How to get your Google Ads account back from an agency

Four checks that show where you stand

Run them on every Google login the business has used, starting from Admin, then Access and security. The free account ownership check asks the same questions about your other marketing accounts.

Your access level, on the Users tab

The “Access level” column shows yours (access page). Only Admin can give access, change access levels, accept manager link requests, unlink managers and complete advertiser verification; Standard can edit campaigns, and Read-only can view them and run reports (access levels).

The agency’s manager, on the Managers tab

The Owner column shows whether the agency’s manager owns your account. Note the manager’s name and ID.

Owner is a setting, not a deed. Google says an owner manager gets full administrative access but does “not take data ownership or administrative rights away from client accounts” (ownership of client accounts). A manager that creates an account owns it automatically; one that links an account you already had owns it only if your admin turns that on. The owner’s admins can add and remove your users and hand ownership to another manager. Your users cannot transfer ownership, but they “can always unlink a manager with ownership,” which takes Admin access (unlinking steps).

The paying manager, under Billing settings

Go to Billing, then Settings, where Google shows the paying manager name and ID. If it names the agency’s manager, your ads depend on that link, both on monthly invoicing and when a card pays through a payments profile linked to that manager. Google says invoicing is typically used by large advertisers and agencies that manage clients’ accounts.

Payments profile access is set separately from account access. Google’s access levels page says Ads Admin and Billing users can now add payment methods and edit the profile’s name, address and tax details without being payments users. No Google Ads user can add or remove payments users; that stays with the profile’s primary contact. If the profile is the agency’s, the fix is to change who pays, not to edit its profile.

Conversion actions you can see but not edit

An account uses its own conversion actions or cross-account conversions from a manager account, and Google says it “can’t use both.” Client accounts can see cross-account actions but not change them, so actions you cannot edit most likely belong to the agency’s manager.

Reading the results of your checks

What you found	What it means	Next step
Your email has Admin and no agency manager pays	You can remove the agency yourself	Switch conversions to your account, then unlink
The agency’s manager is the paying manager on monthly invoicing	Unlinking it stops the ads	Arrange a billing transfer first
The agency’s manager is the paying manager and a card on its linked profile pays	Unlinking it also stops the ads	Change who pays to your own profile first
Conversion actions you can see but not edit	The agency’s manager counts your conversions	Switch tracking to your account first
The only Admin is a Google login the agency made in your business’s name	It is your account on a login you do not control	Take over the password and recovery details, then add your own email as a second Admin
The agency’s manager is owner and you have Standard, Read-only or nothing	The agency controls who gets in	Ask in writing to be made Admin
Nobody you can reach has Admin, because the person who set it up left	Nobody can add you from inside	Use Google’s Account Access Request form
Your only Admin is a Gmail or Yahoo login	User and linking changes may be blocked	Add a business-domain Admin and a passkey first

On a login the agency made, change the password, recovery phone and recovery email the same day, under Security & sign-in (password steps). Google may send codes to the old recovery details for 7 days after a change (recovery options), so the second Admin is the safer fix.

What an ads agency owes you under Google’s rules

Google’s transparency requirements for agencies say:

• Your customer ID, when you ask, so you can contact Google directly about the agency. It also appears in past Google Ads emails and billing statements (customer ID page).
• The real cost. Where Google’s terms require a monthly report, it must show costs, clicks and impressions at the account level, with “the exact amount charged by Google, exclusive of any fees.” Letting you sign in and see that data also meets the rule.
• Fees in writing. A management fee must be disclosed in writing before your first purchase and on every invoice.

Google’s advertiser guide adds that “the third party agency must set up a separate Ads account for you,” and asks you to try to resolve problems with the agency first. None of it hands you the account.

The order of a handover that keeps ads running

Access first, then billing and tracking; the agency’s manager comes off last.

