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Leaving your marketing agency? Your Google Ads history stays. Secure the rest before you give notice.

Leaving an agency keeps your Google Ads history. Unlinking its manager account can also stop your ads at once and stop conversion tracking for new clicks, and a CallRail number it switches off can be gone for good within four weeks.

By Lonta AIPublished Updated 15 min readHow we write

TL;DR

  • When you switch marketing agencies, your Google Ads account stays the same account. What Google calls a transfer is a "Change Who Pays" request if the old agency pays Google for your ads, a link to the new agency's manager account and an unlink of the old one. Google says an account that unlinks "won't lose its own account campaign history".
  • Unlinking can stop three things: the ads, at once, if the old agency's manager account pays through monthly invoicing; conversion tracking for new clicks, if the agency's manager account owns your conversion actions; and any ad group built on the agency's shared remarketing lists.
  • Start the slow steps before you give notice. Porting tracking numbers away from CallRail typically takes 4–6 weeks.
  • A Meta ad account created inside the agency's business portfolio stays there permanently. You can be given access to it, not ownership of it. Your Facebook Page can move.
  • The Google Ads steps on your side need one login: Admin access under an email your company controls. While an owner manager account is linked, its admins can remove users from your account.

What stays with you and what can break when you switch agencies

The account and its history are the easy part: Google's unlinking page adds that an account that leaves keeps "access to any Google Ads features." What breaks are the pieces the agency built in its own accounts and lent to yours.

If you haven't checked who holds the top role on each system, the 15-minute ownership check comes first. This piece is the order to act in once you know.

SystemWhat can go wrong on exitLead time in the platform's help pages
Google Ads billingAds stop at once if the agency's manager account is the paying managerNew agency has 7 days to accept a billing transfer; Google's review follows, usually within 48 hours
Conversion trackingThe agency's conversion actions stop recording new clicksAgency's tag keeps counting only clicks from before the unlink, for the conversion window (typically 30 days)
Business ProfileThe agency stays an ownerA new owner waits 7 days before removing other owners or managers
Tracking numbersNumbers stay in the agency's CallRail accountPort: typically 4–6 weeks. Deactivated number: released after 4 weeks
Meta ad accountOne created in the agency's portfolio can't leave itCan't be moved
DomainThe agency is the registrantTransfer code within 5 calendar days; 60-day lock after a change of registrant

Count back from the day you want the agency gone. If your numbers sit in its CallRail account, moving them is the step to start first.

Before you give notice: the steps that need the agency, or need weeks

Two facts from Google's manager-account pages set the order. A manager account can end the relationship "at any time" by unlinking, as long as your account still has a user or an owner manager account. And admins on an owner manager account can remove users from your account and revoke administrative access. Neither means bad faith, but both are reasons to finish the steps that need the agency's help while you're on good terms.

1. Your own Admin login

In Google Ads, open Admin → Access and security. You want a company email, not one person's, with Admin access, and ideally two: Google warns that an account with a single administrator can lose access to its tags if that user becomes unavailable. On the Managers tab, note the agency's manager account and whether its Owner column says Yes.

For Local Services Ads still in the old dashboard, only the Administrative level manages users. Google says LSA performance reports don't carry over when the account migrates to Google Ads, so screenshot them while you can log in (what changes in the move).

2. Who pays for the ads

Billing → Settings shows the paying manager at the top. If it's the agency's manager account, you're on its monthly invoicing, and Google is blunt: unlink the paying manager and the account "will stop serving ads immediately" because its billing setup is deactivated. Google documents two ways out:

  • Another agency's invoicing. The old agency starts a "Change who pays" request from its paying manager account, with the new agency's manager account ID and a transfer date. The new agency has 7 days to approve or the request cancels, then Google Support reviews it and says it's approved within 48 hours unless there are questions. While the feature is in beta, the account must be linked to the new manager account within 7 days of the transfer or the ads stop. Google assigns each invoice to a payer by the intended transfer date, so get that date in writing. Google's unlinking page says to change the billing setup before unlinking, under a manager account yours will be linked to.
  • Your own payment method. Google's billing reset page covers this route once the unlink has deactivated the invoicing setup: the account needs a new billing setup, and you can switch to prepay or postpay (options vary by country) by adding a payment method.

