Google Ads Manager Account (MCC) - Agency Access Guide

Google Ads Manager Account (MCC) - Agency Access Guide

excerpt: A Google Ads manager account (formerly MCC) lets an agency access client accounts from one login. Here is the link request flow from both sides, why linking is not ownership, which access level to ask for, and the billing and conversion-tracking traps that only surface when you unlink.

A Google Ads manager account (still widely called an MCC, from the old "My Client Center" name) is a separate umbrella account that lets you view and manage multiple Google Ads accounts from one login. To get into a client's account, you send a link request from your manager account using their 10-digit customer ID, and an admin on their side accepts it. That is the whole mechanism. Everything below is the detail that decides whether it goes smoothly.

If you are an agency, this is the access route you want. If you are a business owner being asked for your customer ID, this explains exactly what you are agreeing to and what you should keep hold of. Google Ads is only one of the platforms you will be handed on any given onboarding call, so if you also need Meta, GA4, Tag Manager, TikTok, LinkedIn, Shopify or Klaviyo, our complete guide to client account access across 13 platforms covers each one in both directions.

Manager account link, not individual email invites

There are two ways into a client's Google Ads account, and most agencies default to the wrong one.

Adding individual staff email addresses to each client account is the pattern that leaves ghosts behind. The access survives that person leaving your agency. The client has to remember to remove them. And there is no single place where you can see everywhere your staff hold access, which means at some point you cannot honestly answer the question.

A manager account link fixes that. Staff access is controlled once, in your own manager account's user list. Removing a leaver there removes them from every linked client account at once. It also gives you one dashboard across accounts, cross-account reporting, and bulk actions like pausing campaigns or changing daily budgets.

This is the same container pattern you should be using everywhere else. LinkedIn's Business Manager works on the same principle, with its own quirks around who can be added and who can unshare, and Meta and TikTok have their own equivalents. One place to grant, one place to revoke.

One thing a manager account does not do: hold campaigns of its own. It never spends. You can still build and manage campaigns from inside it, but always on behalf of a specific account underneath it.

Creating the manager account (agency side)

If you do not have one yet, you create it from the Google Ads manager accounts page, signing in with the email you want to own it. Google asks for a name, how you will use it, a country, a time zone and a currency.

Two points before you click through:

• The currency is permanent. Pick the currency you actually invoice and report in.
• Manager accounts count towards the limit of 20 Google Ads accounts per email address. Plan the identity you use for this rather than doing it from whichever Gmail was already signed in.

Use a named account on your own company domain, not a personal Gmail and not a shared inbox. Google is tightening domain requirements so that users on free email domains are blocked from sensitive actions, and adding users is one of them.

Check the same thing on the client side before you send the link request: if the only Admin on the client's account is a personal Gmail, get a corporate-domain account added as Admin first, because the blocked action is them granting you access.

The link request, from both sides

What the client does first: find the 10-digit customer ID. It sits in the top right of the Google Ads account, and is also shown under the account name when you click the profile picture. Send that to the agency. Nothing else is needed at this stage, and there is no reason to share a password.

If you ever need to supply your own manager account ID, to a client or to a parent manager above you, it is under the down arrow next to the MCC name in the top left.

What the agency does:

1. Sign in to your manager account with a user who has administrative access. Only that level can link and unlink accounts.
2. Open the Accounts icon, go to Sub-account settings, click the plus button and choose Link existing account.
3. Enter the client's 10-digit customer ID. If you are linking several accounts, enter one ID per line.
4. Review the Preview step. This is where the request details are shown before you commit, and it is worth reading rather than clicking past.
5. Send the request.

What the client does to accept: an admin on the client account approves the pending link request. It appears in their account under the admin and access area, in the section listing managers.

Google revises these screens fairly often, so if a label has moved, look for the same idea rather than the same words. The structure is stable: your manager account initiates, their admin accepts.

Linking is not ownership, and that catches people out

This is the single most misunderstood part of the model.

When your manager account links to an existing Google Ads account, it does not have ownership of that account by default. Ownership, previously called administrative ownership, has to be switched on from inside the client account. Without it, actions like editing user access, accepting link requests from other managers, reactivating the account or unlinking another manager may still require someone to sign in to the client account directly.

The client turns it on from the Admin icon, then Access and security, then the Managers tab, using the dropdown in the Owner column.

While that screen is open, screenshot it. Access and security carries more governance detail than the equivalent screen on any other ad platform: each user's access level, an Access expires column, whether each account is a personal or a business email, the authentication method, and passkey status. It is the fastest audit you will get of who actually holds what.

Two constraints to plan around:

• Only one manager account can hold ownership. If a client works with two agencies, decide up front which one holds it. The second can still be linked and can still run campaigns, but will hit walls on anything ownership-gated.
• If a manager account creates a new client account from scratch, it becomes the owner automatically. That is convenient, and it is also how agencies end up owning accounts their clients believe they own. Have that conversation before you create anything.