Get Admin for an email at your business

Ask the agency to invite an email at your business as Admin, and as Read-only today if Admin takes longer: Read-only can download the campaigns. A Google Account does not need a Gmail address, so use an address on your business’s domain: Google is piloting a block on user changes and account linking from free addresses such as @gmail.com. Set up a passkey on that login the same day, because Google may ask for one before those changes and a new one takes about 1 to 2 days to pair with Google Ads. If an invite to your business address fails, check Admin, then Access and security, then the Security tab’s Allowed domains: an owner manager can limit it to the agency’s domain. Once you are in, set it to yours.

Add a second Admin at the business, so the account never rests on one login and, under multi-party approval, someone of yours can approve your changes. Google’s access levels page also warns that an account with one administrator may lose access to its tags if that person becomes unavailable, and its linking errors page says: “Each account must have either a user with administrative access or a manager account with administrative ownership.”

Multi-party approval applies to accounts with several administrators (Google’s pages say more than three in one place and three or more in another). It also covers linking your account to a new agency’s manager. There, adding, removing or changing a user needs a second admin’s approval, and Google’s request categories also include manager account linking and billing changes. Admins in a linked manager account can deny a request, and Google Ads support “can’t approve or deny the request for you.” Read-only roles are exempt.

Once your Admin works, ask the agency to turn off its ownership. Owner managers can remove users, revoke administrative access and adjust security settings, and only the owner manager can turn ownership off without an unlink: in its manager account, Sub-Account Settings, select your account, then Edit, then Remove owner. It can keep managing the campaigns while the billing moves.

Ownership also lets a manager cancel a client account: ads stop within 24 hours and remarketing lists empty about a month later (what canceling does). Only Admin users can reactivate one, and Google warns that may not be possible after an extended period.

Move the billing before anything is unlinked

On monthly invoicing, if the agency’s manager is the paying manager, “the account will stop serving” after the unlink (what unlinking does). On postpay or prepay, the settings where a card or other payment method pays, an account using the manager’s payments profile “will lose its billing setup and stop serving” (paying manager).

• Onto your own payments profile. If Billing, then Settings shows a card or bank account rather than an invoice, open Payer Details and select “Change who pays,” which needs Ads Admin or Billing access (payer change steps). Expect to redo advertiser verification, and promotional credit is not transferred.
• Onto a new agency’s invoice. Only an Admin on the old agency’s paying manager can start this Change Who Pays request. The new agency has 7 days to approve, and your account must be linked to the new manager within 7 days of the transfer or the ads stop.
• From the agency’s invoice to your own card. Google’s billing transfer steps move invoiced accounts only to another paying manager, and its unlinking page says the new setup “needs to be created under a manager account.” Google does not document a move onto a business’s own card, and ads stop until a new billing setup exists, so contact Google Ads support before you unlink.

Switch conversion tracking back to your account

While the agency’s manager counts your conversions, its tags “take priority over account-level tags” (cross-account conversions). Google’s setup page says a managed account can opt out at any time: Goals, then Settings, then Conversion account, select This account and save. The agency can do it from its side by setting your conversion account to Client.

First make sure your own conversion tags are on the website, creating new ones in your account if they were removed, and leave the agency’s tag up for the conversion window so nothing is lost. Then check each campaign’s goals: Google says campaigns targeting a specific conversion action switch to default goals when tracking moves. Watch a few days of conversions before you unlink.

Skip this and the unlink ends the agency’s tracking less cleanly: its tag records conversions only from earlier clicks, through the conversion window (typically 30 days), and shared remarketing lists stop filling, so ad groups that target them stop running (what unlinking does). Rebuild any audience the agency shared first. Expect Analytics data the agency imports through its manager to stop too; Tools, then Data manager shows which managers are linked to your property (Analytics linking).

Remove the agency’s users and its manager account

On the Users tab, select Remove access in the Actions column beside every agency email (manage access); under multi-party approval, your second Admin approves each removal. Change the password on any login the agency knew.

