Taking Over a Google Ads Account? Start With These Questions

The questions to ask the outgoing team

Start with change history for the whole period under review, which Google Ads keeps for the past 2 years. Each question below says where to look in Google Ads, and only the outgoing team can say why a change was made. Calder Physio’s five in the review above came from the first four. To check every setting itself, the account audit covers each one.

• Conversion actions. Which are primary, what does each one count, and since when? Check Goals, then Conversions.
• Bid strategies and targets. When did each strategy or target change, and what was it meant to improve? Filter change history by bid strategy.
• Budgets. What was each budget change meant to buy, against which monthly plan? Filter change history by budget.
• Locations and schedule. Which areas, radius and ad schedule are set, and who chose them? Check each campaign’s settings.
• Shared lists and scripts. Which negative keyword lists, scripts or rules run from the agency’s manager account? Check its shared library.
• The manager account link. What stops when the link is removed, and does billing run through it? Check Access and security, then Managers.

What the evidence supports, and what it doesn’t

Change history lists the changes made to the account, its campaigns and its ad groups, with who made each and when. It doesn’t record why, or a change made outside Google Ads, such as to the website’s tag or its booking page, so a change is a question until someone answers it.

A low change count alone is not neglect. Calder Physio judges results by the bookings in its appointment system, while Maximize conversions bids toward what Google Ads counts as a conversion. By the appointment system, its September held two changes and booked at $58 against the $60 target, while October held 11 and booked over it. Check the results first, then ask what each change was for.

The handover file

Ask for these before the last day, so nothing depends on the outgoing team’s memory.

• Admin access for your own Google account, accepted before the agency’s access ends
• The change history export for every month the review covers
• Where each conversion action’s tag or import lives, and who can edit it
• Who administers the linked Google Analytics 4, Tag Manager, Merchant Center and YouTube accounts
• Scripts and automated rules, and what each one does
• The payment profile and any account budget
• Reports sent to date, with the targets they were measured against