How to Setup a Google Adwords MCC Account

You’d think setting up a MCC account would be Google simple right? An MCC account is technically a “My Client Center” account which Google provides to organizations that manage multiple Google Adwords accounts – and it is not simple to register one of these accounts for some reason.

I just spent over an hour attempting it – and I’m what most would consider a super geek. If you’re like me you already have a Google account and possibly multiple Google accounts. Google is so integrated into my online and mobile life and that I forget it’s there most of the time. However, in this case, Google tagging along is what gets in the way of setting up a Google MCC account.

What they don’t tell you is they don’t want you to sign up with a preexisting Google account and they don’t want you to sign up with an email that is already associated with a Google account (i.e. a company domain pop or imap account that you check through gmail). Why this is the case, I don’t know and I’ll leave to the geniuses at Google to explain should they ever care to do so.

So, even with this complication it’s fairly easy to generate a new email address. In my case, I setup a specific mcc@mydomainthatIwontlisthereforfearofcrazyspam.com. I thought that would do the trick since it is a new email address not associated with anything, much less Google, gmail or Adwords. This is likely the best bet for you as well – BUT, it’s only the next step in solving the Google MCC riddle not the final solution.

The final solution (in addition to using a completely new email address) is to either hit http://www.google.com/adwords/myclientcenter/ with a browser you don’t usually use or clear all your cookies and cache before going there. Even if you are completely logged out of all your Google accounts, that page will detect your Google cookies and give you a “[your gmail address or associated email here] is already associated with a Google account” error. Quite frustrating when you entered a completely different email address than what is displayed in that error, which not associated with Google at all.

I hope my wasted hour and the time it took me to tap out this blog post helps you avoid wasting hours and unnecessary adrenal gland exertion on this crazy process.