Before you unlink the old agency from Google Ads

You can have administrator access to a Google Ads account and still be one unlink away from interrupting it.

The account may be yours to manage while the outgoing agency supplies the conversion actions, pays the monthly invoice, shares an audience, or runs a bidding strategy from its manager account. Outside Google Ads, it may also run the process that sends qualified leads back from your CRM.

A handover has to answer a more useful question than “Can the new team log in?”: What must keep working when the old team is gone?

Use this guide with the advertiser and both agencies before a planned changeover. It follows the existing Google Ads account. Unlinking a manager does not erase that account’s campaign history; creating a replacement account is a separate decision. Google documents several service losses that can accompany unlinking, however. Keeping history is not evidence that those services will continue. Google’s unlinking consequences.

Start one transfer record

Ask the advertiser to name one person who can approve the changeover and one operator who will perform it. The outgoing team explains what it supplies. The incoming team proves what will replace it. Finance and whoever controls the website or CRM join for their parts.

Keep the answers in one shared document. Use one entry for each dependency, with these four fields:

Service and current supplier: What does the account rely on, and which account, system, or person supplies it? Include the relevant ID.

After the handover: Who controls it then? What must change, and who will do that work?

Evidence and next check: What has actually been verified, by whom, and when? Link the result. Record any check that can only happen after the switch.

Decision: Ready; waiting for a named action; or intentionally retired with the advertiser’s approval. Record the approval and any accepted interruption.

Copy the blank transfer record into your working document. Add entries as you discover dependencies; do not replace an unresolved entry with a reassuring tick.

For example, “CRM access transferred” misses most of an offline-conversion handover. A useful entry says which job sends which conversion action, where it runs, whose authorization it uses, and when the replacement job last delivered an accepted batch. A successful login proves access. That batch proves a later part of the service.

Keep credentials and customer records in their proper secured systems. The transfer document needs references and results, not copied passwords or raw leads.

Establish control of the existing account

Have a person at the advertiser accept direct administrator access to the client account, then sign in independently of the outgoing agency’s manager account. Check the customer ID together. An invitation still waiting for acceptance is unfinished work. Google’s account-transfer instructions describe adding the incoming administrator before removing the departing user.

Next, inspect Admin → Access and security, including both users and managers. Record the outgoing manager ID, any other agency links, and the intended remaining access.

Three different facts often get called “ownership”:

If the new manager needs administrative ownership, agree on it explicitly. An administrator of the current owner manager can transfer ownership; a client administrator cannot perform that ownership transfer directly, but can unlink the owner manager and then enable ownership for another manager. That second route still has all the service consequences covered below. Google’s manager-ownership rules.

Where the account hierarchy allows it, link the incoming manager early enough to inspect and prepare. If linking fails, use the specific linking-error guidance; do not unlink an essential supplier just to make a slot available.

Check the four dependencies inside Google Ads

1. Conversion tracking: follow the event all the way back

In the client account’s conversion settings, identify the conversion account. From a manager, the Google Ads Conversion Account column in sub-account settings identifies whether tracking belongs to the client or a manager. Then inspect the actions used by the campaigns: source, purpose, value, counting, and goal selection.

If the outgoing manager provides cross-account tracking, its tag stops recording conversions for clicks after unlinking. Earlier clicks can still convert within their conversion window. Recent conversions appearing after the handover therefore do not, by themselves, prove that tracking for new clicks works. Google’s unlinking guidance.

Choose where the replacement actions will live: the client account or the agreed new conversion manager. Prepare the necessary tags before switching the conversion account. Google advises retaining the old tags for the applicable conversion window, and warns that switching between client and manager tracking can change campaign goal selection. Recheck which actions each campaign will optimize toward after the switch. Cross-account tracking setup and removal.

Give each important event its own transfer entry. “Tracking” is too broad if purchases arrive from the website while qualified leads arrive from a scheduled CRM upload.

