The eight agencies in this guide all manage paid advertising. That is nearly where the similarity ends.
G3 Group publishes a $499 monthly PPC package. Black Propeller states that it generally works with companies investing at least $10,000 a month in media. AltaVista built its reputation with contractors. ProperExpression connects B2B campaigns to CRM and pipeline data. RP3 brings media and creative into the same engagement.
Putting those firms into a numbered list without explaining the differences would give a Maryland buyer very little to work with. The right agency depends on what the account needs: a manageable starting package, stronger local lead quality, industry knowledge, a continuous supply of creative, or attribution that reaches beyond the initial form submission.
This guide therefore does not pretend that one agency is the right answer for every advertiser. It compares eight firms with Maryland roots or a documented Maryland office by service model, specialization, pricing visibility, and likely client fit. It also identifies what each public website does not tell you, so you know what to ask before signing.
Disclosure: Black Propeller is headquartered in Abingdon, Maryland, provides paid media services, and is included in this guide. We have not presented this list as an independent league table. Agency information was checked against company websites in October 2026. Results published by an agency have not been independently audited.
Key takeaways
- Choose for fit, not proximity alone. A contractor, a B2B software company, and a regional consumer brand do not need the same paid media team.
- Confirm what the fee includes. Strategy, creative, landing pages, tracking, call attribution, and CRM integration are often priced separately.
- Ask to see results from a business with similar economics and lead quality requirements. A ROAS figure without the baseline, time period, and scope tells you very little.
- Keep ownership of your advertising accounts, conversion data, audiences, and creative assets.
- Local knowledge can improve geographic structure, but it cannot compensate for weak measurement or shallow platform expertise.
Maryland PPC agency comparison
| Agency | Location | Best for | Services / platforms | Pricing visibility |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Black Propeller | Abingdon | Growth-stage brands that need paid search, paid social, and creative connected | Google, Microsoft, YouTube, Performance Max, paid social, Amazon | Fixed monthly retainer; $10,000 minimum monthly media spend stated |
| AltaVista Strategic Partners | Baltimore | Contractors and trade businesses | PPC within a broader contractor marketing program | Quote required |
| ProperExpression | Rockville | B2B companies connecting ads to pipeline | Paid search, paid social, retargeting, analytics, CRO | Quote required |
| Dragonfly Digital Marketing | Baltimore | Organizations seeking search plus wider digital support | Google Ads, remarketing, paid social, SEO, analytics | Quote required |
| periscopeUP | Chevy Chase | Businesses prioritizing paid-search audits and profitability | Paid search management and audits | Quote required |
| G3 Group | Baltimore | Smaller businesses that want published package pricing | Search, display, YouTube, social, geofencing | Packages published from $499 per month at time of review |
| RP3 Agency | Bethesda | Established brands needing media and creative together | Paid search, paid social, media planning, creative | Quote required |
| Strategic Advertising Solutions | Annapolis | Local and regional businesses seeking a broad media mix | Google Ads, LSAs, display, YouTube, programmatic, paid social | Quote required |
Pricing and services change. Confirm the current scope directly with each agency.
How the agencies were selected
No authoritative ranking of Maryland PPC agencies exists. Review directories are useful for discovery, but their order may reflect sponsorship, profile completeness, or the directory’s own commercial model. A five-star average also means something different when it comes from five reviews rather than fifty.
To qualify for this guide, an agency had to meet three conditions:
- Publish a Maryland office or headquarters address.
- Offer paid search or PPC as an identifiable service.
- Provide enough first-party information to establish its service scope or specialization.
We then compared agencies across five buyer-facing factors:
- Paid media specialization
- Industry or business-model fit
- Measurement and reporting scope
- Creative and landing-page support
- Public evidence, including case studies and pricing
This approach removed firms whose Maryland connection consisted only of a location landing page and agencies whose claimed specializations could not be confirmed from their own material.
1. Black Propeller: best for integrated paid media and performance creative
Black Propeller is headquartered in Abingdon and manages paid search, paid social, Amazon advertising, performance creative, conversion tracking, and analytics. The agency became part of Stellar in 2026, adding access to Pixis technology and a wider network of strategists and AI engineers while retaining the Black Propeller client team.
The paid-search service covers Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, YouTube, Google Display, remarketing, and Performance Max. Clients receive access to their accounts and a live reporting dashboard that Black Propeller says updates every 15 minutes. The standard service description also includes biweekly meetings, quarterly business reviews, conversion tracking, ad-copy testing, budget management, and daily or weekly account monitoring.
Black Propeller publishes two useful qualification details. It uses a tiered fixed monthly retainer rather than a percentage-of-spend fee, and it generally works with growth-stage brands investing at least $10,000 per month in paid media.
