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Manager account (MCC)

A manager account is a Google Ads account that lets you view and manage many other Google Ads accounts with one sign-in, without running ads of its own.

How it works

A manager account is for administration, not for serving ads: campaigns and their history live in the linked client accounts. The manager account always starts a link, and the client account accepts it. Managers can sit under other managers, up to six levels deep, and one account can be managed by up to five managers. Google’s help pages still label it MCC.

A role granted in a manager account is inherited by every account below it. That is how a PPC agency’s staff reach your account.

A client account has one owner manager, which can add and remove its users. A manager that creates an account becomes its owner; one linked to an existing account does not, unless the client account turns ownership on.

When a manager is unlinked, the client account keeps its campaigns and history. Users who had access only through that manager lose it, and the manager’s shared remarketing lists and cross-account conversion tracking stop. If that manager pays through monthly invoicing, ads stop unless you change billing first. Before a contract ends, check who owns your Google Ads account.

Where you see it

In Google Ads, under Admin → Access and security, the Managers tab shows the linked manager accounts and which one owns the account.

Not to be confused with

  • Access levels — the roles of individual users inside one account; a manager link brings in a whole team.
  • Advanced account — the same idea in Merchant Center.

Right and wrong readings

  • Wrong: “The agency created our account from its manager account, so the account is ours.” Right: the manager that creates an account becomes its owner and can add or remove its users. Check ownership in the account itself.
  • Wrong: “If we unlink the agency, we lose the campaign history.” Right: the history stays; access through that manager, its billing and its shared lists go.

Sources