For a website event, have the new team trace a controlled test through the intended tag and destination. For an imported event, inspect a new upload through the replacement authorization and its processing result. Arrange tests so they do not introduce misleading production conversions. Record what each test establishes: a tag firing, an upload being accepted, and an attributed conversion are different observations.

For the first real events after the switch, check the expected action and values once their normal processing delay has elapsed. Keep an independent reference, such as the order system or CRM, so a missing Ads number can be investigated against an actual event. Exact equality is not a sensible universal test: attribution, consent, eligibility, and timing can produce differences.

Leave this entry open if nobody can identify or operate the process supplying a conversion action the business still intends to use.

2. Billing: find the payer before removing the manager

Open billing settings and identify the payment arrangement. If the account uses monthly invoicing, identify its paying manager. Removing that manager without first changing the billing setup stops ad serving. Google’s billing warning.

For an agency-to-agency monthly-invoice transfer, the current paying manager initiates Change Who Pays. The incoming agency reviews the destination, date, billing setup, and budget. Put the request, effective date, and responsible finance contact in the transfer record. Follow the relevant outgoing-agency procedure and incoming-agency procedure.

Treat “request submitted” and “transfer effective” as separate states. Google’s incoming-transfer documentation currently describes a beta flow with manual linking and unlinking requirements; it also warns that the account must be linked to the new manager within seven days of transfer to avoid ads stopping. Check the current instructions when arranging the change, rather than assuming the billing request will handle the manager links automatically.

The monthly-invoicing guide also identifies transfer agreements that must be accepted to finalize the move. Verify the resulting payer, setup, and account-budget coverage in the account. A campaign daily budget is not a substitute for that billing check.

For automatic or manual payments, examine the actual payment method and who will maintain it. If the agency supplied it, have finance establish the approved replacement through the account’s applicable billing process. Do not assume the monthly-invoice route applies.

Leave this entry open while the required payment arrangement is pending, incorrectly dated, or dependent on a person whose access is about to disappear.

3. Audiences: inspect exclusions as well as targeting

In Audience Manager and the campaigns, identify the source of each shared data segment the account uses. Record its owner, the campaigns or ad groups using it, and whether it is used for targeting, observation, or exclusion. A list called “All visitors” tells you little about who supplies it.

Unlinking can remove access to a manager’s shared lists and stop shared-tag lists populating. Google specifically warns that affected targeting ad groups and campaigns excluding those lists stop running. Unlinking and shared lists.

For each dependency, decide whether it will remain legitimately available through an agreed arrangement, be replaced, or be retired. Sharing requires the owner’s permission; it is not an entitlement created by advertiser access. Google also notes that only the owner can edit a shared segment and that newly shared segments may take up to 48 hours to appear. Audience-sharing rules.

A replacement with the same name is not evidence of the same membership or availability. Check its source, conditions, population, eligibility, and actual use. If a necessary replacement is not usable yet, record the affected campaigns and agree on a temporary plan before changing anything.

Leave this entry open if the future status of a required targeting or exclusion segment is unknown. Removing an exclusion just to restore delivery changes the audience decision and needs its own approval.

4. Bidding: find where portfolio strategies are saved

Inspect each campaign’s bidding configuration. If a portfolio strategy is saved in the outgoing manager, include it in the transfer record with the campaigns it controls and its current settings.

Google states that unlinking from the manager holding a cross-account portfolio strategy leaves affected campaigns with an invalid bidding strategy and stops their ads until a new strategy is chosen. Cross-account bid strategies.

Prepare the agreed replacement in an account that will remain available. Check targets, limits where applicable, campaign membership, and any related budget configuration before applying it. Then inspect the saved campaign settings and strategy status. Copying a target does not prove identical future bidding behavior; the replacement may have different history and composition.

Keep a necessary strategy migration distinct from an optional performance overhaul. If the new agency also wants a different goal or budget, document that decision so later results are not attributed indiscriminately to the agency change.