Google doesn't say how long a new payment method takes before ads serve again, so our reading is to plan for a gap: unlink early on a weekday, with someone who has Admin access ready to add the payment method, and not in your busiest week.

3. Which account records your conversions

Open Goals → Settings → Conversion account. If it names a manager account, your calls and forms are counted by the agency's cross-account conversion actions. Your account can see them but can't change them, and it uses either its own conversion actions or the manager's, never both.

Unlink without dealing with this and the agency's tag stops recording conversions for clicks after the unlink. For earlier clicks it keeps recording for the conversion window, "typically 30 days". If your own tag was on the site, Google says it resumes. The cleaner order, from Google's cross-account pages:

  1. Check that your own conversion tags are still on the site. If they were removed, generate new ones and add them.
  2. Set Conversion account to This account and save.
  3. Leave the agency's tag on the site for the conversion window.
  4. Check each campaign's goals. Google says campaigns set to a specific conversion action fall back to default goals when an account switches between its own and a manager's conversion tracking.

Google's pages don't say whether reports on the agency's conversion actions stay readable in your account after the unlink. Download a conversions report by conversion action and month before you unlink.

If your tags run through Google Tag Manager, check whose Tag Manager account holds the container. Google's own advice is to "make sure your account is managed by someone in your organization, not an external agency," and its support team can't be asked to add users. If the container is the agency's, export it (Admin → Export Container), import it into a Tag Manager account your company administers, and install that container on your site instead.

4. Lists the agency lends you

After an unlink, Google says remarketing lists built on the manager's shared tag stop filling, the account loses "any of the manager's shared lists", and ad groups that target those lists or campaigns that exclude them stop running.

Negative keyword lists made in a manager account appear in every client account's Shared library by default, and the agency can edit or remove them. Google's unlink page mentions shared lists only under remarketing; our reading is that manager negative lists go the same way. Rebuild them in your own account before notice, so the searches you block stay blocked.

5. Business Profile: add yourself now, remove them later

Only the primary owner can transfer primary ownership. If that's the agency, it has to add your company's Google Account as an owner and then make it primary owner (More → Business Profile settings → People and access, select the user, Edit next to "Access", then Primary owner → Save).

A new owner then waits 7 days before it can remove other owners or managers, delete the profile or change the primary owner. Google says the agency's past review replies and posts stay on the profile after it's removed. If the agency won't cooperate, the ownership request process is in the ownership check.

6. Tracking numbers

If the numbers on your ads, Business Profile and website are CallRail numbers in the agency's account, there are two routes:

  • Move them into a CallRail account your company owns. CallRail's support team does it once an administrator on each account confirms. Call history moves with the numbers; call tags don't. Your account then pays for them.
  • Port them to another provider. The new provider starts it, an administrator on the CallRail account authorizes it, and it "typically takes 4-6 weeks". Keep the numbers active and the account open until the port is confirmed.

This goes before notice because any administrator can close a CallRail account, and numbers deactivated at closing "can't be recovered." A number deactivated on its own tells callers "This number is no longer in service" and can be reactivated for only four weeks. After that it goes back to the carrier.

7. Meta: the ad account may not be movable

Meta says an ad account created in a business portfolio "will permanently be a part of that portfolio," and "An ad account can only be in one business portfolio." If the agency created yours inside its portfolio, the most you can get is shared access: from your portfolio, Settings → Accounts → Ad accounts → + Add → Request access to an ad account in another business portfolio, asking for partial access or full control. Someone with full control of the agency's portfolio approves it. Plan for the next agency to run ads from a new ad account in your own portfolio.

Your Facebook Page is different. Meta says a Page owned by another business has to be removed from that business's portfolio before you can add it to yours, and that a Page can be removed from a portfolio at any time. Your dataset (where your Meta Pixel's website events show up) belongs to a portfolio too, and Meta's steps for giving a partner access start in the owning portfolio (Settings → Data sources → Datasets → Assign partners). Ask for your portfolio to be assigned. That is partner access, not ownership. The dataset stays in the agency's portfolio, and none of Meta's pages cited here shows a way to move it. Our reading: treat it like the ad account, keep the shared access for its history, and have the next agency set up a new dataset in your own portfolio.

