Switching to an AdWords MCC account: benefits and concerns

Are you considering switching from a regular standalone AdWords account to an MCC account? Under certain circumstances, it may be a very wise choice. Here are some common scenarios when an MCC is a great way to go (what is an MCC?):

1. You are an AdWords manager with multiple clients.
2. You are a (search) marketing agency.
3. You have a client who has multiple locations.
4. You have a client who has a need for separate invoicing for each of the campaigns within the account.
5. You have a client who has multiple accounts – in this case, you’d be getting an MCC within an MCC.

Of course, there are many other scenarios when it is appropriate to consider switching to an MCC account - as simple as having an account that seems to have outgrown it’s current setup.

But whatever your reasoning behind a move to an MCC is, consider all the pros and cons involved in the switch and make sure that it is worth the hassle.

Here are the most common benefits and concerns when switching to an MCC account:

Let’s look at the benefits first:

1) Separate billing for each client.

This is a very desirable feature that most advertisers will benefit from – it allows you to slice and dice your media budgets and provides excellent invoicing – broken out by each account.

2) Separate access for each account.

This is a good benefit if you are managing a business with multiple locations (i.e. franchises). While you get the master view of all the accounts for the business, they can share individual access if necessary. This way, they can see individual branches without seeing all the data.

3) Clean master dashboard.

This is cool because you can manage all your accounts in one view. Need to check which keywords across all of your accounts have gone under the minimum bid? You can!

4) Clean account structure.

This is nice because you can separate things out as you desire. Have a separate media budget for your content network campaigns? Get separate accounts for search and content!

5) Individual and summary AdWords reporting.

From wanting to know how much media you managed over a period of time and to getting the usual AdWords reports, this is a nice-to-have feature.

6) An MCC can be used as part of another MCC.

This is great if you have accounts that need to have multiple accounts within. Works very well for large accounts targeting multiple locations – you still get the master view if you want it, but slicing and dicing is not nearly as painful as it would be with a regular account.

Now, what about the concerns that come with switching to an MCC?

1) Time and pain.

It can be extremely time consuming and painful to make the switch. Not only will you need to create a number of new accounts, but also you’ll need to connect existing account to an MCC. And don’t forget that you will need to re-do conversion tracking!

2) Historical performance gets lost.

While Google assures us that historical data is based on the URL and gets carried over, every time we switch to an MCC, we see drops in quality scores and higher CPCs.

3) You need to rebuild good quality scores.

Yes, you do. Just know this and be prepared.

4) Expect higher CPCs the first couple of weeks.

Every time I did a conversion from regular to an MCC, this has been the case. It does even out over time, but if you are on a tight budget, plan accordingly.

5) Be ready to lose historical benchmarking.

Especially true if you are breaking one account into multiple accounts – by geo, for example. You will either have to benchmark manually, or would need to wait for new data to build up. There are some workarounds for this, but they are clumsy and still don’t get you where you want to be.

And last but not least, if you are using any reporting tools (i.e. Acquisio), be prepared to redo all of your reporting – from setup to organization and data import.

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