In the past we’ve had moments where it has been easy for us to contact Google account managers to do the unlinking and linking for us, however we recently had to get this organised while our account manager had gone AWOL.

It’s been ages since I’ve worked on AdWords myself (hands on, besides the training I do), and I’ve spent the last few weeks getting back onto the bicycle and stuck in again. In most cases it is easier to work on a project from the beginning VS coming in at the end and having to figure out what the goal/strategy was for an account setup.

There are a number of reasons for starting a new fresh PPC/AdWords account for clients, such as:

  • The number of deleted campaigns/ad groups that still appear in the account become a visual account management nightmare (it would be great if there was some overriding feature that would allow you to remove those deleted campaigns from the account completely, like a recycle bin function… “are you sure you wish to permanently delete these items?”)
  • You didn’t take note of your quality score for your keywords, which may have resulted in you being banned from using them within your PPC account and that may be a problem in some cases where the phrases are necessary to your campaigns.

So, now you want to create your new AdWords PPC account, however, you need to ensure that your analytics will be linked correctly (without having to create a new analytics account). Who? What? Where? How much? Pardon? Perhaps I was too specific with the searches I did to try find a starting point for me to work from, in which case it might be a good idea to dust the cobwebs off, and start again.

So, for any of you out there looking for a quick guide (without worrying about possibly breaking something that is currently working), here it is.

Create a new Google account and setup your new PPC AdWords campaigns/ad groups as needed within your account

NB - Ensure that you have admin access across both Google Accounts (the same Google account can access both PPC accounts)!

Now it’s time to get analytics linked. You need to have them linked to ensure that traffic is tagged correctly, otherwise you will not be able to track CPC traffic; it will be logged under direct traffic to the site or under organic traffic. We have seen CPC added to organic traffic referrals on some clients, while others have mentioned GA logs the traffic under direct referrals.

To start with, you need to log in to the existing AdWords account. Go to you analytics tab and Edit Account Settings (Unlink account).

AdWords analytics tab edit account settings

unlink adwords account from analytics

Log in to the newly created PPC AdWords account, go to the analytics tab and select the option “I already have a GA account”, continue and then select the related analytics account from the dropdown menu supplied (data is supplied from G Admin account linked to the new Google Account).

new adwords account analytics tabchoose analytics account link adwords

And you’re done! Be sure to double check your analytics settings tab for the website profile associated with your Google AdWords account (this is done through Google Analytics settings for the associated website profile) to ensure that the cost data have been applied for accurate reporting.

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