Ownership of Google AdWords Accounts
We’ve been busy doing free ppc management health checks on a number of Google AdWords account this month and the issue of Google AdWords account ownership has cropped up a couple of times again, it seems that there are still PPC agencies out there who set up a new client’s AdWords account in the Adwords agency name and not as the clients own account and often they then proceed to either not give the client access or give them reporting stats that don’t quite tell the full picture of what’s going on inside the account.
Google AdWords own third party compliance terms state : “You have a right to know, at a minimum, the number of clicks, impressions, and cost of your AdWords advertising” so you should be given accurate stats for these metrics.
In the worst cases we’ve seen reporting figures adjusted to cover instances where the cost per click has actually been inflated as some ppc agencies charge low monthly fees but then artificially inflate the cost per click in the stats report to add to the cost of each click and make more month that way.
The truth of it is that the kind of agency that keeps ownership of AdWords accounts normally doesn’t react well to notice of termination by the merchant, it often turns from a pleasant teddy bear situation into a full blown grizzly bear stand off.
So what are the dangers of not having ownership and full access to your Google AdWords account?
1) You want to leave and take management in-house or to another agency and they won’t give you the account to take with you.
2) You want to leave the adwords agency and they want a big release fee for “their” account.
3) They go bust and you lose your account and all the data you’ve paid for them to learn from.
4) If 1, 2 or 3 happens and you have to start from scratch and buy all the knowledge again.
5) You end up being too scared to direct the agency as you are scared you will them and so the tail starts to wag the dog.
6) They see you are doing well and drastically increase their fees knowing that you dare not terminate them.
The above are just some of the scenarios that not being the owner of the AdWords account can cause. (it’s almost as big a no-no as having your web designer register your URL in his name! which happens more than you would think too!)
So if you are in the position of not being the owner then we recommend asking for access at the very least, with password access you can see what is going on, you can download to AdWords editor regularly so you at least have a back up then if you wish to leave them you can terminate and set a new account up (not ideal but better than being left with zero data to work from).
If the ppc agency won’t give you access there are still things you can do to get the knowledge such as keyword stats but ideally you need to put these methods in place weeks or months before you go so that you can collect all the keyword data, if it’s a sudden parting of ways then you are left with very few options.
If you are reading this post because you are in one of the above situations then drop us a line as we have successfully resolved several cases like this.
