Is It Out of Scope? — Web design
Is adding paid search management to an SEO retainer out of scope for a web design project?
Yes. Paid search is a media-buying and ad-platform discipline with no overlap with design deliverables.
This one rarely lands on a design engagement directly, but shows up when a client bundles their whole marketing wishlist into one conversation and assumes whoever's already doing web work can pick up ad management too.
Is it out of scope?
Yes. Managing paid search campaigns — bidding, ad copy, budget pacing — is a different discipline from design work entirely, regardless of what else is on the retainer.
Clause typically implicated
Clause typically implicated
Exclusions clause→ — Design engagements typically exclude media buying and ad-platform management outright.
Example contract wording
Example contract wording (illustrative, not legal advice)
Paid search isn't something we manage as part of the design work — that's a media-buying discipline, different skillset and different tooling. Happy to point you toward someone who specializes in it if useful.
How MarginFlow flags it
MarginFlow flags paid-media and ad-platform requests outside_scope on design contracts, since they fall outside every deliverable category a design SOW typically covers.