How to Recover Your Google AdWords Account

December 28, 2022

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The damage is done – you’ve forgotten your Google AdWords username, password, or have completely lost access to your account. But after the initial panic, you have to figure out a way to solve the problem fast. After all, you’re in charge of a business, so every minute you lose dealing with this issue means you’re losing money.

First things first, you’ll need to know if you have access to your paid search account. If you do, you will then need to find out whether you’re the account holder or your account was set up under an agency name.

The easiest situation is when you are the one that holds the account, and you have access to it.

  • If you have your Google AdWords account number, you can easily work directly with AdWords to regain control over your account.
  • If you have some login information, you will be able to find out the Google account number and then contact AdWords.
  • If the account is billed to you, you should be able to find your account number on the credit card statements and then contact AdWords.

If the situation is more complicated than that, and you have no information about the contact, the best thing you can do, as a first step, is to contact AdWords. They will try to sort things out and implement a recovery process. The more account information you have, the easier the process will be.

If you have no login, account number, or billing information, you will have to make a list of the email addresses of the people you’ve worked with at the agency. However, without the pieces of information mentioned above, Google AdWords will most probably not shift the account to your control. That is because they have no way to verify if you have real ownership of the account.

Problems like this are difficult to manage, which is why the best thing you can do is to make sure you do not find yourself in this situation in the first place. So, how do you protect yourself from account lockout?

Make sure you have rights to your account in case you need to make any management changes, by following these steps:

  • Account Number – Make sure you have your Google AdWords account
  • Billing Information – If possible, set up the billing with your company. That way, you will control it, and the account control and recovery will be much faster.
  • Login Information – Recovery or transfer will be faster and smoother if you make sure at least one person from your organization has the login information for the account. It doesn’t necessarily have to be admin login, but it needs to have some form of account access.
  • Storing Information – Making sure you have some record of the information is crucial. Keep a record of everything in a secure place on your server or as a hard copy. Be careful not to forget where you’ve put it. That way, even if your staff changes, it doesn’t mean you will not know where to find precious account information, should you need it.

Keeping calm is the best way to find a solution to your problem. No agency or professional handle this issue the same way, but what’s the most important is to be informed and know all your options. That’s the only way you can take the best decision for you and your business.

Billy P.

About The Author

William Polson founded Australian Internet Advertising in 2013 and has over 12 years of experience immersed in Digital Marketing.

With an in-depth level of digital marketing knowledge, William has been sort after by and worked for, many large national brands including Subaru, Blooms The Chemist, and Nova 96.9.

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