Which access level to ask for

There are two separate ladders, and confusing them is common.

On the client account:

On your own manager account: Administrative, Standard, Read only, Email only and Billing. Administrative is the level that manages the hierarchy, which means linking and unlinking client accounts.

Why Admin everywhere is the wrong default

Admin on the client account is only needed if you are the one adding and removing users on their behalf, or managing product links between Google Ads and other Google products. Most agencies are not, and should not be. Standard lets a media buyer do every piece of the actual job: build campaigns, change budgets, adjust bidding, pull reports.

Inside your own manager account, restrict Administrative to a small number of principals and operations staff. Standard is the right default for buyers. They can work across every linked client account without being able to restructure your book of business, and without being able to unlink an account on their way out.

The client should keep at least one Admin of their own, and ideally two. If the only Admin is a former marketing manager whose email has been deactivated, recovering the account becomes a support case rather than a click.

What goes wrong

Link errors are usually structural, not transient. Resending will not help. Read the exact error against these limits: a hierarchy can be at most 5 manager levels deep; at most 5 managers can directly manage one client account; a manager account can have only one manager directly above it; an account cannot be linked twice in the same hierarchy; and manager accounts sharing a client account cannot be part of the same hierarchy.

You can only hold 20 pending link requests at once. Sending customer IDs in bulk during pitch season will lock you out. Clear stale invites from Sub-account settings before sending more.

Expiring access ends at 11:59 PM in the account's time zone, not yours. Warnings arrive 7 days and 1 day beforehand. If you are a UK agency on a US account, your last working day may end earlier or later than expected.

Passkeys are becoming a requirement for sensitive actions, including adding users and linking accounts. If your onboarding assumes a client can grant access from any device at any moment, that assumption has a shelf life. Book a call rather than sending instructions and hoping.

The traps that only surface at the end

Billing is a decision, not a detail. The payments profile determines who is financially responsible. Consolidated billing under your agency means your agency carries the exposure. Every account on one invoice has to sit under one common paying manager on monthly invoicing, and only accounts in the same currency consolidate. If the client should pay Google directly, leave their own payments profile in place and take management access only.

At offboarding, change the billing setup before you unlink, never after. If the account is on monthly invoicing and the manager you are removing is the paying manager, the account stops serving once you unlink. Unlinking a payments profile from a manager deactivates the billing setups of every account using it.

Two things degrade quietly when you unlink. A cross-account conversion tag stops recording conversions for clicks that happen after the unlink, though it keeps recording conversions from clicks that happened before, for the length of the conversion window. And shared remarketing lists that rely on the manager's tag stop populating, so ad groups targeting those lists and campaigns excluding them will stop running.

Before offboarding, migrate the client onto their own conversion tag and their own audience lists, confirm data is flowing, and only then unlink. Expect a reporting discontinuity regardless of how carefully you do it.

Keep a record of what you hold

The reason access goes wrong is rarely a missing feature. It is that nobody wrote down what was granted, to whom, at what level, and what has to be undone at the end.

Keep one row per asset rather than per client: the platform, the specific account, the permission level, which named agency identity holds it, who the client-side admin is, who owns the account, the date granted and the offboarding action required. A shared sheet works for a handful of clients. Past that, it belongs in the same place as the rest of your intake, which is the argument for handling it in your client onboarding software rather than a document nobody opens after week one.

Inflowave gives each client an isolated workspace with role-based permissions, so the record of who on your team touches which client sits alongside the conversations and pipeline for that account. Plans start at $27/mo, with the agency plan at $149/mo.

FAQ

What is the difference between a Google Ads manager account and an MCC?
Nothing. MCC stands for My Client Center, the original name. Google now calls it a manager account. The two terms refer to the same thing.

Is a manager account free?
Google does not charge for creating a manager account. You pay for advertising in the accounts beneath it, as normal.

Can I convert my existing Google Ads account into a manager account?
No. A manager account is a new account you create separately, then link existing accounts underneath it.

Do I need ownership, or is linking enough?
Linking is enough to run campaigns and report. Ownership is needed for account-management actions such as editing user access, accepting link requests from other managers, or unlinking another manager. Ask for it only if you genuinely handle those tasks.

Can a client remove a manager account that has ownership?
Yes. A client account can always unlink a manager, including one that holds ownership, and can then turn ownership on for a different manager.

How many manager accounts can manage one client account?
Up to 5 can be linked directly to a single client account, but only one of them can hold ownership.

Should the client or the agency create the Google Ads account?
The client, whenever possible. The account should belong to the business that owns the advertising, with the agency linked in. An account created by an agency starts out owned by that agency, which turns a routine offboarding into a negotiation.