AdWords login: the product is now Google Ads, and the problem is almost never the password

You log in at ads.google.com, with the Google account that has been granted access to the account. There is no separate AdWords login, because AdWords was renamed Google Ads in 2018 and the old addresses redirect. In practice the password is almost never the problem. Three things block people instead: the browser is signed into a different Google account from the one with access, the access was granted to an email address nobody uses any more, or the whole account sits inside a former agency's manager account and nobody on your side was ever given admin rights. Each of those has a different fix, and only the first one takes a minute.

This page covers getting in, working out who actually controls the account, and what to check in the first ten minutes once you are back. For what the platform charges once you are running, see what you actually pay in Google Ads and how the auction decides it.

The rename, in one paragraph

Google renamed AdWords to Google Ads in 2018, at the same time as reorganising its other advertising products, and the interface, the desktop editor and the mobile app all carry the new name. Older bookmarks pointing at the adwords addresses redirect to the current ones. Nothing about your account changed with the rename: the same customer ID, the same history, the same billing. If a supplier still says AdWords, that is usually because it is the word buyers type, not because they are using an old product.

Signing in

• Go to ads.google.com and choose Sign in. There is one sign in route and it is the same for an advertiser, an agency and a manager account.
• Check which Google account the browser is using. This is the single most common cause of a failed login. If you are signed into several Google accounts at once, the browser will hand the first one to Google Ads and tell you that there is nothing to see. Use the account chooser, or keep a separate browser profile for the account that holds your business tools.
• Expect two step verification. If the account is on somebody else's phone, that is the real blocker and no amount of password resetting fixes it.
• Find the customer ID. Ten digits, shown at the top of the interface in the form 123-456-7890. Keep it written down somewhere that is not inside the account, because it is how support and any agency will identify you.

What is actually going wrong, by symptom

What you see	What it means	What to do
A setup wizard asking you to create your first campaign	You are signed in, but this Google account has no access to any existing account, so Google is offering to make you a new one	Stop. Do not complete the wizard. Get access to the existing account instead, or you will end up with two and a split history
You can see the account but every control is greyed out	You have read only or email only access	Ask an admin on the account to raise your access level
The account loads but nothing is serving	A billing problem or a policy suspension, not an access problem	Open the billing summary and the policy manager. These are two different causes with two different fixes
Nobody at your company can get in at all	Access sits with a person who left or an agency you no longer use	The recovery routes below, in order
You have the login but it belongs to one person's personal Gmail	It works today and it is a single point of failure	Add two admins on company addresses, then keep the original as a third

Who controls the account, which matters more than the login

A Google Ads account can be linked to a manager account, which is the structure agencies use to run many clients from one place. Linking does not transfer ownership of your campaigns, and it does give the manager account administrative control. Three things are worth establishing in writing before anybody spends money, and they are the same three whether your supplier is a freelancer or a large agency.

• The customer ID of the account your money is spent in. If a supplier runs your campaigns inside their own account rather than yours, you have no history of your own and nothing to take with you.
• At least one admin level user on an email address you control. Not a shared login. A named user with admin access, which you can check yourself in the account's access settings at any time.
• Billing in your company's name. Whoever the invoices belong to has a much easier conversation with support later.

Those belong in the contract rather than in a conversation. The clauses that cover them are set out in what you are buying from an AdWords management agency. Ask for admin access rather than for somebody's password: sharing a password breaks the audit trail, and the change history is the thing that tells you who did what.

The access levels and what each one can do

Level	Can do	Give it to
Admin	Everything, including adding and removing other users	You, and one other person internally
Standard	Edit campaigns, budgets and bids. Cannot manage users	Whoever runs the account day to day
Read only	View and report	Analysts, finance, anybody who needs numbers and not controls
Email only	Receive scheduled reports	A stakeholder who wants the monthly figures and nothing else
Billing	Manage payment details and invoices	Finance

Review this list whenever somebody leaves. An ex employee or a former supplier with standing admin access is the most common quiet risk in an advertising account.

Recovering an account nobody can get into

• Find any existing admin first. One click from them adds you properly and solves the whole problem. Check former employees' addresses, the finance inbox and whoever first set up billing.
• Ask the linked manager account. A previous agency's manager account can grant you access, and most will when asked plainly in writing.
• Contact Google Ads support with the customer ID and proof of billing. Have the ten digit ID, the invoices and the company details ready. Support decides these case by case, and an organised request is answered faster than a frustrated one.
• Last resort, start a new account. Know what you are giving up before you do: the conversion history, the account's learning, the historical reporting and any long running campaign data. If you must, export everything you can see from the old account first, then rebuild conversion tracking before you spend anything in the new one.

One special case worth knowing: if your account was granted under the Google Ad Grant for nonprofits, the access and policy rules are different from an ordinary advertiser's, and the eligibility conditions are reviewed. Those are set out in the Google Ad Grant, who qualifies and the rules that switch it off.

Ten minutes to spend once you are in

• Open the access settings and read the user list. Remove anybody who should not be there. Note who holds admin.
• Check billing. Which card, whose name, what the current balance is, and whether a payment has failed.
• Check conversion tracking. If the conversions column is empty or the tracking tag was last verified years ago, every automated bidding decision in the account is running on nothing.
• Read the change history. It shows who changed what and when, which answers most questions about why performance moved.
• Export the last twelve months. Campaigns, search terms and conversions. Keep it outside the account so a future access problem is an inconvenience rather than an emergency.

AdWords login: the questions that come up

Is AdWords the same as Google Ads?

Yes. It is one product that was renamed in 2018. Your account, campaign history and customer ID carried across unchanged, and the old web addresses redirect to the current ones.

Where exactly do I log in?

ads.google.com, with the Google account that holds access. If you manage several accounts, the manager account sign in is the same address, and you switch between accounts from the account selector once inside.

I can see the account but cannot change anything. Why?

Your user level is read only or email only. Only an admin on that account can change it, and it takes them one minute from the access settings screen.

My agency says the account belongs to them. What now?

Separate two questions. Who holds admin access right now, which you can see in the account, and what the contract says about ownership and handover. Settle the second before signing anything in future, and ask for admin access on your own email address from day one. Where an account genuinely was created inside an agency's own structure, agreeing a clean migration is usually faster than arguing about it.

Can two people share one login?

They can, and they should not. Add each person as a separate user at the level they need. Shared logins break the change history, survive staff departures and cannot be revoked individually.

What is a manager account?

An umbrella account that can access and administer several Google Ads accounts, used by agencies and by companies running multiple accounts. Linking yours to one grants administrative control without moving your data, and unlinking is straightforward when the relationship ends.

The account you cannot log into

There is a useful habit in the ten minute list above: you can open a window, see exactly who has access to your advertising, and read a log of every change. Very little else in marketing offers that. Nothing does for the place a growing number of buyers now start, which is asking an assistant to recommend a company in your category. There is no account to sign into there, no change history and no settings screen, and what comes back is assembled from whatever the web says about you. The only way to know what it currently says is to ask it the questions your buyers ask, on a schedule, and write the answers down. Measuring whether assistants name you sets out how that reading is taken.