How do I set up a Google Ads account and give someone access to it?

Short answer: create it yourself at ads.google.com in Expert Mode, under a Google account your business owns — then give your agency access through Google’s manager-link system, sharing your ten-digit Customer ID and never your password.

Most people set up a Google Ads account for the first time while someone is waiting on them, and Google’s signup does not make it easy. The flow is designed to get you spending money before you have finished setting up, and the setting that matters most is on a screen you can click straight past.

Here’s the whole thing, in order.

Before you start

Decide which Google account will own it. Use a business address rather than a personal Gmail if you have one — whoever is signed in when you create the account becomes its owner, and that’s awkward to unpick later if it’s an employee who leaves.

You’ll need a card. Adding one doesn’t start any spending; nothing runs until a campaign is switched on.

Creating the account

Go to ads.google.com and click Start now. Google asks what your main advertising goal is — pick whatever fits, it doesn’t lock anything in.

Then look for the link that says Switch to Expert Mode, and click it.

This is the step people miss. It’s usually small, at the bottom of the page, and easy to scroll past. Without it, Google walks you through writing an ad and setting a budget before you’ve reached the actual account settings — and you can end up with a live campaign spending money on a structure nobody planned.

If you don’t see that link, keep going until it offers to create a campaign, then look for Create an account without a campaign or Skip campaign creation. Either gets you to the same place.

If you end up with a campaign anyway, don’t panic. Just don’t enable it.

The two settings you can’t change later

Google will ask for your country, currency, and time zone.

Currency and time zone are permanent. Not “hard to change” — permanent. The only fix is a brand new account, which means losing whatever history the old one built up. Pick the time zone your business actually operates in, because every report you ever read will be in it.

Then add your billing details and you’re done. The account exists.

Giving an agency access

You do not give anyone your login. That’s worth saying plainly, because plenty of people are asked for one.

Google Ads has a manager account system — an agency has a manager account, and it sends a request to link to yours. You accept, and they can work in your account without ever having your password.

It works like this:

1. Find your Customer ID. Ten digits, top right of the Google Ads screen, formatted like 123-456-7890. Send it to whoever is managing your account.
2. They send a link request from their manager account.
3. You accept it — either from the email Google sends, or inside Google Ads under the tools menu, Access and security, Managers tab.

Check the ID before you accept. The request shows the manager account ID asking for access, and it should match the one your agency gave you. Fake access requests are a real thing. Ten seconds of checking is the entire defence.

What that access actually gives them

Worth knowing precisely, because it’s less than people assume:

• You keep ownership. The account is in your name, on your card. If you stop working together, you keep it — with every campaign, every conversion, and every bit of history in it.
• They can build and manage campaigns — keywords, ads, budgets, targeting, reporting.
• They cannot touch your billing. Card details aren’t visible to a linked manager account and can’t be changed from one.
• You can revoke access whenever you want, from that same Access and security page. No notice, no conversation.

If anyone tells you they need your login, or that the account has to be created under their name, that’s worth a second opinion. An agency-owned account means that when you leave, the campaign history, the conversion data, and the audience lists leave with them.

One thing worth doing before you spend anything

Set up conversion tracking. It’s the difference between knowing you got clicks and knowing you got customers, and it’s the step most often skipped — partly because it’s fiddly, partly because ads appear to work without it.

Without it, the platform optimizes toward clicks, because clicks are all it can see. With it, it optimizes toward the calls and forms that turn into work.