A Google Ads account after owner death can leave a business with urgent questions: who can stop advertising, who approves the next charge, and who receives the enquiries? A campaign may still promote appointments or products that the team can no longer provide. Start with a coordinated review of access, spending, and customer experience before deciding the account's future.
This checklist is for business owners planning ahead and teams managing a transition. The cited Google pages explain ordinary account administration; they do not establish an automatic inheritance process. Ask the responsible business or estate representative to resolve authority questions. Keep personal Google Account matters separate from the organization's advertising decisions.
1. Create one account record
Record the Google Ads customer ID, business name, website, known administrator email addresses, agency contact, and payments profile ID if available. Find the latest invoice and note who normally receives billing messages. Use business records you are authorized to inspect; a relative should not need to search private correspondence merely to discover the advertising supplier.
Add the active campaigns, their purpose, current budgets, and the person handling incoming leads. Mark unknown details explicitly. A small worksheet with an item, responsible person, next action, and review date is easier to maintain than an unstructured folder of screenshots. Store it where the appointed coordinator and authorized operators can find it.
2. Identify usable access
Ask each existing operator to check their own login and access level. Google's access-level guide distinguishes campaign editing from user administration: Standard and Admin users can edit campaigns, while Admin users can manage account access. A linked agency manager's ability to administer users also depends on manager-account ownership. Do not infer full control from the ability to view reports.
Write down who can handle campaigns, users, and billing, then assign each task to an appropriate operator. If access is missing, contact Google Ads support with the circumstances and ask which evidence is required. Do not promise the family a recovery deadline or a successful transfer. Keep the support case number and a dated record of requests, with sensitive documents in restricted storage.
3. Review advertising before the next working day
Ask whether someone can fulfil every advertised offer. Check landing pages, checkout, appointment calendars, telephone numbers, and lead notification addresses. A functioning advertisement is only useful if customers reach a team that can respond. Agree which campaigns can continue and which need an immediate pause, with a named person approving the decision.
Google explains that pausing a campaign stops its ads and preserves the option to resume it; removing it is permanent. For an uncertain transition, consider a pause before choosing removal. Have an authorized operator record the previous status, apply the approved change, and check the resulting status. Review scheduled rules, scripts, and agency workflows for anything that could conflict with the decision.
Set a time to inspect the account again. For example, a shop might continue advertising items that staff can ship while pausing consultations delivered only by the owner. Record that distinction in plain language so the next person does not restart everything simply because the website remains online. Check customer messages for promises that need updating.
4. Separate billing review from campaign decisions
Prepare a short finance handover: latest invoice, billing contact, payment arrangement, outstanding questions, and the person allowed to approve further spending. Ask the responsible representative to set a temporary advertising budget and review date. Record agency fees and other marketing subscriptions separately, because a campaign decision does not settle every supplier relationship.
Account permissions and payment-profile user management need separate checks. Google's permissions documentation says Google Ads users cannot directly add or remove payment-profile users or change those users' permissions; it describes a support route for those requests. Ask support how to proceed if the listed contact is unavailable. Verify the resulting billing arrangement instead of assuming a new campaign administrator has resolved it.
Keep invoices and approvals with the business records. Ask the appropriate financial representative how to handle a payment method associated with the deceased person. Do not improvise by replacing it with a family member's card before responsibilities and approvals are clear. This checklist organizes decisions; it does not determine who owes a particular bill.
5. Preserve the operating context
Have an authorized operator save the reports and invoices the business needs, together with a dated summary of campaign settings and recent changes. Explain what the campaigns were intended to achieve, which offers remain valid, and how success was measured. Open a sample of the saved files to confirm that the archive is readable and useful.
Map dependencies such as the website, domain, Google Analytics, Merchant Center, Tag Manager, and the system receiving enquiries. Record a responsible contact for each one. Treat this as an inventory for follow-up: a working Google Ads login is not a completed handover of those other services. Keep passwords, recovery codes, and customer lists out of the general coordination document.
6. Arrange a tested handover
Where an authorized administrator remains available, Google's ordinary transfer instructions use an invitation to the successor's own Google Account with Admin access. The recipient accepts before old access is removed. This is an account-management procedure, not proof of legal entitlement after a death. If nobody has suitable access, ask support about the account's circumstances instead of treating these steps as a recovery workaround.
Test the successor's login and the specific tasks needed for the role. Review agency relationships, linked managers, notification recipients, and billing contacts. Document who approves campaigns and who provides backup coverage. Review obsolete access once the replacement arrangement works, retaining a record of approved changes and unresolved issues.
7. Make closure a deliberate decision
If the business will stop advertising, preserve the required records and review Google's cancellation requirements. Google says ads stop within 24 hours of cancellation and accrued costs still require payment. Its guidance directs businesses whose administrator is no longer available to support, with the customer ID, login email, and billing information, when seeking cancellation.
Ask the representative to approve closure and name someone to monitor final billing and any applicable refund. Check the current cancellation page for account-specific conditions and effects on audience lists. Keep the confirmation and follow-up dates. Avoid treating an advertising account cancellation as an instruction to delete the deceased person's entire Google Account or shut down every connected service.
Your next step
Identify the coordinator, the person who can manage campaigns, and the next billing question today. Owners planning ahead can rehearse this checklist with a trusted colleague using separate logins and documented responsibilities. Add the account record to your family digital legacy checklist, then review it after changes to staff, agencies, payment arrangements, or the business itself.