Best suited to: Companies that want search, social, landing-page creative, and measurement coordinated by one team. Publicly listed verticals include home services, retail and ecommerce, legal and finance, B2B and SaaS, education, franchises, beauty, and travel.
Consider another option if: Your total media budget is below the stated threshold or you only need a low-cost Google Ads setup.
What to ask: Request a case study with a comparable sales cycle and define what counts as a qualified conversion before work begins. Black Propeller’s paid search service page explains the delivery model, but the proposal should connect it to your margins and CRM data.
2. AltaVista Strategic Partners: best for contractors and trade businesses
AltaVista Strategic Partners is based in Baltimore and built its business around contractor marketing. Its wider offering includes PPC, SEO, website services, branding, social media, and database marketing.
That industry focus is its clearest point of differentiation. Contractors often need more than traffic. Campaigns must account for service territories, job value, emergency intent, seasonal demand, call handling, and the difference between a lead and a profitable booked job. An agency accustomed to those operating realities may require less industry education during onboarding.
AltaVista now serves other sectors, including automotive and manufacturing, and works with clients nationally. Buyers should establish how much of the proposed team still specializes in contractor acquisition rather than assuming the company’s origin applies equally to every account.
Best suited to: Residential and commercial contractors seeking a broader marketing partner rather than standalone ad management.
Consider another option if: You operate in SaaS, ecommerce, or another category where AltaVista publishes less evidence of PPC specialization.
What to ask: Request paid-search results for your specific trade, including qualified-lead rate, booked-job rate, revenue, and geographic waste. Lead volume without job data is not enough.
3. ProperExpression: best for B2B pipeline and full-funnel marketing
ProperExpression is a Rockville-based growth marketing agency focused on B2B. Its paid media work spans search, social, display, retargeting, analytics, and conversion tracking, supported by content, marketing operations, CRM, and conversion optimization services.
That full-funnel model is relevant for B2B companies because the ad click is rarely the sale. The more important questions are whether the lead fits the ideal customer profile, becomes an accepted opportunity, and eventually contributes pipeline or revenue. ProperExpression publicly positions its work around revenue, profitability, return on investment, and customer acquisition rather than media metrics alone.
The breadth can be an advantage when paid media depends on CRM cleanup, nurture, attribution, or sales alignment. It can also produce a larger engagement than a company needs if the immediate requirement is simply fixing one Google Ads account.
Best suited to: B2B organizations that need paid media connected to CRM data, marketing operations, content, and pipeline.
Consider another option if: You want a narrow paid-search engagement without broader funnel or RevOps work.
What to ask: Define the point at which ProperExpression will judge a campaign successful. Cost per lead, cost per qualified opportunity, and customer acquisition cost can tell very different stories.
4. Dragonfly Digital Marketing: best for search with broader digital support
Dragonfly Digital Marketing is a Baltimore agency founded in 2007. Its paid advertising services include Google Ads, remarketing, and social advertising, while the wider agency provides SEO, content, analytics, and digital strategy.
Dragonfly promotes AI-assisted Google Ads management, but its offering is not limited to paid search. This makes it a possible fit for organizations that want a local team to manage search while also coordinating organic search, content, and analytics.
The phrase “AI-powered” should not decide the purchase. Google already automates bidding, targeting, and campaign distribution extensively. The useful distinction is how the agency controls inputs, checks search terms and placements, improves conversion data, tests creative, and determines whether automated recommendations serve the business.
Best suited to: Maryland organizations seeking paid search plus SEO, content, or analytics from one local provider.
Consider another option if: You need a specialized ecommerce shopping program, large-scale paid social production, or a dedicated performance creative team.
What to ask: Ask Dragonfly to show which decisions its team makes that the ad platform cannot make for itself and how those decisions changed a client’s business result.
5. periscopeUP: best for paid-search audits and profit-focused management
periscopeUP is based in Chevy Chase and offers paid-search management, PPC audits, SEO, and analytics. Its PPC positioning emphasizes profit and return on ad spend rather than increasing budget for its own sake.
The agency publishes individual audit and campaign case studies. One ecommerce case study reports an approximately 92% increase in ROAS, while an older residential construction case study reports $405 in revenue for every advertising dollar spent. These figures are agency-reported and come from individual engagements, so they should be treated as examples rather than forecasts.
An audit-first engagement can be sensible when a company is unsure whether it needs a new agency. It gives the buyer a chance to evaluate the diagnosis, account structure, tracking, and strategic thinking before committing to management.
Best suited to: Organizations that want a focused paid-search review or a team that explicitly prioritizes profitability.
Consider another option if: You need substantial paid social and creative production alongside search.
What to ask: Some public case studies are several years old. Ask for a recent engagement using the current Google Ads environment and a business model similar to yours.
6. G3 Group: best for small businesses that need visible package pricing
G3 Group is a Baltimore digital agency offering PPC, display, YouTube, social advertising, landing-page development, and geofencing. It is the clearest price-led option in this shortlist.
