How do you switch Google Ads agencies?

You switch Google Ads agencies by confirming that your business has admin access to its own Google Ads account, linking the new agency's manager account to that same account, moving anything that still depends on the old agency, and only then removing the old agency's access.

Switching Google Ads agencies is a handover, not a rebuild. The account holds your campaigns, your conversion history, and the record of every change, and a good handover keeps all of it running while the people managing it change. ReClick takes over Google Ads accounts for businesses that rely on lead generation in the order this page follows: ownership, access, what to hand over, and what the new agency does first.

Who owns your Google Ads account?

Your business owns its Google Ads account when someone at your business holds admin access to it. At ReClick, the client owns the Google Ads account, so if you later switch agencies, it stays yours. Check before anything else: in Google Ads, open Admin, then Access and security. The Users page shows who has Admin access, and the Managers page shows which manager accounts are linked.

Agencies run client accounts from a manager account, a Google Ads account that links to many others. How the link began decides who is in control:

• The agency created your account. A manager account that creates a Google Ads account becomes its owner automatically.
• You created the account and linked the agency. The agency doesn't get ownership unless someone with admin access on your account turns it on.

A client account can have only one owner, and the owner's admins control the account's admin access. They can invite and remove admin users, accept or decline link requests, unlink other manager accounts, and transfer ownership to another manager account. Ownership doesn't take your data away from the account, though. The campaigns and their history stay in your account whoever owns it.

Keep more than one admin at your business. Google warns that an account with only one administrator can lose access to its tags if that person becomes unavailable.

What if the old agency owns the account?

If the old agency owns the account, ask its admins for one of 2 things: admin access for someone at your business, or ownership moved to your new agency's manager account. Either one is done from the account, and either one keeps the account and its history. Ask in writing.

Why keep the same account?

Keep the same account because a new one starts with nothing. Conversion history is what Smart Bidding learns from, and Google doesn't carry a copied campaign's performance data or bid strategy learning into another account. The account also keeps 2 years of change history, with the email address of whoever made each change, so the new agency can see what was tried before it changes anything.

A new account is the last resort, for when the old agency won't hand over access. The history then stays behind in the old account.

Should you start a new Google Ads account with the new agency?

No, not if you can get admin access to the account you have. Starting over gives up the conversion history Smart Bidding learns from and the change history that shows what was tried. Open a new account only when access to the old one can't be had.

How do you give a new agency access?

You give a new agency access by linking its manager account to your Google Ads account. The agency sends a link request from its manager account, and an admin on your account accepts it. From then on, the agency's team works in your account through its manager account. ReClick requests access this way, through its own manager account, when it starts with a new client.

When ReClick takes over from another agency, the switch is a change of manager accounts: ReClick's is linked to the account, the old agency's is removed, and the account stays yours throughout.

A Google Ads account can be managed by up to 5 manager accounts at once, so the old and new agencies can both be linked during the handover. That overlap is what keeps the ads running: the new agency has access before the old one loses it.

What else does the new agency need access to?

The new agency needs admin access to Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics as well, because your conversion tracking lives there. ReClick asks for both, alongside the Google Ads link, when it takes over an account. Tag Manager holds the tags that record each lead. Analytics holds the key events, and some accounts import those into Google Ads as conversions.

Where qualified leads go back from your customer relationship management (CRM) system to Google Ads, the new agency also needs access to that data: the stage each lead reached, and when.

How do the ads keep running during the handover?

The ads keep running because both agencies stay linked until nothing in your account depends on the old one. The new agency can read the account, and plan its first changes, while the old agency's billing, tracking, and lists are still in place.

Should you pause your ads while you switch?

No. With both agencies linked, the ads keep serving and bringing in leads while the handover happens. Pausing stops the leads and protects nothing, since the account and its history stay put either way.

What should the old agency hand over?

The old agency should hand over everything your ads depend on that doesn't live inside your Google Ads account. The account itself stays with you. These are the pieces that can stop working when the old agency leaves:

• Billing. If Google invoices your ads through the old agency's manager account, the account stops serving when that manager account is unlinked. Change the billing setup to a manager account you'll stay linked to before the unlink.
• Conversion tracking in the agency's manager account. Conversions can be tracked from a manager account for every account linked to it, called cross-account conversion tracking. After the unlink, that tag stops recording conversions for new clicks, so your account needs conversion actions of its own in place first.
• Shared lists. After the unlink, your account loses access to the audience lists shared from the old agency's manager account, and campaigns that target those lists stop running. Negative keyword lists built in a manager account belong to that manager account too. Ask for an export of both.
• Tag Manager and Analytics. Admin access to the Tag Manager container and the Analytics property that record your conversions, held by someone at your business.
• The CRM upload. The automation that sends qualified leads and closed deals from your CRM back to Google Ads often runs on the agency's tools. If it stops when the agency leaves, bidding loses the stage it learns from. How the offline conversion import works, from the click ID on the form to the upload, is what to ask the old agency to document.
• Call tracking. The tracking numbers on your ads and landing pages may belong to the old agency's call tracking account. Ask what happens to each number, and replace or move them before the switch. For a business whose leads often call, those numbers are what call conversion tracking uses to tie each call to its click.
• Landing pages. Pages hosted on the agency's page builder or domain go offline with the contract unless you take them over. Every ad that points at them would then lead nowhere.
• The record of what was tried. A list of the conversion actions, what each one counts, and which are primary, plus the tests run and what each found. Change history shows what changed, not why.

