Manager accounts (MCC): About ownership of client accounts

If you have a manager account, you can be the owner of a client account. Owners have full administrative access and data access privileges, which may include personally identifiable information attached to the client account, but do not take data ownership or administrative rights away from client accounts. The client account still owns its data and has the ability to remove ownership access by unlinking.

Admin users on owner manager accounts have permission to perform the following actions:

• Invite users with administrative access to the client account
• Remove users from the client account
• Grant or revoke administrative access for users on the client account
• Accept and decline link requests from other managers to the client account
• Turn off ownership
• Transfer ownership to another manager account
• Unlink other managers from the client account
• Turn on remarketing list sharing in the client account so that the client account’s lists can be shared with other accounts in the manager account
• Adjust security settings on the client account

Note: It's recommended that a manager should be made owner if and only if the manager account requires these privileges.

This article explains how ownership works. For more background, review About manager accounts.

How ownership works

A client account can only have one owner. If a manager creates a new account, the manager will automatically become the owner of that account. However, if a manager links an existing account, it won’t have ownership of that newly linked client account by default. The client account must enable ownership for the manager account.

Ownership is transitive, which means that if your manager account owns a client account, then all the managers above your manager account will also have ownership.

Make a manager an owner

A manager account can be made an owner by a user with administrative access to the client account.

Note: You can’t turn on ownership if you lack administrative access to the client account or if a manager already has ownership of the account. To change which manager has ownership, review the instructions for transferring ownership below.

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Admin icon .
2. Click Access and security.
3. Click Managers in the menu along the top of the page.
4. Click the drop-down in the 'Owner' column and select Yes.

Transfer ownership to a different manager

A user with administrative access to an owner manager account can transfer ownership to a different manager.

1. Log in to your Google Ads manager account.
2. Click the Accounts icon , then click Sub-account settings.
3. Click the columns icon above the table.
4. Select the Owner column.
5. Click Apply.
6. Identify the account for which you’d like to modify ownership.
7. Click on the drop-down arrow in the Owner column.
8. In the drop-down menu, select the manager that you’d like to make the single owner, or choose to remove all owners.

Note: Users of the client account do not have permission to transfer ownership but can always unlink a manager with ownership. After an owner manager is unlinked, the client account can turn on ownership for a different manager.

Turn off ownership

A user with administrative access to an owner manager can turn off ownership. Note that in order to complete this action, the client account must have at least one user with administrative access. Users on the client account do not have permission to turn off ownership without unlinking the manager account.

1. Log in to your Google Ads manager account.
2. Click Settings in the page menu on the left.
3. Click the Accounts icon , then click Sub-account settings.
4. Select the accounts for which you’d like to turn off ownership.
5. Click Edit.
6. In the drop-down menu, select Remove owner.

Note: In order to complete this action, the client account must have at least one user with administrative access. Users on the client account don’t have permission to turn off ownership without unlinking the manager account.

Related links

Topic Page Manager Accounts (MCC)

• Manager accounts (MCC): Table of content

Account management

• Create new Google Ads accounts from your manager accounts
• About ownership of client accounts
• Change account names in your manager account
• About labels in manager accounts
• Create and edit account labels in manager accounts
• Monitor cross-account performance from your manager account