At the time of review, G3 published a $499-per-month PPC management package for click budgets up to $5,000 per month. The package listed campaign setup, keyword research, ad creation, conversion tracking, audience and geographic targeting, a dedicated manager, a performance dashboard, and a monthly strategy session.
Published pricing makes comparison easier, but buyers still need to understand capacity. A lower management fee may limit the number of campaigns, tests, landing pages, creative assets, or calls included. The right question is not whether a package is affordable. It is whether the work required by the account fits inside it.
Best suited to: Smaller Maryland businesses that want a defined entry-level service and know they do not require a complex multi-channel program.
Consider another option if: You have large product feeds, several locations, complex offline attribution, or aggressive creative-testing requirements.
What to ask: Get the package limits in writing, including channels, campaign count, creative work, landing pages, tracking support, meeting time, and contract terms.
7. RP3 Agency: best for brands that need media and creative together
RP3 Agency is a Bethesda creative and performance agency. Its media services include paid search, paid social, planning, buying, and measurement, supported by brand strategy and creative production.
That pairing can suit brands whose paid media problem is partly a creative problem. More bidding adjustments cannot rescue an offer audiences ignore or an ad concept that has been exhausted. A combined team can develop the campaign idea and evaluate how it performs across channels without passing work between unrelated vendors.
RP3 is not positioned as a budget PPC operator. Its model appears better aligned with established organizations that need integrated campaign strategy, media, and creative rather than day-to-day search management in isolation.
Best suited to: Regional and national brands that want creative development and paid media planning from the same agency.
Consider another option if: You need a small local-search account managed at an entry-level fee.
What to ask: Separate the media management, production, and strategy costs in the proposal. Also establish how frequently new creative will be delivered and what happens when an initial concept underperforms.
8. Strategic Advertising Solutions: best for Annapolis-area businesses seeking a broad media mix
Strategic Advertising Solutions is based in Annapolis and offers Google Ads, Local Services Ads, display, YouTube, programmatic advertising, paid social, SEO, streaming TV, and traditional media.
This breadth can help a local or regional advertiser that needs more than search. It also makes scope discipline important. A business should not distribute a modest budget across search, social, programmatic, and streaming simply because one agency can buy all four.
The media plan should identify the job of each channel and establish how results will be measured. Search may capture existing demand, while video and social create or re-engage demand. Combining them is useful only when the budget, creative, tracking, and buying cycle support the mix.
Best suited to: Annapolis and Maryland businesses seeking a local, full-service advertising relationship across digital and traditional media.
Consider another option if: You want a highly specialized search-only team or require deep ecommerce feed management.
What to ask: Require a channel-by-channel budget rationale and make sure the plan does not divide a limited test budget into portions too small to produce useful evidence.
What local knowledge can and cannot do
Maryland is not one advertising market. An account targeting Baltimore City, Harford County, Montgomery County, Frederick, and the Washington suburbs may encounter different competitors, customer values, travel patterns, and service constraints.
A locally informed agency should know how to build geography around the business rather than around state lines. That can include:
- Separating high-value and low-value service areas
- Excluding locations the company cannot serve profitably
- Adjusting messages by market or service availability
- Using location assets and call reporting correctly
- Comparing performance by county, city, or radius rather than blending the state into one average
- Accounting for commuters and users physically present in Maryland but searching for services elsewhere
However, a nearby office does not automatically create better campaigns. Paid media platforms operate nationally, and a strong remote specialist may have more relevant industry experience than the agency down the road. Local presence should be a tiebreaker after measurement, account strategy, vertical experience, and working relationship.
What a PPC agency should deliver
A credible proposal should describe the work, not merely list Google, Microsoft, Meta, and LinkedIn logos.
A commercial measurement plan
The agency should agree on the business outcome before changing the account. For ecommerce, that may be contribution margin or new-customer revenue rather than blended ROAS. For lead generation, it may be qualified opportunities, booked jobs, or closed revenue rather than every call and form.
Reliable conversion tracking
Form tracking alone is rarely enough. Depending on the business, the measurement plan may need call tracking, offline conversion imports, enhanced conversions, CRM stages, ecommerce revenue, cancellations, refunds, or lead-quality feedback.
Search-term and placement control
Automation does not remove the need to inspect what triggered an ad and where it appeared. Ask how the agency handles negative keywords, brand exclusions, placement quality, location leakage, query matching, and Performance Max reporting limitations.
Landing-page and creative support
An agency should explain whether it can change the post-click experience and create new assets. If those services are excluded, establish who will provide them and how quickly. Media performance often stalls when the account has no new message or landing-page hypothesis to test.
Reporting with decisions attached
A dashboard shows what happened. The agency should also explain why it happened, what it changed, what it learned, and what it will do next. You should retain direct access to the ad accounts and underlying data.