How much of this has to move depends on where the old agency built it. When the conversion tracking sits in your own accounts and systems, the handover is seamless: the new agency gets access and nothing has to be rebuilt. When the old agency built it in its own accounts, it stops working when that agency leaves. If any conversion tracking breaks in the switch, ReClick puts new tracking in place.

In what order should you switch?

Switch in an order that never leaves the account without billing, tracking, or someone in charge:

1. Confirm admin access at your business. If nobody at your business has it, get it from the owner first.
2. Link the new agency's manager account. Both agencies are now linked.
3. Move billing if Google invoices you through the old agency.
4. Replace what lives outside your account: conversion tracking in the old manager account, shared lists, the CRM upload, call tracking, and landing pages.
5. Unlink the old manager account. In Admin, open Access and security, then Managers, and choose Remove access for the old agency. Then remove any of its people listed under Users.
6. Check change history the next week for changes from email addresses you don't recognize.

ReClick reviews change history every week on every account it manages, looking for changes made by anyone outside the team. After a switch, that check is what shows whether the old access is really gone.

What should a new agency do first?

ReClick takes over an account in 1 to 2 days, and it audits the account before it changes anything in it. The audit covers the conversion goals and whether the primary and secondary actions are set correctly, how long conversions take to arrive after the click, the assets and ads, the negative keyword lists and search terms, and the bid strategy. The findings and proposed changes are written down, and the team discusses them before any change goes into the account.

The kickoff call then confirms what the account can't show: the areas you serve, your monthly budgets, the keywords to exclude, and any services you don't want advertised.

The existing campaigns keep running while the restructure is planned, so the business doesn't lose leads during the switch. Over the next 2 weeks or so, ReClick makes the changes it would have made had it managed the account from the start: restructuring campaigns, reorganizing ad groups, pausing keywords and assets that underperform, and moving to new bid strategies or conversion actions.

Any new campaign is built paused. It launches only once its conversion tracking is verified, the reasons for each change are written down, and a senior team member has reviewed the build. After launch, we watch the results and keep managing negative keywords, and we hold other changes until results are stable.

Why does tracking come first?

Tracking comes first because every later decision rests on what the account can measure. Alpine LA Properties came to ReClick with months of spend, no conversion tracking of any kind, and one campaign on Maximize Clicks. The first weeks of the engagement went to tracking calls from ads and guest card submissions, as the apartment leasing Google Ads case study shows.

National Lemon Law Firm's inherited account was bidding on raw form fills, with a long negative keyword list sitting in the account unapplied. There, the first change was pointing the bidding at qualified leads from the firm's CRM, and the lemon law firm Google Ads case study walks through the order of the changes that followed.

A qualified lead is a lead your sales team accepts, by a definition agreed at the start. Agree on that definition with the new agency in the first weeks, using how MQLs and SQLs differ as the starting point, so both sides count the same thing.

How do your numbers change after the switch?

Your reported numbers often change before your results do. When a new agency stops a conversion that counted the same lead twice, or takes page views out of the primary conversions, the reported lead count falls and cost per lead rises, because the old count was inflated. When bidding moves from form fills to qualified leads, cost per lead can rise while cost per qualified lead falls. Judge the switch on qualified leads and what each one costs, over a window long enough for your leads to qualify. Read cost per lead (CPL) beside it rather than on its own, since how cost per lead is calculated leaves lead quality out.

Does switching Google Ads agencies reset the learning period?

No. Google's list of what puts Smart Bidding into learning is a bid strategy created or reactivated, campaigns added to it or removed from it, and a significant change in the conversion goals it optimizes toward. A new manager account isn't on the list. Changes the new agency makes can be, which is why we change conversion goals and bid strategies one at a time.

How does ReClick take over a Google Ads account?

ReClick takes over Google Ads accounts in the order this page lays out: access first, then the audit, then tracking, then changes one at a time, each with a written reason. Access takes 1 to 2 days, and the restructure follows over about 2 weeks, with the existing campaigns running until each change is made. ReClick takes on accounts spending at least $10,000 a month on Google Ads, and its management fee starts at $2,500 a month, rising with total monthly ad spend. That work, from the first access request to the qualified-lead bidding that follows, is part of ReClick's Google Ads management (PPC management).