How to create a Google Ads manager account

What are the steps?

1. Sign in with the Google account you want to manage fromThis address carries the manager account and counts towards your twenty Google Ads accounts. Choose it on purpose rather than using whichever you happen to be signed into.
2. Open Google's manager account page and start a new oneThis is a separate entry point, not a setting inside an existing Google Ads account. Nothing in an ordinary account turns it into a manager.
3. Give it a nameWhatever you type here shows up inside your clients' own accounts. Web addresses are rejected.
4. Say whether it manages your own accounts or other people'sThis affects how Google sets the account up. It is not a declaration you are held to later.
5. Pick the country and the clockReports and bills are both cut against that clock, and it is fixed for good once you finish.
6. Select a currencyPermanent. Client accounts are still billed in their own currencies; the manager's currency is what your cross-account reporting is converted into.
7. Finish and open the accountFrom here you can move accounts already in your hierarchy under it, or link others by customer ID.

Which fields can never be changed?

Time zone and currency. Google states plainly that time zones cannot be changed, and describes the currency as permanent. Everything else on that screen — the name, the country, what the account says it manages — is adjustable later.

Pick the time zone your reporting should be in rather than the one you happen to be sitting in, and pick the currency you actually settle in. Client accounts keep billing in their own currencies regardless, so the manager's currency is a reporting decision, not a payment one.

How do you create a sub-manager?

A sub-manager is created from inside an existing manager account rather than from Google's manager page. Open the accounts section, choose sub-account settings or performance, use the plus button and pick create new manager account. You fill in the same details, and you can invite users with admin, standard or read-only access in the same step.

What do you do immediately after creating it?

• Link the accounts you already have, by customer ID.
• Decide which of them the manager should own, rather than merely manage.
• Set access levels for anyone else who will work in them, and keep admin to as few people as the work allows.
• Write down which e-mail address carries the manager account. This becomes the single point of failure for everything beneath it.

Common questions

What if the e-mail already has a Google Ads account on it?

That is fine — the manager account is created as an additional account on the same Google sign-in, and it simply counts towards the twenty accounts allowed per e-mail address. What you cannot do is convert an existing advertising account into a manager account; a manager account is always a new one.

Can the currency or time zone be changed afterwards?

No. Google states that the time zone cannot be changed, and treats the currency as permanent. Both are chosen on the creation screen and both are filled in without thinking by most people, because the account is usually being created in a hurry.

Does the name matter?

Clients see the manager account's name inside their own accounts, so it is the name your counterparties read. URLs are not allowed in it. Beyond that it is free text and can be changed later, unlike the two fields above it.