For a fuller evaluation framework, use Black Propeller’s guide to choosing a PPC agency. If you are new to paid search, the PPC fundamentals guide explains campaign mechanics without duplicating this vendor comparison.
Questions to ask in the first agency meeting
Bring enough information for the agency to discuss economics rather than impressions:
- Monthly media budget by channel
- Average order value or average closed-customer value
- Gross margin or an acceptable acquisition-cost range
- Current conversion volume and cost
- Lead-to-opportunity, booking, or close rate
- Priority services, products, and locations
- Seasonal constraints and capacity limits
Then ask:
- Which conversion will you optimize, and how will it reach the ad platform?
- Who owns strategy, account changes, creative, landing pages, and tracking?
- How will you distinguish qualified leads from unqualified submissions?
- What would you change first in our account, and what evidence supports that decision?
- How do you control geographic waste in Maryland and the DC-adjacent market?
- How often will we receive new ad concepts or landing-page tests?
- Which work is included in the management fee?
- Will we own every account, audience, asset, and dataset?
- What are the initial term, cancellation period, and exit provisions?
- Can you show a recent case with similar margins, volume, and sales behavior?
Warning signs
Do not sign because an agency shows a partner badge, a polished dashboard, or a large aggregate spend figure. Look closely if it:
- Guarantees a specific ROAS, lead cost, or first-page position before seeing your data
- Refuses to give your company administrative access to its accounts
- Reports all calls or forms as equal conversions
- Cannot explain how offline sales data returns to Google or Microsoft
- Recommends Performance Max without discussing conversion quality, brand traffic, asset groups, or query visibility
- Uses “AI-powered” as a substitute for explaining its decisions
- Pushes several channels without giving each one a purpose and viable test budget
- Shows percentage improvements without the baseline, dates, or metric definition
- Requires a long contract without a clear cancellation or performance-review process
Frequently asked questions
How much does PPC management cost in Maryland?
Maryland agencies use flat retainers, percentage-of-spend fees, hourly work, and fixed packages. In this shortlist, G3 Group publishes a $499 monthly package for media budgets up to $5,000, while Black Propeller publishes a fixed-retainer model and a preference for clients investing at least $10,000 per month in media. Other agencies provide custom proposals.
Compare scope as carefully as price. Creative, landing pages, tracking, software, call attribution, and reporting may sit outside the management fee.
How long does it take to evaluate a new PPC agency?
Tracking and account problems can often be identified in the first month. A reliable performance judgment may take longer because conversion volume, sales-cycle length, seasonality, learning periods, and creative production all affect the result.
Do not use 30, 60, or 90 days as a universal promise. Agree on an evaluation plan based on the number of qualified conversions the account can realistically produce.
Does Google Partner status prove an agency is good?
No. Google describes Member, Partner, and Premier Partner as separate program tiers. Premier Partner status is limited to the top 3% of participating companies in each country, based on Google’s annual evaluation. The badge confirms that program requirements have been met. It does not prove experience in your industry, guarantee profitability, or replace a relevant case study.
Should a Maryland business hire a local agency?
Hire locally when regional knowledge, face-to-face collaboration, or a Maryland-specific service footprint materially affects the work. Hire outside Maryland if another agency has stronger evidence in your industry or business model. Location is one selection factor, not a quality standard.
Which PPC metrics matter most?
The final metric should reflect the business. Ecommerce companies may use new-customer acquisition cost, contribution margin, or profit-adjusted ROAS. Lead-generation businesses may use qualified-lead cost, booked appointments, sales opportunities, and closed revenue. Click-through rate and cost per click help diagnose an account, but neither proves commercial success.
Should the agency also manage landing pages?
It should at least have a defined process for evaluating and improving them. If landing pages are excluded, decide who owns copy, design, development, and testing. Sending more paid traffic to a weak page usually magnifies the problem.
Choose the operating model that fits the account
Maryland businesses have credible options ranging from a $499 published package to integrated media, creative, and analytics engagements. The right end of that range depends on the account’s complexity and economics.
A small local campaign may need disciplined search management and accurate call tracking. A multi-location home services company may need location-level capacity and booked-job data. A B2B firm may need CRM stages and pipeline attribution. An ecommerce brand may need feed management, new-customer measurement, and a steady supply of creative.
Define that operating requirement before comparing pitches. It will make the differences between agencies clearer than a directory rank ever could.
If your company invests at least $10,000 per month in paid media and needs search, social, creative, and measurement to work as one system, request a paid search consultation with Black Propeller. Bring your current performance, margins, priority markets, and growth target. The first conversation should determine whether the fit is real, not force one.
The eight agencies in this guide all manage paid advertising. That is nearly where the similarity ends.