Then, on the Managers tab, select Remove access beside the agency’s manager. Google previews the changes before you confirm with Unlink, and says your account keeps “its own account campaign history.” An account cannot be left with nobody in charge, so your side needs its own Admin first (linking errors).

If the agency will not give the account back

Ask for access first, the handover second

The first email asks only for access and says nothing about leaving:

Subject: Admin access to our Google Ads account

Hi Dana,

Please add the address this email comes from as an Admin user on our Google Ads account, and as Read-only today if Admin takes longer. If a request appears on the Security requests tab, please approve it.

Thanks, Luis

Do not give notice until your own Admin works and, if the agency pays Google, the billing has moved. While its manager is owner it can remove your users, and while it pays it can stop your ads by unlinking.

Once your Admin works, send the handover list, trimmed to what your checks found:

Subject: Google Ads handover

Hi Dana,

Before we move the account, please:

• Turn off your manager account’s ownership of our account. You can keep managing the campaigns meanwhile.
• Confirm our customer ID, the paying manager and the payments profile.
• If you pay Google for us, tell us how and the date it ends, or start a Change Who Pays request to our new agency’s manager account.
• Set our conversion account back to Client, and list audience lists of ours held in your manager account.
• Leave the campaigns, history and lists in place until the move is done.

A reply confirming each item is all we need.

Luis

What your agency agreement says about the ad account

Read the contract for who owns the ad account, the build, the ads and the tracking, what happens on termination, and any notice period or unpaid balance. Google’s settings decide who can click Unlink; the agreement decides what each side owes the other. This is not legal advice; confirm with counsel.

Google’s forms, and what they do not promise

• Account Access Request. Google’s sign-in help points to this form when the original account manager has left your organization or no active admin remains, and its support team validates your proof of account ownership. It offers adding or removing a user, changing an access level, linking or unlinking a manager, turning administrative ownership on or off, and turning off 2-step verification, and you can send it even if you are locked out.
• Third-party complaint. The violation form asks about your relationship with the agency and for your customer ID, and warns that your complaint’s content may be shared with the agency. Google’s advertiser guide says it may not respond personally but will investigate.

For evidence, search your website in the Ads Transparency Center, which shows a verified advertiser’s legal name and, when different, the payments profile name or a payer name the advertiser set (ads transparency). An agency verifying your account must say it is an agency (verification tasks), and Google’s third-party policies call “verifying your customer’s account as your own” a violation.

Google does not promise to remove an agency that is still an active admin because a client asks. Treat both forms as routes, not guarantees.

Download the build while you wait

• Read-only is enough to download. Google’s Editor access table gives Read-only users “Download only” in Google Ads Editor, where Account, then Export saves campaigns and settings to a local folder or Google Drive (Editor copy and export).
• Reports and history. Change history reaches back only 2 years and shows the email of whoever made each change in the interface, so export reports and history you want to keep.

Starting a fresh Google Ads account: what carries over

Between two standalone accounts, Google points you to Google Ads Editor; a manager account linked to both can also copy Search campaigns in the web interface (copy and paste help). Structure, settings, ads, keywords and targeting come across; performance history and bid strategy learning do not. In the web interface the paste fails unless both accounts use the same currency. In Editor, bids and budgets keep the same numbers across currencies, so their money value changes unless you recheck them, and a portfolio bid strategy becomes manual CPC (Editor help).

• A learning period. A Smart Bidding strategy takes “a few conversion cycles (1-2 typically)” to calibrate (learning period).
• Cost per click. Google does not say a new account pays more per click. Quality Score, Google’s 1 to 10 rating for keywords, is a diagnostic it says is “not an input in the ad auction” (Quality Score).
• Customer lists. Customer Match targeting needs 90 days of Google Ads history and more than $50,000 in lifetime spend; before that, a list works for observation and exclusions.
• Remarketing lists. They stay owned by the old account. If you link the old account to a manager account you control and make that manager its owner, the manager can share them with its other client accounts, the new one included (audience sharing). Audiences from an Analytics property you own follow the property: link it to the new account and turn on importing Google Analytics audiences (Analytics linking).

