How To Give Access To Your Google Ads Account

You have invested in and ran your Google Ads campaign but you're not seeing tangible results.

You decide to do the smart thing and opt for an advertising agency to audit and manage your account for you.

If you own a Google Ads account and have enlisted the services of a PPC management agency, which you should already be doing, you'll need to grant access to the account.

By sharing access, you are able to work with other parties invested in your business on the same account. It also enables you to keep tabs on third party activities in your account via the History tool. Herein is a comprehensive guide on the steps you should take to grant access to your Google Ads account.

Before You Begin

It is important to note that for you to invite someone to access your Google Ads account, the person must create or have a Google Account.

Managing Your Google Ads Account Access

After you log into your Google Ads account, navigate to the "My Account" tab, and click on the "Account access" option. Here you can quickly view three aspects of your account access. These are the Pending invitations, Users with account access, and Client managers.

Pending Invitations

Your pending invitations document the list of the invitations you have sent to other users and the status of your invitations.

Users with Account Access

Here you can view the users, outside of the account holder, who currently have access. In case you are new to a company, you may not know the parties that were granted access to the account.

Many marketers give access over time and may forget to clean up the users that have or don't have access to the account. As such, this screen serves as a helpful reminder of past PPC activity.

Client Managers

This screen allows you to view the client managers that have access to the Google Ads account. Previously, you had a limit of two MCC accounts that you could link to your Google Ads account. One was the UI (typically a PPC agency) and other an API (utilized for software). Google now allows you to link up to five MCC accounts. Now having to remove client managers frequently is not an issue.

Now that you have understood the access functionality of your Google Ads account, you can perform various tasks regarding account access.

How to Invite a User to Access Your Account

• Log in to your Google Ads account (https://ads.google.com)
• Navigate to the "Tools" section (wrench icon) on your Google Ads account and click on "Account Access" on the drop-down menu.
• Click on the "Users" tab on the left-hand side to get in into the user management page
• In the user management page click on the blue plus button.
• Input the name and email address of the users you want to give access to on the "Invite Others to Access this Account' screen.
• Select the access level you want to grant to the user (we will expound on access levels later) and then click Continue.
• You can personalize your invitation to the "Personalize your invitation" screen. However, this is optional.
• Click on Continue and confirm that the information is correct on the “Review and send" screen.
• If you are sure about the accuracy of the information, click on “Send Invitation."

Once you have sent your account access invitation, you have to wait for the recipient to accept the invitation. Your invitation is typically accepted within 24 hours. If the user hasn't accepted your invitation within this time frame, you can contact them to confirm if they have received it.

Once the user accepts your invitation, Google will post an alert on your Account Snapshot. In this message screen, click on "Access". Towards the top of this "Access" screen, you will see another alert. Click on "I Agree to the Above, Grant <> Access."

If you followed the above steps correctly, you have now granted the user access to your Google Ads account.

What You Need to Know About Access Levels

Your Google Ads account is a highly valuable asset to your business. As such, you have to take care of its security. The same applies when you are granting account access to other users.

Fortunately, Google has implemented an Access Level system. This system allows you to control the features that guest users can impact every time you give access. There are four different account access levels. These are Administrative, Email Only, Read Only, and Standard.

Depending on your objectives for the user, you'll need to select the appropriate access level so that you don't end up compromising your Google Ad account. Below is a brief overview of the features of each access level.

• Receiving notification emails and reports - all access levels
• Signing in and running reports - administrative, standard and read-only
• Browsing campaign, recommendation and account settings - administrative, standard and read-only
• Granting email access - administrative, standard and read-only
• Viewing product links - administrative, standards and read-only
• Editing account parts and campaigns - administrative and standard access levels
• Adding or removing product links - administrative
• Giving account access, canceling invitations and changing access levels - administrative
• Approving and rejecting manager account requests - administrative
• Unlinking manager account - administrative
• Reviewing user authentication method and last login - administrative

As you can see, you should never give "Administrative Access" to a third party. Doing this affords them the same level of authority as you in your Google Ads account. That user can easily make any changes they want including remove you from your account without your permission.

Only grant access level based on what you need a user to do. For instance, if you want an agency to just audit your Google Ad account, you can allow the “Read Only" access. When you opt to hire that agency, you then upgrade the access level to “Standard".

Approving an Access Request

Someone can request access to your Google Ads account. However, they need to have your account number. If another user sends you such a request, Google will send you an email notifying you that you have an account access request.

If you want to approve it, simply click on the "Accept blue button Request". You will be directed to the “Managers" section on the "Account Access" page of your own account. Here you just click on "Accept" and the user can access your account.

Granting or getting access to a Google Ads account is a fairly simple process. If you seek to have an advertising agency audit or manage your Google Ads account for you, all it takes is a few clicks to set things up. It is a good idea to run security audits regularly to determine the users (past and present) who have access to your PPC accounts.