G3 Group publishes a $499 monthly PPC package. Black Propeller states that it generally works with companies investing at least $10,000 a month in media. AltaVista built its reputation with contractors. ProperExpression connects B2B campaigns to CRM and pipeline data. RP3 brings media and creative into the same engagement.
Putting those firms into a numbered list without explaining the differences would give a Maryland buyer very little to work with. The right agency depends on what the account needs: a manageable starting package, stronger local lead quality, industry knowledge, a continuous supply of creative, or attribution that reaches beyond the initial form submission.
This guide therefore does not pretend that one agency is the right answer for every advertiser. It compares eight firms with Maryland roots or a documented Maryland office by service model, specialization, pricing visibility, and likely client fit. It also identifies what each public website does not tell you, so you know what to ask before signing.
Disclosure: Black Propeller is headquartered in Abingdon, Maryland, provides paid media services, and is included in this guide. We have not presented this list as an independent league table. Agency information was checked against company websites in October 2026. Results published by an agency have not been independently audited.
Key takeaways
- Choose for fit, not proximity alone. A contractor, a B2B software company, and a regional consumer brand do not need the same paid media team.
- Confirm what the fee includes. Strategy, creative, landing pages, tracking, call attribution, and CRM integration are often priced separately.
- Ask to see results from a business with similar economics and lead quality requirements. A ROAS figure without the baseline, time period, and scope tells you very little.
- Keep ownership of your advertising accounts, conversion data, audiences, and creative assets.
- Local knowledge can improve geographic structure, but it cannot compensate for weak measurement or shallow platform expertise.
Maryland PPC agency comparison
| Agency | Location | Best for | Services / platforms | Pricing visibility |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Black Propeller | Abingdon | Growth-stage brands that need paid search, paid social, and creative connected | Google, Microsoft, YouTube, Performance Max, paid social, Amazon | Fixed monthly retainer; $10,000 minimum monthly media spend stated |
| AltaVista Strategic Partners | Baltimore | Contractors and trade businesses | PPC within a broader contractor marketing program | Quote required |
| ProperExpression | Rockville | B2B companies connecting ads to pipeline | Paid search, paid social, retargeting, analytics, CRO | Quote required |
| Dragonfly Digital Marketing | Baltimore | Organizations seeking search plus wider digital support | Google Ads, remarketing, paid social, SEO, analytics | Quote required |
| periscopeUP | Chevy Chase | Businesses prioritizing paid-search audits and profitability | Paid search management and audits | Quote required |
| G3 Group | Baltimore | Smaller businesses that want published package pricing | Search, display, YouTube, social, geofencing | Packages published from $499 per month at time of review |
| RP3 Agency | Bethesda | Established brands needing media and creative together | Paid search, paid social, media planning, creative | Quote required |
| Strategic Advertising Solutions | Annapolis | Local and regional businesses seeking a broad media mix | Google Ads, LSAs, display, YouTube, programmatic, paid social | Quote required |
Pricing and services change. Confirm the current scope directly with each agency.
How the agencies were selected
No authoritative ranking of Maryland PPC agencies exists. Review directories are useful for discovery, but their order may reflect sponsorship, profile completeness, or the directory’s own commercial model. A five-star average also means something different when it comes from five reviews rather than fifty.
To qualify for this guide, an agency had to meet three conditions:
- Publish a Maryland office or headquarters address.
- Offer paid search or PPC as an identifiable service.
- Provide enough first-party information to establish its service scope or specialization.
We then compared agencies across five buyer-facing factors:
- Paid media specialization
- Industry or business-model fit
- Measurement and reporting scope
- Creative and landing-page support
- Public evidence, including case studies and pricing
This approach removed firms whose Maryland connection consisted only of a location landing page and agencies whose claimed specializations could not be confirmed from their own material.
1. Black Propeller: best for integrated paid media and performance creative
Black Propeller is headquartered in Abingdon and manages paid search, paid social, Amazon advertising, performance creative, conversion tracking, and analytics. The agency became part of Stellar in 2026, adding access to Pixis technology and a wider network of strategists and AI engineers while retaining the Black Propeller client team.
The paid-search service covers Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, YouTube, Google Display, remarketing, and Performance Max. Clients receive access to their accounts and a live reporting dashboard that Black Propeller says updates every 15 minutes. The standard service description also includes biweekly meetings, quarterly business reviews, conversion tracking, ad-copy testing, budget management, and daily or weekly account monitoring.
Black Propeller publishes two useful qualification details. It uses a tiered fixed monthly retainer rather than a percentage-of-spend fee, and it generally works with growth-stage brands investing at least $10,000 per month in paid media.
Best suited to: Companies that want search, social, landing-page creative, and measurement coordinated by one team. Publicly listed verticals include home services, retail and ecommerce, legal and finance, B2B and SaaS, education, franchises, beauty, and travel.
Consider another option if: Your total media budget is below the stated threshold or you only need a low-cost Google Ads setup.
