Was going to comment the same. I've managed a wide variety of campaigns over the years and the best money for jam in terms of optimization is always the search

Was going to comment the same. I've managed a wide variety of campaigns over the years and the best money for jam in terms of optimization is always the search term report. For non-G-Ads enthusiasts, it's the actual list of queries that a user searched for when your ad was clicked. The problem is usually rooted in too many keywords (top of funnel, as their awareness ladder says) or use of broad match keywords--exactly as you said gk1. My favorite point: "Lesson #1: Test and trim keywords sets before hiring an agency to scale things" - the number one indicator of a successful campaign and client relationship for me is whether the internal team has legitimately tried to use the marketing channel before. I think you can successfully test channels with freelancers but I think a simpler process that likely has a higher rate of success is to test internally before you move it to an external resource. The core benefit is knowledge acquisition for your team. You'll make better decisions with that knowledge and leverage the time of your freelancer or agency better than if you had to ask about every detail you didn't understand about their work.