Could I ask your opinion on handing over a PPC client from one agency to another pls

[hazeypops]

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Hello

I would like to ask your opinion about who's responsibility it is to terminate access via MCC in Google when handing over a PPC client from one agency to another. I won't mention my part to play in this as I would like an unbiased opinion in the hope of settling this issue.

Agency A has the clients Adwords account within their MCC account, they also have budget/invoicing control set up via Google's post pay invoicing option. Agency A is to hand over the client's PPC account at midday on a specified date. On specified date Agency A pauses everything in readiness for agency B to take over. These are the only measures taken by Agency A to hand over the account.

Agency B takes over control of the account on specified date at midday - everything is paused as communicated by the client. Agency B unpauses the account and management begins. Agency B do not request MCC access and instead log into the clients account using the clients login details.

Agency B are now managing the campaign and assuming that Agency A have nothing more to do with the account. Agency A are waiting for agency B to to terminate their MCC access.

My question - who's responsibility is it to cancel the initial agency A's MCC access?

Many thanks for your time

[Shane]

well in theory I'd say it's the clients responsibility to terminate agency A's access and confirm this is done and all is satisfactory, before agency B takes over, is a two second job so personally don't see any reason not to unless there's any clause in a contract that states anything otherwise (maybe till fees paid in full etc.!?)

having said that an agency shouldn't have a problem terminating it's own access if all is amicable.

Agency B could ask the client to terminate access prior to them taking control, (or for emailed authorisation to log in and terminate agency A's access on their behalf) so as there is no potential "mistakes" made by agency A at a later date etc. and agency B's methods/structure and ways of working aren't visible to agency A etc.

[hazeypops]

Many thanks for your reply - assuming that the client has nothing to do with the handover due to limited knowledge of the Adwords system and is expecting that everything will work without their involvement?

Who's responsibility would you see it as then?

[bapages]

THe client has the option to stop the managing agent from access, this is done in his 'My account page' then click 'access' in Adwords

[Shane]

I'd say if the client is clueless and has given agency B the go ahead and a login with the right access permissions to take control of the account at that time of day then agency B would be within it's "rights" to terminate access of agency A so that agency B can take full control of the account and agency A has no further involvment with the account after the arranged time.

if the client has told agency B to take over then I'd "take over" personally but I would probably have dropped the client an email before hand explaining what needs doing and that it's ok for me to do that

If we were told to stop managing an account then we'd unlink anyway so that we didn't get blamed for any hassle later lol so if agency A hasn't by the arranged time of day, if we were given access then I'd go in and unlink them and link our MCC up

[hazeypops]

Hmmm I think unfortunately I am going to have to go into a bit more detail which will eradicate this post being unbiased probably, but I'm sure I can still rely on you to give your honest answer to the situation - here goes -

The client accesses all PPC information via Omniture and has never had any exposure to the Adwords system as this was set up by agency A. He has no knowledge as to what an MCC is.

As stated before the handover was at midday - Agency A paused the account ready for Agency B to take it over.

Agency B logged into the account via the client login and began management. Agency B then noticed that everything was paused again within the account. Agency B then un-paused everything ran some reports and downloaded the data offline to study it and familiarise themselves with the account via Adwords Editor.

Agency B then logged back into the account via the client login - only to find that everything had been paused again. Agency B pulls up the change log to find out what was going on and finds that Agency A has been logging into the account and pausing it every time Agency A has un-paused it.

The client is on holiday at this time so Agency B call Agency A to find out what the situation is and why the account has been paused. I did not make that call, but the information that was passed on to me was that they were not sure why it was happening but were aware that Agency B were now managing the account and apologised.

Agency B un-pauses the account, only to find it paused again the next time they log in. Agency B assumes that there is some automated process causing this account to pause their end either via API or otherwise. Phones Agency A again to enquire why the account is paused again.

Before Agency B hear back from Agency A they log into the clients account and disable MCC access for Agency A. The client returns from holiday. To find that his ads had been showing very sporadically during the last 7 days. He is understandably not very happy about this and Agency B explains the situation exactly as it has been laid out here.

Agency B then logs into the account and finds that they can't get the account live as the budget on the account is still being controlled by Agency A via Google's invoicing service. The budget is set to cease the preceding day and Agency B have no way of changing payment terms or restarting the budget as access has to come from Agency A in order to do this.

So the client having come back off holiday and discovered this still has no live account. Agency B contact Google (unfortunately 4.30 on a Friday!!!) who say they can't do anything until Monday. So Agency B set up a temporary account for the client to give him some coverage over the weekend.

On Monday the budget is sorted Agency B have exclusive control and the clients ads are live - hurray!!!!

The client obviously wants to know why this has happened and who's responsibility it is.

From Agency B's point of view they have been managing the account and somebody has kept pausing it every time they have paused it - also there was no way that in taking over the account that they could have had control of the budget without Agency A relinquishing control. Agency B feel that after the said date that management ceased, Agency A had no business changing anything in the account as they were no longer contracted to do so and should have disabled their own access and relinquished control of the budget in preparation for the new agency to take over - them being the only ones with authorisation to do this.

Agency A are syaing that it is the new agencies responsibility and in fact the industry standard for the new agency to terminate the old agencies MCC access - not themselves. That this is done as a matter of course when the new agency takes over and pulls the account into their own MCC account. Thus far they have not commented ont he budget status.

The client is understandably a bit peeved at all this and now has Agency A blaming the new agency for not terminating their access - and Agency B saying that they had no need to request MCC access (they manage their cleints via a technology that consolidates Google, Yahoo & MSN and have no need to use the MCC platform) although having said that they do pull clients into the MCC - it's just there is no need to do it on day 1 of management.

Sorry for being long winded!!! Hopefully now you can see the reason for the question!!!??

Thoughts???

[bapages]

I understand it is purley down to tthe client to terminate Agency A MCC access in his control panel. But the question here though is who is paying the Bill to Google, if it is Agency A then you can understand why they keep pausing

[Shane]

I'd say Agency B should have liaised with Agency A and Google together to arrange billing swap over and taking control of the account via their MCC .. that's if they were in full knowledge of the information regarding the agency billing situation, so as to ensure uninterrupted service for the client

However;

Yes I agree IMO Agency A should really have terminated it's own access, especially if it had billing liability, if not just to avoid any fees after the changeover, but as a courtesy so that the new agency can take over, it's what we've encountered before, only once in the past have we had to request another agency terminate their MCC control