What to ask: Request a case study with a comparable sales cycle and define what counts as a qualified conversion before work begins. Black Propeller’s paid search service page explains the delivery model, but the proposal should connect it to your margins and CRM data.
2. AltaVista Strategic Partners: best for contractors and trade businesses
AltaVista Strategic Partners is based in Baltimore and built its business around contractor marketing. Its wider offering includes PPC, SEO, website services, branding, social media, and database marketing.
That industry focus is its clearest point of differentiation. Contractors often need more than traffic. Campaigns must account for service territories, job value, emergency intent, seasonal demand, call handling, and the difference between a lead and a profitable booked job. An agency accustomed to those operating realities may require less industry education during onboarding.
AltaVista now serves other sectors, including automotive and manufacturing, and works with clients nationally. Buyers should establish how much of the proposed team still specializes in contractor acquisition rather than assuming the company’s origin applies equally to every account.
Best suited to: Residential and commercial contractors seeking a broader marketing partner rather than standalone ad management.
Consider another option if: You operate in SaaS, ecommerce, or another category where AltaVista publishes less evidence of PPC specialization.
What to ask: Request paid-search results for your specific trade, including qualified-lead rate, booked-job rate, revenue, and geographic waste. Lead volume without job data is not enough.
3. ProperExpression: best for B2B pipeline and full-funnel marketing
ProperExpression is a Rockville-based growth marketing agency focused on B2B. Its paid media work spans search, social, display, retargeting, analytics, and conversion tracking, supported by content, marketing operations, CRM, and conversion optimization services.
That full-funnel model is relevant for B2B companies because the ad click is rarely the sale. The more important questions are whether the lead fits the ideal customer profile, becomes an accepted opportunity, and eventually contributes pipeline or revenue. ProperExpression publicly positions its work around revenue, profitability, return on investment, and customer acquisition rather than media metrics alone.
The breadth can be an advantage when paid media depends on CRM cleanup, nurture, attribution, or sales alignment. It can also produce a larger engagement than a company needs if the immediate requirement is simply fixing one Google Ads account.
Best suited to: B2B organizations that need paid media connected to CRM data, marketing operations, content, and pipeline.
Consider another option if: You want a narrow paid-search engagement without broader funnel or RevOps work.
What to ask: Define the point at which ProperExpression will judge a campaign successful. Cost per lead, cost per qualified opportunity, and customer acquisition cost can tell very different stories.
4. Dragonfly Digital Marketing: best for search with broader digital support
Dragonfly Digital Marketing is a Baltimore agency founded in 2007. Its paid advertising services include Google Ads, remarketing, and social advertising, while the wider agency provides SEO, content, analytics, and digital strategy.
Dragonfly promotes AI-assisted Google Ads management, but its offering is not limited to paid search. This makes it a possible fit for organizations that want a local team to manage search while also coordinating organic search, content, and analytics.
The phrase “AI-powered” should not decide the purchase. Google already automates bidding, targeting, and campaign distribution extensively. The useful distinction is how the agency controls inputs, checks search terms and placements, improves conversion data, tests creative, and determines whether automated recommendations serve the business.
Best suited to: Maryland organizations seeking paid search plus SEO, content, or analytics from one local provider.
Consider another option if: You need a specialized ecommerce shopping program, large-scale paid social production, or a dedicated performance creative team.
What to ask: Ask Dragonfly to show which decisions its team makes that the ad platform cannot make for itself and how those decisions changed a client’s business result.
5. periscopeUP: best for paid-search audits and profit-focused management
periscopeUP is based in Chevy Chase and offers paid-search management, PPC audits, SEO, and analytics. Its PPC positioning emphasizes profit and return on ad spend rather than increasing budget for its own sake.
The agency publishes individual audit and campaign case studies. One ecommerce case study reports an approximately 92% increase in ROAS, while an older residential construction case study reports $405 in revenue for every advertising dollar spent. These figures are agency-reported and come from individual engagements, so they should be treated as examples rather than forecasts.
An audit-first engagement can be sensible when a company is unsure whether it needs a new agency. It gives the buyer a chance to evaluate the diagnosis, account structure, tracking, and strategic thinking before committing to management.
Best suited to: Organizations that want a focused paid-search review or a team that explicitly prioritizes profitability.
Consider another option if: You need substantial paid social and creative production alongside search.
What to ask: Some public case studies are several years old. Ask for a recent engagement using the current Google Ads environment and a business model similar to yours.
6. G3 Group: best for small businesses that need visible package pricing
G3 Group is a Baltimore digital agency offering PPC, display, YouTube, social advertising, landing-page development, and geofencing. It is the clearest price-led option in this shortlist.
