Organizing agency access with a Google Ads manager account (MCC)

Google Ads offers all three parts of delegated access: permission levels, invitations and removal. Its manager account (MCC) lets one agency use them across many client accounts.

Linking a client account to your manager account

Google Ads Help describes a manager account as a Google Ads account “that lets you view and manage multiple Google Ads accounts.” It names agencies with many clients as one group it suits. Linking an existing account leaves that client account unchanged. The client’s own users keep their usual access, and they can’t see your manager account or the other accounts linked to it.

Linking takes one step on each side. An admin of your manager account opens Sub-account settings, enters the client’s customer ID (the account number), and sends a link request. An admin on the client account opens Access and security under the Admin menu. On the Managers tab, they accept or decline the request.

An admin on either side can unlink. Once unlinked, your manager account can no longer reach that account. The client account keeps its own campaign history and Google Ads features. Two things do change, though.

• Billing. If the account is on monthly invoicing paid through your manager account, its ads stop serving after you unlink.
• Shared tags. Your manager account may have a shared tag (code on the client’s website that tracks results). Remarketing lists that depend on it stop filling in that account, and ad groups that target those lists stop running. Shared conversion tracking stops recording conversions from clicks made after the unlink.

At the end of a contract, check billing and tags before you unlink.

A user for each staff member

An agency with a manager account can put staff in two places. They can be users of your manager account, or they can be invited directly into each client account. If staff are users of your manager account, you invite and remove them without involving the client.

Access levels in a manager account are defined separately from those in a client account. Admin and Standard differ by a set of admin-only tasks: linking and unlinking client accounts, handling link requests, and inviting, removing or changing the access of users.

Give Standard to people who build and run campaigns, Read only to people who only check reports, and Admin only to the lead who handles links and users. That keeps each person’s access to what the work needs.

To invite someone, open Access and security under the Admin menu, select the plus button, and enter their email address and access level. Google notifies you when the invitee responds. Google Ads Help says “You can only grant access levels up to your own,” so only an admin can make someone else an admin.

Google doesn’t require this, but give each person their own user. If several staff share one Google account to get into your manager account, Google Ads records every change under that one account. You then can’t tell whose change it was.

On admins, the client account help suggests adding at least one more administrator. If the only admin becomes unavailable, the account could lose access to its tags. Whether your manager account can replace a client’s admins is a separate matter. Without ownership, your admins can invite non-admin users into a linked client account and switch them between Standard and Read only. Adding admins needs ownership (covered below).

Removing someone at a staff change

If the person is a user of your manager account, the whole change happens on your side. An admin of your manager account opens Access and security, finds the person, and selects Remove access in the Actions column. An invitation that hasn’t been accepted yet can be withdrawn with Revoke, under Pending invitations. You don’t need to ask the client for anything.

If you invited the person directly into a client account, ask an admin on that account to remove them. If your manager account owns the client account, your own admin can remove them too. Note for each account how each person was added. Otherwise, someone gets missed at the next staff change.

What each side controls

Linking doesn’t make your manager account the owner of the client account. Google Ads Help says a manager account won’t have administrative ownership “by default.” An admin on the client account has to turn it on, and a client account can have only one owner. Admins of the owning manager account can then invite admin users, remove users, grant or revoke admin access, and accept or decline link requests from other managers.

Accepting the link and granting ownership are both actions on the client’s side. What you can prepare in advance is your manager account’s users and their access levels.

Where delegated access falls short

Until the client’s admin accepts the link, staff keep signing in with whatever login you were given. What to decide for that period is covered in managing client accounts at an agency.

The other limit is a count. One email address can be tied to no more than 20 Google Ads accounts, and manager accounts count toward that 20. If you invite a staff member directly into each client account, you hit that limit as your client list grows. If the person is a user of your manager account instead, their email is tied to that one account only.