How to Give Access to Google Ad Account

Sharing access to your Google Ads account is a simple but critical task for collaborating with your team or an outside agency. This guide walks you through a step-by-step process for adding new users, explains what each access level means, and covers best practices for keeping your account secure.

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Why Share Access to Your Google Ads Account?

You never want to share your personal Google login credentials. It’s a major security risk and a messy way to manage collaboration. Instead, Google Ads has a built-in system for granting specific permissions to other people's Google accounts. This is the official and secure way to let others work inside your ad account.

There are a few common reasons you'll need to do this:

• Working with an Agency or Freelancer: If you've hired a PPC professional or an agency to manage your campaigns, they’ll need access to do their job. They'll need to create campaigns, write ad copy, adjust bids, and monitor performance.
• Collaborating with Your Team: Perhaps a colleague from your marketing team needs to pull performance reports, or someone from the finance department needs to access billing information. Granting them direct (but limited) access is far more efficient than you exporting data for them every time they ask.
• Connecting Third-Party Tools: Some analytics and reporting platforms may require access to your Google Ads account to pull data automatically, helping you visualize performance and combine it with data from your other marketing channels.

Understanding Google Ads Access Levels

Before you invite anyone, it’s important to understand the different levels of access you can grant. The golden rule is to give people the least amount of access they need to do their job. Giving everyone admin access is a recipe for trouble.

Here’s a breakdown of the five types of user access levels available in Google Ads, from most to least powerful:

Admin Access

This is the master key to your kingdom. An admin can do absolutely everything, including what all the other levels can do, plus some critical extras.

• What they can do: Change other users' access levels (including removing other admins), manage billing information, link and unlink manager accounts, accept and reject manager link requests, and shut down the account.
• Who needs this: Only the business owner or the primary person in charge of the entire ad account should have this level of access. Be extremely selective about who you make an admin. Granting this to an outside agency is common, but it should be based on a high level of trust.

Standard Access

This is the ideal level for anyone actively managing campaigns. It provides full access to run ads without the power to accidentally change security settings or user permissions.

• What they can do: View, create, and edit campaigns, ad groups, and ads. They can access most tools within the account, including the Keyword Planner and Audience Manager. Importantly, they cannot view or edit user permissions, change billing information, or modify manager account links.
• Who needs this: PPC managers, marketing team members running campaigns, and freelancers who you trust to execute strategy but not manage the account's entire setup. It's the most common access level for day-to-day work.

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Read-only Access

Just as the name suggests, this gives a user the ability to see everything but touch nothing. They can browse through the entire account but cannot make any changes.

• What they can do: View all campaigns and performance reports. They can also access the billing page to see payment history and invoices but cannot make changes.
• Who needs this: Stakeholders who need to see performance but shouldn't be making changes, like a CEO or a content marketer who wants to see which ad copy is resonating. It's also suitable for third-party analytics tools that only need to pull data, not change your campaigns.

Billing Access

This access level is specifically for financial management. A user with billing access can handle payments but can’t interfere with the actual ad campaigns.

• What they can do: View and edit billing details, such as payment methods and contact information. They can make payments and download invoices. They can't see or edit campaigns.
• Who needs this: Members of your accounting or finance department who manage payments but have no involvement in marketing strategy.

Email-only Access

This is the most limited level. Users with this access can’t even log in to the Google Ads interface. Their only permission is to receive scheduled reports via email.

• What they can do: Receive account notifications and performance reports that you set up to be emailed to them on a recurring schedule.
• Who needs this: Executive team members or other stakeholders who just need a high-level summary delivered to their inbox without ever needing to log in.

Step-by-Step Guide to Adding a User to Your Google Ads Account

Ready to grant access? The process only takes a minute. Just make sure you have the email address of the person you want to invite. It must be a Google account (or an email associated with a Google account).

Step 1: Sign in to your Google Ads Account

Go to ads.google.com and sign in with an account that has Admin access. Only Admins can invite new users.

Step 2: Navigate to 'Access and security'

In the top navigation bar, look for the Tools and settings icon (it looks like a wrench). Click it, and a menu will appear. Under the ‘Setup’ column, select ‘Access and security’.

Step 3: Invite a New User

You'll land on a page that shows a list of current users. To add a new person, click the blue plus sign (‘+’) button.

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Step 4: Enter the User's Email and Select an Access Level

In the pop-up window, enter the email address of the person you want to invite. Below the email field, you'll see a list of the access levels we discussed above: Admin, Standard, Read-only, Billing, and Email-only. Choose the appropriate access level for this user. After you’ve made your selection, click ‘Send invitation’.

Step 5: User Accepts the Invitation

The person you invited will receive an email from Google Ads containing a link to accept the invitation. Their status will show as ‘Awaiting reply’ in your ‘Access and security’ page until they accept. Once they click the link in the email and confirm, they will officially have access to your account.

How to Manage or Remove User Access

Projects end, team members change roles, and agencies move on. Regularly reviewing and updating who has access to your account is a critical security practice.

Editing an Access Level

If you need to change a user's permissions — for example, upgrading them from ‘Read-only’ to ‘Standard’ — it’s easy.

1. Navigate back to Tools and settings > Access and security.
2. Find the user in the list and look for the 'Access level' column.
3. Click the dropdown menu next to their current access level and select the new one. The change is instant.

Removing a User

If someone no longer needs access, you should remove them immediately.

1. Go to Tools and settings > Access and security.
2. Find the user you want to remove from the list.
3. On the far right of their row, click ‘Remove access’. After you confirm, they will be removed immediately and will no longer be able to log in to your account.

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A Note on Manager Accounts (MCC)

If you're working with an agency or a consultant who manages multiple Google Ads accounts, they shouldn't ask for direct access. Instead, they should request access through a Google Ads Manager Account (formerly known as “My Client Center” or MCC).

A Manager Account is like a master dashboard that allows an agency to link to and manage many different client ad accounts from a single login. It’s the standard, most professional way to handle client work.

In this case, the agency will use their Manager Account to send you a link request. You’ll find this request in your ‘Access and security’ page under the ‘Managers’ tab, where you can approve it. This gives them control over your account via their manager dashboard without their employees being listed as individual users in your account. It's cleaner, more secure, and lets you both easily sever the link if your professional relationship ends.

Final Thoughts

Granting access to your Google Ads account is a straightforward but important process. By understanding the different permission levels and following the steps outlined, you can securely collaborate with team members, agencies, and tools to improve your campaign performance while keeping administrative control firmly in your hands.

Once your team is in sync, the next step is making sense of all that campaign data. Instead of getting tangled up in Google's complex reporting interface, we simplify things using tools like Graphed. We just connect our Google Ads account and use plain English to build real-time dashboards for whatever we need - like "Show me total conversions and cost-per-click broken down by campaign for this quarter." It turns what used to be hours of report-building into a quick conversation, so we can focus on strategy instead of spreadsheets.