At the time of review, G3 published a $499-per-month PPC management package for click budgets up to $5,000 per month. The package listed campaign setup, keyword research, ad creation, conversion tracking, audience and geographic targeting, a dedicated manager, a performance dashboard, and a monthly strategy session.
Published pricing makes comparison easier, but buyers still need to understand capacity. A lower management fee may limit the number of campaigns, tests, landing pages, creative assets, or calls included. The right question is not whether a package is affordable. It is whether the work required by the account fits inside it.
Best suited to: Smaller Maryland businesses that want a defined entry-level service and know they do not require a complex multi-channel program.
Consider another option if: You have large product feeds, several locations, complex offline attribution, or aggressive creative-testing requirements.
What to ask: Get the package limits in writing, including channels, campaign count, creative work, landing pages, tracking support, meeting time, and contract terms.
7. RP3 Agency: best for brands that need media and creative together
RP3 Agency is a Bethesda creative and performance agency. Its media services include paid search, paid social, planning, buying, and measurement, supported by brand strategy and creative production.
That pairing can suit brands whose paid media problem is partly a creative problem. More bidding adjustments cannot rescue an offer audiences ignore or an ad concept that has been exhausted. A combined team can develop the campaign idea and evaluate how it performs across channels without passing work between unrelated vendors.
RP3 is not positioned as a budget PPC operator. Its model appears better aligned with established organizations that need integrated campaign strategy, media, and creative rather than day-to-day search management in isolation.
Best suited to: Regional and national brands that want creative development and paid media planning from the same agency.
Consider another option if: You need a small local-search account managed at an entry-level fee.
What to ask: Separate the media management, production, and strategy costs in the proposal. Also establish how frequently new creative will be delivered and what happens when an initial concept underperforms.
8. Strategic Advertising Solutions: best for Annapolis-area businesses seeking a broad media mix
Strategic Advertising Solutions is based in Annapolis and offers Google Ads, Local Services Ads, display, YouTube, programmatic advertising, paid social, SEO, streaming TV, and traditional media.
This breadth can help a local or regional advertiser that needs more than search. It also makes scope discipline important. A business should not distribute a modest budget across search, social, programmatic, and streaming simply because one agency can buy all four.
The media plan should identify the job of each channel and establish how results will be measured. Search may capture existing demand, while video and social create or re-engage demand. Combining them is useful only when the budget, creative, tracking, and buying cycle support the mix.
Best suited to: Annapolis and Maryland businesses seeking a local, full-service advertising relationship across digital and traditional media.
Consider another option if: You want a highly specialized search-only team or require deep ecommerce feed management.
What to ask: Require a channel-by-channel budget rationale and make sure the plan does not divide a limited test budget into portions too small to produce useful evidence.
What local knowledge can and cannot do
Maryland is not one advertising market. An account targeting Baltimore City, Harford County, Montgomery County, Frederick, and the Washington suburbs may encounter different competitors, customer values, travel patterns, and service constraints.
A locally informed agency should know how to build geography around the business rather than around state lines. That can include:
- Separating high-value and low-value service areas
- Excluding locations the company cannot serve profitably
- Adjusting messages by market or service availability
- Using location assets and call reporting correctly
- Comparing performance by county, city, or radius rather than blending the state into one average
- Accounting for commuters and users physically present in Maryland but searching for services elsewhere
However, a nearby office does not automatically create better campaigns. Paid media platforms operate nationally, and a strong remote specialist may have more relevant industry experience than the agency down the road. Local presence should be a tiebreaker after measurement, account strategy, vertical experience, and working relationship.
What a PPC agency should deliver
A credible proposal should describe the work, not merely list Google, Microsoft, Meta, and LinkedIn logos.
A commercial measurement plan
The agency should agree on the business outcome before changing the account. For ecommerce, that may be contribution margin or new-customer revenue rather than blended ROAS. For lead generation, it may be qualified opportunities, booked jobs, or closed revenue rather than every call and form.
Reliable conversion tracking
Form tracking alone is rarely enough. Depending on the business, the measurement plan may need call tracking, offline conversion imports, enhanced conversions, CRM stages, ecommerce revenue, cancellations, refunds, or lead-quality feedback.
Search-term and placement control
Automation does not remove the need to inspect what triggered an ad and where it appeared. Ask how the agency handles negative keywords, brand exclusions, placement quality, location leakage, query matching, and Performance Max reporting limitations.
Landing-page and creative support
An agency should explain whether it can change the post-click experience and create new assets. If those services are excluded, establish who will provide them and how quickly. Media performance often stalls when the account has no new message or landing-page hypothesis to test.
Reporting with decisions attached
A dashboard shows what happened. The agency should also explain why it happened, what it changed, what it learned, and what it will do next. You should retain direct access to the ad accounts and underlying data.
For a fuller evaluation framework, use Black Propeller’s guide to choosing a PPC agency. If you are new to paid search, the PPC fundamentals guide explains campaign mechanics without duplicating this vendor comparison.