Leave this entry open while an active campaign still depends on a strategy it will lose.

Follow the services outside the manager link

Ask the outgoing team to walk through a recent customer journey: ad destination, enquiry or purchase, measurement, and any later conversion upload. Then ask what runs on a schedule without anybody opening Google Ads.

This is an investigation prompt, not a claim that every account uses every service below:

For example, access to edit a Tag Manager container does not include publishing rights. Google separates account and container permissions and recommends more than one active administrator, with management inside the organization. Verify the permissions the incoming operator actually needs. Tag Manager permissions.

Some services belong to the agency’s wider business and cannot simply be handed over. Record that plainly. The task may be to replace a connector or transfer a phone service under its provider’s process, rather than obtain access to the agency’s entire system.

For a scheduled upload, agree on a last outgoing run and first incoming run. Identify which records each covers so the transition does not create a gap or duplicate submission. Give one person responsibility for checking the first run and another route for escalation if it fails.

Here is what progress can look like in the same transfer record. These are fictional entries, not account evidence:

Neither entry says “everything transferred.” Each tells the next person what they can rely on and what remains to be done.

Make the changeover a sequence people can follow

Before the switch, retain a dated account snapshot sufficient to investigate a problem: customer and manager IDs, important conversion actions and goals, bidding and budget settings, audience dependencies, billing status, and the relevant configuration references. Preserve the outgoing team’s explanation of unusual settings. A later operator needs to know why something exists as well as where it is.

Then use the transfer record to agree on the order:

1. Finish preparation. Accepted access, replacements, payment arrangements, and agreed retirement decisions are recorded. Essential unknowns have named owners. The operator knows which steps depend on another person or on Google’s processing.
2. Set the change window. Record a date, time zone, operator, and reachable contacts. Include the first expected upload or feed run and the observation time needed for it. Choose a window with people available to repair a problem.
3. Confirm permission to proceed. The advertiser reviews unresolved entries and any planned interruption. A future check can remain scheduled; an unprepared essential replacement should not be mistaken for one.
4. Execute the agreed migrations and unlink. Follow the dependency order and current unlinking instructions. Record the actual times and resulting state, including any manual link work required by billing.
5. Check immediately, then when delayed work should arrive. Verify retained access, billing, campaign and strategy status, audience availability, destinations, forms, and call routes. Later, check fresh conversion events and scheduled jobs against their expected processing cadence.

A conversion received after unlinking may belong to an earlier click. A feed that succeeded yesterday may still be running on the departing person’s authorization. Use the event time, run time, destination, and responsible identity that answer the specific continuity question.

If something fails, reopen that service’s entry, identify affected campaigns, and use the agreed contact and response. Depending on the failure, the advertiser may need to authorize a temporary pause while measurement or delivery is repaired. Relinking is not a universal undo button: it does not by itself recreate an expired authorization, a canceled service, or an unfinished billing transfer.

Review direct users and connected systems as well as the manager link when removing obsolete access. Retire old tags, authorizations, and subscriptions on their agreed dates, after the relevant transition obligations have been satisfied. Leaving the agency relationship behind can involve several different dates.

If the outgoing agency cannot help

Start with what the advertiser can establish directly: account ID, accepted administrator access, current settings, contracts, and contacts for the services it pays for. Mark inaccessible dependencies as unknown. Use Google Ads support for account-access or billing issues and each external provider’s transfer or recovery process for its service.

Do not make the new agency responsible for promising continuity it cannot inspect. The advertiser needs a concrete choice: delay the planned unlink while a particular dependency is resolved, approve a replacement and any interruption, or authorize removal now for a reason that outweighs continuity. That is a business decision with a named consequence, not a completed technical check.

The handover is complete when the remaining people can operate the intended services, the first required work has arrived under the new arrangement, and every deliberately abandoned service has an owner-approved outcome. The most useful final handover message is specific: which account remains, which services were checked, and where the next operator should look if one stops.