If there is a process in which you will have to contact Google Ads support and it can give you headaches, it is undoubtedly that of account recovery. For this reason, we are going explain it to you in the simplest way so you can contact them giving them all the information they need.
We can lose access to Google Ads in different ways:
- You don’t remember the password and you have no way to change it (avoidable if you have another email or phone added, just in case).
- Your previous agency or the freelancer who ran your account refuses to give you access.
- There was an account in the past but you don’t remember what it is and it is linked to another email.
What can we do in these situations? As we have said, it is best to contact the official Google Ads support and we will explain here the easiest way to solve it quickly.
1. The first thing they will ask you is if you have tried any other email that could be linked, or if you have insisted on the agency to give you access. In this they are right, since the agency must know that if the website is yours and you can modify it, you will be able to regain access.*
* If this is not the case, there is a different recovery process through invoices, but it is longer and it is advisable to discuss it directly with support, since more sensitive information applies here.
2. Once this has been confirmed to the Support team, they will send an email to the current account administrator asking him to give you access to the email that you indicate to them, and warning them that you can recover the account if you demonstrate ownership of the web. If the email that appears as an administrator of your account was an email from you that you do not remember, take a look at your inboxes because you may have received it and it would be solved.
After this step, you need to wait 48 hours for the account administrator to add you, reject the email or do not respond. This is so and cannot be sped up, so don’t waste your time nagging the Support guys. It is very important that you recover the account, but they must follow a series of mandatory procedures and are there to help you, be patient! Here we will move on to the second part of the recovery process:
3. If there has been no response or even if it has been rejected, Google support will send you instructions. In summary, what you have to do is enter a small code fragment (which you will copy and paste from the email) on the web that was promoted in Google Ads, and then send them the link to Support and they see that, indeed, you have modified the web and therefore the account is yours. They will give you Administrator access with the email you have indicated.
4. Very important: confirm this access from your email. You can now give accesses, withdraw them and modify what you consider within the account. To learn more about the types of access, remember to review our article: Permission levels, accesses and best practices in Google Ads.
Better practices
Contact support by mail or chat collecting and providing all the necessary information:
- Brief description of the situation.
- Email with which you would like to regain access (and indicates that you want Administrator access).
- Web domain being advertised on the platform. If you have several, all their property must be verified.
- If possible, account ID (you can extract it from the invoices you have ever received).
- If possible, period of dates from which you do not have access, or if you remember if there is any campaign in operation.
What if the account has been working and I have not had access to pause the campaigns?
If during the account recovery process or since you cannot access an expense has been generated, you can speak with the support so that they will grant you a promotional code for the value of the money invested, or even that they will give you that amount back. It is something that support must be insisted on, but it can and should be granted, since they will see that you have not been able to modify anything on the web (precisely because you do not have access) in X period of time, and you have not been able to pause campaigns.
We hope this information has been helpful to you. Remember that you can contact us for any questions you have about campaigns, both for administration and specific advice.
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