Questions to ask in the first agency meeting
Bring enough information for the agency to discuss economics rather than impressions:
- Monthly media budget by channel
- Average order value or average closed-customer value
- Gross margin or an acceptable acquisition-cost range
- Current conversion volume and cost
- Lead-to-opportunity, booking, or close rate
- Priority services, products, and locations
- Seasonal constraints and capacity limits
Then ask:
- Which conversion will you optimize, and how will it reach the ad platform?
- Who owns strategy, account changes, creative, landing pages, and tracking?
- How will you distinguish qualified leads from unqualified submissions?
- What would you change first in our account, and what evidence supports that decision?
- How do you control geographic waste in Maryland and the DC-adjacent market?
- How often will we receive new ad concepts or landing-page tests?
- Which work is included in the management fee?
- Will we own every account, audience, asset, and dataset?
- What are the initial term, cancellation period, and exit provisions?
- Can you show a recent case with similar margins, volume, and sales behavior?
Warning signs
Do not sign because an agency shows a partner badge, a polished dashboard, or a large aggregate spend figure. Look closely if it:
- Guarantees a specific ROAS, lead cost, or first-page position before seeing your data
- Refuses to give your company administrative access to its accounts
- Reports all calls or forms as equal conversions
- Cannot explain how offline sales data returns to Google or Microsoft
- Recommends Performance Max without discussing conversion quality, brand traffic, asset groups, or query visibility
- Uses “AI-powered” as a substitute for explaining its decisions
- Pushes several channels without giving each one a purpose and viable test budget
- Shows percentage improvements without the baseline, dates, or metric definition
- Requires a long contract without a clear cancellation or performance-review process
Frequently asked questions
How much does PPC management cost in Maryland?
Maryland agencies use flat retainers, percentage-of-spend fees, hourly work, and fixed packages. In this shortlist, G3 Group publishes a $499 monthly package for media budgets up to $5,000, while Black Propeller publishes a fixed-retainer model and a preference for clients investing at least $10,000 per month in media. Other agencies provide custom proposals.
Compare scope as carefully as price. Creative, landing pages, tracking, software, call attribution, and reporting may sit outside the management fee.
How long does it take to evaluate a new PPC agency?
Tracking and account problems can often be identified in the first month. A reliable performance judgment may take longer because conversion volume, sales-cycle length, seasonality, learning periods, and creative production all affect the result.
Do not use 30, 60, or 90 days as a universal promise. Agree on an evaluation plan based on the number of qualified conversions the account can realistically produce.
Does Google Partner status prove an agency is good?
No. Google describes Member, Partner, and Premier Partner as separate program tiers. Premier Partner status is limited to the top 3% of participating companies in each country, based on Google’s annual evaluation. The badge confirms that program requirements have been met. It does not prove experience in your industry, guarantee profitability, or replace a relevant case study.
Should a Maryland business hire a local agency?
Hire locally when regional knowledge, face-to-face collaboration, or a Maryland-specific service footprint materially affects the work. Hire outside Maryland if another agency has stronger evidence in your industry or business model. Location is one selection factor, not a quality standard.
Which PPC metrics matter most?
The final metric should reflect the business. Ecommerce companies may use new-customer acquisition cost, contribution margin, or profit-adjusted ROAS. Lead-generation businesses may use qualified-lead cost, booked appointments, sales opportunities, and closed revenue. Click-through rate and cost per click help diagnose an account, but neither proves commercial success.
Should the agency also manage landing pages?
It should at least have a defined process for evaluating and improving them. If landing pages are excluded, decide who owns copy, design, development, and testing. Sending more paid traffic to a weak page usually magnifies the problem.
Choose the operating model that fits the account
Maryland businesses have credible options ranging from a $499 published package to integrated media, creative, and analytics engagements. The right end of that range depends on the account’s complexity and economics.
A small local campaign may need disciplined search management and accurate call tracking. A multi-location home services company may need location-level capacity and booked-job data. A B2B firm may need CRM stages and pipeline attribution. An ecommerce brand may need feed management, new-customer measurement, and a steady supply of creative.
Define that operating requirement before comparing pitches. It will make the differences between agencies clearer than a directory rank ever could.
If your company invests at least $10,000 per month in paid media and needs search, social, creative, and measurement to work as one system, request a paid search consultation with Black Propeller. Bring your current performance, margins, priority markets, and growth target. The first conversation should determine whether the fit is real, not force one.
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A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.
In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.
The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.
However, using a PBN violates Google’s Webmaster Guidelines because it is considered a manipulative link scheme. Google actively works to detect and penalize such networks through algorithm updates and manual actions. If discovered, the target website may lose rankings or be removed from search results entirely. For this reason, while PBNs may offer short-term ranking gains, they carry significant long-term risks.