Remove the agency last, under Settings → Partners → Options → Remove from business portfolio, which needs full control. Meta's page says a partner can be in your portfolio to share its own assets with you, and it doesn't say whether removing the partner ends that access. Export the old ad account's reports and move to your own dataset before you remove the agency.

8. The domain

If the agency is the registrant, a change of registrant needs confirmation from both sides, and the registrar then locks the domain against moving registrars for 60 days, unless the registrar let you opt out beforehand. ICANN advises doing the registrar transfer first if that's the goal. A registrar that doesn't let you generate the transfer code yourself must provide it "within five (5) calendar days".

How do you move a Google Ads account to another MCC?

Once billing and conversions are settled, what's left is a link request, an ownership setting and an unlink, each on the Managers tab and each needing someone with Admin access on your account, then a clean-up.

  1. The new agency sends a link request from its manager account with your Customer ID. Accept it under Admin → Access and security → Managers → Link request, or from the email. Google says linking leaves the account unchanged, "its account history remains intact," and billing stays as it was unless you choose consolidated billing.
  2. Both agencies can be linked for a while. Google's introduction to linking allows up to 5 manager accounts per account, but not two in the same hierarchy; the troubleshooting note on its unlink page says one. If the link fails with a "maximum number of managers reached" error, unlink the old manager account first, once billing and conversions (sections 2 and 3 above) are settled.
  3. Ownership only if it's needed. Google recommends making a manager the owner "if and only if" it needs those privileges. The old agency can hand ownership to another manager. You can't, but you can unlink the owner and then set the Owner column to Yes for a different manager.
  4. Unlink the old agency: Managers → Remove access in the "Actions" column. Read the preview Google shows, then select Unlink.
  5. Remove the agency's people under Admin → Access and security with Remove access in the "Actions" column.
  6. Read the change history. It covers the past two years, and its "User" column shows the email behind each change made in the interface. Check what changed during your notice period.

What this doesn't cover

  • Your contract. Notice periods, and who owns the site design, ad copy and landing pages, are contract questions. Read yours before you send notice.
  • Google Analytics, Search Console and hosting. Each has its own access rules.
  • How long bidding takes to settle after the conversion account or goals change. Google doesn't say. Don't judge the new setup on its first weeks.
  • Other vendors. The numbers section follows CallRail only; ICANN's rules cover generic endings such as .com; Google's LSA access page doesn't apply if you advertise through a partner affiliate.

Do this before you give notice

  1. Get Admin on Google Ads for two company emails, and Administrative on Local Services Ads if they haven't moved into Google Ads yet.
  2. Open Billing → Settings. If the agency is the paying manager, choose: a dated "Change who pays" from the old agency, or your own payment method added on unlink day.
  3. Open Goals → Settings → Conversion account. If it's the agency's, put your own tags on the site, switch to This account, download a conversions report, and move the Tag Manager container if it's theirs.
  4. Copy the agency's negative keyword lists into your own Shared library and note ad groups that use its remarketing lists.
  5. Add your company's Google Account to the Business Profile as owner, then primary owner. The agency can come off 7 days later.
  6. Start the tracking-number move or port about six weeks before your target date.
  7. Send one email for the rest: the Facebook Page released, the dataset shared with your portfolio, the domain's registrant changed or transfer code sent, each with a date. On Meta, get a new dataset created in your own portfolio and the old ad account's reports exported before you remove the agency.

Once you're in, the Google Ads audit checklist for contractors covers the account itself.

FAQ

Can I transfer my Google Ads account to a new agency's MCC? Yes. Google's help pages call it a transfer: the old agency's paying manager moves billing to the new agency's with a "Change Who Pays" request, the new manager account links to yours, and the old one is unlinked.

Will I lose my Google Ads history if I fire my agency? No. Google says an account that unlinks from a manager account keeps its campaign history. What can stop is billing through the agency, conversion tracking run from its manager account and lists shared from it.

Can my agency keep my Facebook ad account? If it created the ad account inside its own business portfolio, the account stays there, per Meta. You can request access to it, not move it. Your Facebook Page can be released and added to your portfolio.

How do I remove my agency from my Google Business Profile? First have the agency make your company's Google Account the primary owner. Then, as primary owner, open People and access, select the agency's user and select Remove person. Your account can do this 7 days after it was added as an owner.

Sources

Every page below was read in full on September 24, 2026. Every quotation above is from one of them.

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