My company & crew does Google Adwords campaigns for local, regional, and national companies and we prefer to give the customers information on how the whole Google Adwords/Analytics program works. I agree that you should know how to do this yourself, so you can be sure that you are not getting robbed or not getting what you are paying for. In the process, we also show the customers how our prices are will save them headaches and confusion in the future when trends change and evolve. Our typical fees are 15% of their spend rates with a minimum included.
As a company looking for Adwords help, make sure you know what your time is worth, cost per conversion needs to be, and what your goals are with the campaign. If you don't know these simple metrics, then you are setting yourself up to fail. Its imperative that you have Google Analytics (or 3rd party analytics program) setup to track the success of your campaigns. Its amazing how many customers we start working with that spend over $1k month and have NO idea where their clicks are going and if its really working for them.
If your Adwords consultant isn't a Google Certified Partner and won't give you access to the campaign they are running for your site, then start looking for someone else.
