should fix something else first.

FAQs about hiring a Google Ads specialist

Want to read more first? See my Google Ads case studies, read how I run Performance Max campaigns and target ROAS, how I do a Google Ads audit, or browse the full Google Ads blog.

How this page was created: Ishant Sharma's own account methods, Upwork record and published case studies were combined with research on current market pricing. The draft was written with AI assistance, and every figure was checked by Ishant against the linked sources before publishing.