There are three ways to give an agency access to your Google Ads account. Two of them are mistakes.
The mistake: sending your Google password. This triggers 2FA prompts, security flags, and hands over your email and Analytics along with your ads.
The mediocre option: adding an agency employee's personal Gmail as a user. It works, but it breaks the moment that person leaves, and it clutters your account with individual invites you'll forget to remove.
The right way: a manager account link. Your agency's manager account (Google's own name for it is an MCC — My Client Center) requests a link to your account. You approve it from inside your own account. Their whole team can now work in your account through their own logins, and you can cut the link yourself at any time — without their cooperation.
Critically, this keeps you the owner. The account stays yours forever, with all of its conversion history intact. That history is what makes Smart Bidding work, so it is worth protecting.
Here's how to do it.
What you need before you start
Just one thing: your agency's 10-digit manager account ID. It looks like `123-456-7890`. Ask for it — any legitimate agency has it ready.
You'll also need to be an admin on your own Google Ads account. If you're not sure whether you are, you'll find out in step 2.
Step by step: approving a manager account link
1. Your agency sends the request first. This is the part people get stuck on — you cannot initiate it from your side. The agency enters your Customer ID in their manager account and sends an invitation. So step one for you is simply: send them your Customer ID, the 10-digit number in the top-right corner of your Google Ads dashboard.
Sending your Customer ID is safe. It's an account number, not a credential. It grants nothing on its own.
2. Sign in to Google Ads at `ads.google.com` with your own login, on your own device.
3. Open Admin → Access and security. In current Google Ads, click the Admin (gear) icon in the left navigation, then Access and security.
4. Go to the “Managers“ tab. You'll see any manager accounts currently linked to you, plus pending requests.
5. Find the pending request and confirm the ID matches the one your agency gave you. Then click Accept.
That's it. The link is live immediately, and their team can start working.
How to remove access later — do this now, not later
Take thirty seconds to confirm you can undo it, because this is the whole point of doing it properly.
Same screen: Admin → Access and security → Managers. Next to the linked manager account there's a Remove option. One click and their entire team is out.
You don't need to notify them. You don't need their password. You don't need to change anything else. That's what you're buying by refusing to share credentials.
The four things that usually go wrong
“I don't see any pending request.“ Almost always one of three causes: the agency sent it to the wrong Customer ID (verify the digits), you're signed in with a different Google account than the one that owns the ads account, or you're not an admin on the account. Check the top-right of the screen to see which Google account you're actually using — this catches it most of the time.
“It says I don't have permission.“ You have read-only or standard access, not admin. Whoever set the account up originally is the admin. If that person is a previous agency, you've just discovered something important: you may not control your own ad account. That's worth resolving immediately.
“They asked me to make their Gmail an admin instead.“ Reasonable to ask why. Sometimes a small shop genuinely has no manager account, which is fine but worth knowing. If they do have one, the manager link is cleaner for both sides.
“They want to create a brand new account for me.“ Sometimes appropriate — a fresh account for a genuinely new business, for instance. But be clear about the trade-off: a new account starts with zero conversion history, so Smart Bidding has to relearn from scratch, typically a few weeks of worse performance. And make sure the new account is created in a way where you are the owner, not their manager account holding it on your behalf. Ask directly: “If we part ways, does that account stay with me?“
While you're in there: link the rest
An agency running Google Ads properly needs three more connections, and doing them in the same sitting saves a week of back-and-forth:
- Google Analytics 4 — grant Editor access to their email so they can connect GA4 to Ads and configure conversions
- Search Console — Full access is plenty; useful for seeing which organic queries your paid campaigns are cannibalizing
- Google Business Profile — add them as a Manager (never an Owner) so location extensions and local campaigns actually work
Skip these and your reporting has holes in it that nobody discovers until month two.
One security habit worth building
Once access is set up, put a reminder in your calendar for every six months: open Admin → Access and security and read the user list.
Old agencies, former employees, that freelancer from 2023 — they accumulate, and nobody notices until something strange happens in the account. Ninety seconds, twice a year.
The two-minute version
We wrote out every one of these paths with screenshots, because reading numbered steps is slower than following pictures. Our Client Access Center covers Google Ads, GA4, Search Console, Google Business Profile, Meta Business Manager, and everything else — no passwords, nothing to install.
And if you hit the “I don't have permission“ wall and suspect a previous agency owns your account, talk to us. Untangling that is a solvable problem, and the sooner you start the less history you lose.
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