Products linked to the ad account

Each linked product has its own owner:

Product	Where to check	What to ask for
Google Analytics	Admin, then Product links, then Google Ads links; a Google Ads Admin or an Analytics Editor can unlink (Analytics help)	Admin on the property, or the property moved into your own Analytics account
YouTube	Linking a channel needs Admin on the ad account, and the advertiser cannot change the channel’s videos (YouTube help)	Ad videos on a channel your business owns
Business Profile	Linked accounts in Business Profile Manager, where you can unlink an ad account (Business Profile help)	Owner access, covered in the Business Profile guide
Tag Manager	Admin, then User Management; Google says someone in your organization, not an external agency, should manage the account, and Google support will not add users (Tag Manager help), so if the agency holds the only admin and refuses, get at least read access and export the container, or retag the site	Administrator at the account level
Merchant Center	Only if you run Shopping ads, which need it linked (Merchant Center help)	Your own access to it

Call tracking numbers, the website and the domain sit outside Google Ads, and Facebook and Instagram ad accounts follow different rules. The agency switching checklist and the website and domain guide take those on.

Local Services Ads are moving into Google Ads

Google is moving Local Services Ads into Google Ads as Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals. The first wave began in August 2026 for select US home and storefront service advertisers, including plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roofing, pest control and moving; service-area businesses follow in late 2026 and remaining categories in 2027. Once your ads move, your leads sit in a Google Ads account, so run the four checks there too.

• The notice goes to the account administrator on the profile, 14 days before migration, so if that is the agency, you may not hear.
• Reports do not carry over, so take screenshots. Past leads, messages and older call recordings transfer.
• Your Business Profile feeds the campaign. Name, address and hours sync one way from the profile into Google Ads.
• Lead emails go to everyone on the account. Every user and direct manager gets them by default, so remove the agency’s users if it should stop seeing your customers’ details.

Setting up the next ad account in your own name

• Create it yourself on your business email, then link the agency’s manager, so it gets ownership only if you turn it on.
• Grant ownership only if needed. Google recommends it “if and only if the manager account requires these privileges.”
• Pay from your own payments profile. Its account type, Organization or Individual, affects taxes and verification.
• Pick the time zone and currency with care. Reports, statistics and billing follow the time zone, and the currency is set at creation and cannot be changed.
• Keep conversion actions in your own account, so tracking survives a change of agency.
• Put the handover in the agreement: who owns the account, the build and the ads, and what comes back, how fast, after notice.

Beyaoshy’s clients own their ad accounts, and we work in them with the access each client gives. Run the account ownership check before you sign with anyone.

Questions about getting a Google Ads account back

Can my agency keep my Google Ads account after I fire them?

Not inside Google Ads once your own Admin is in place and the agency’s manager neither owns nor pays for the account: your users can always unlink a manager with ownership, and the account keeps its campaign history. Until then, the agency can remove your users or stop the ads by unlinking, so secure access and billing before you give notice. What it may keep or charge for is set by your contract.

The agency made the Google login we use. Do we control the account?

Not until you hold that login’s password, recovery phone and recovery email. Change all three, then add an address on your own domain as a second Admin so the account never depends on one login again.

Does whoever pays for the ads own the account?

No. Ad account access and payments profile access are set separately. Payment matters for timing: if the agency’s manager is the paying manager, by monthly invoice or through a payments profile linked to it, unlinking it first stops your ads.

Will removing the agency delete my campaigns or history?

No. An account that unlinks from a manager keeps its own campaign history. What can stop is whatever ran through the agency’s manager: cross-account conversion tracking, shared audience lists and billing. Analytics data the manager imports for you comes through it too, so expect that to stop.

Should I just open a new Google Ads account?

Only if you cannot get Admin on the old one. A copy made in Google Ads Editor brings the campaigns but not their performance history or bid strategy learning, and remarketing lists come across only through a manager account or Analytics property you control. If the old account is suspended rather than out of reach, do not open a new one: Google’s circumventing systems policy treats new accounts created after a suspension as an egregious violation. Appeal from the suspended account instead.

Our Google Ads account was suspended during the switch. What now?

Read the reason in the account first. Google’s suspensions overview lists causes that a handover can trip, including suspicious payment activity, an unpaid balance and unauthorized account activity, and gives an appeal form inside the account. Send one appeal at a time: Google says it may not process too many appeals for the same suspension. Do not open a replacement account while you wait.

Sources

55 cited

Every figure and rule above links to its source where it appears. Rules change, so confirm anything legal with counsel.

• Google Ads Help, manage access to your Google Ads account
• Google Ads Help, about access levels in your Google Ads account
• Google Ads Help, about ownership of client accounts
• Google Ads Help, unlink accounts from your manager account
• Google Ads Help, manager accounts and payments profile linking for postpay or prepay
• Google Ads Help, about monthly invoicing
• Google Ads Help, manage payments users in your payments profile
• Google Ads Help, about cross-account conversion tracking
• Google Ads Help, set up cross-account conversion tracking (and switch it off)
• Google Account Help, change or reset your password
• Google Account Help, set up recovery options
• Google Advertising Policies Help, transparency requirements for third parties
• Google Ads Help, find your Google Ads customer ID
• Google Advertising Policies Help, advertiser guide: working with third parties
• Google Account Help, create a Google Account
• Google Ads Help, about multi-party approval
• Google Ads Help, about canceling client accounts
• Google Ads Help, canceling your Google Ads account
• Google Ads Help, reactivate a canceled Google Ads account
• Google Ads Help, about unlinking accounts from your manager account
• Google Ads Help, add a new payment method (postpay or prepay)
• Google Ads Help, change the payments profile on a postpay or prepay account
• Google Ads Help, transfer your client account to another agency
• Google Ads Help, transfer an existing client account to your agency
• Google Ads Help, make a billing transfer (for monthly invoicing accounts)
• Google Ads Help, link Google Analytics 4 properties and Google Ads
• Google Ads Help, about manager linking and unlinking errors
• Google Ads Help, sign in to Google Ads (recover a lost account)
• Google Ads, Account Access Request form
• Google Ads, report a violation of Google Ads Third Party Policy (form)
• Google Advertising Policies Help, ads transparency
• Google Advertising Policies Help, tasks required for verification
• Google Advertising Policies Help, about Google third-party policies
• Google Ads Editor Help, user access levels
• Google Ads Editor Help, copy or move campaigns
• Google Ads Help, about change history
• Google Ads Help, copy and paste campaigns, ad groups, ads, audiences and keywords
• Google Ads Help, duration of the learning period for campaigns
• Google Ads Help, about Quality Score
• Google Advertising Policies Help, Customer Match policy
• Google Ads Help, share audience segments from a manager account
• Google Ads Help, email domain requirements for sensitive actions
• Google Ads Help, use a passkey to complete sensitive actions
• Google Ads Help, allowed email domains
• Google Ads Help, account suspensions overview
• Google Advertising Policies Help, circumventing systems
• Analytics Help, connect Google Ads to Google Analytics
• YouTube Help, link YouTube channels or videos and Google Ads accounts
• Google Business Profile Help, manage advertising account links
• Tag Manager Help, managing users and permissions
• Merchant Center Help, link a Google Ads account to Merchant Center
• Google Ads Help, Local Services Ads transition to Performance Max with pay-per-lead goals
• Google Ads Help, about payments profiles
• Google Ads Help, create a Google Ads account
• Google Ads Help, manage Ads account billing setup from your manager account