How to Remove an Agency's Access to Your Ad Accounts

You have decided to move on from your agency. Good. Now comes the part almost nobody gets right: the actual handoff. Most guides on the internet tell you to open settings and hit "remove." That advice will cost some of you your ad account, your pixel history, or years of conversion data, and you will not find out until it is already gone.

Here is the thing that makes agency offboarding different from a normal password change. On every major ad platform there is a difference between an asset someone shares with you and an asset someone owns. If your agency merely shares access, removing them is a single click and you keep everything. But if the agency's business account owns your ad account, your pixel, or your Business Center, then cutting the partnership does not transfer that asset to you. It cuts you off from it. The history goes with them.

So the whole game is sequencing. Reclaim what they own while the relationship is still cooperative, then revoke access, then secure the accounts. This guide walks that order for the four platforms most small and mid-sized businesses run on: Meta Business Manager (Facebook and Instagram), Google Ads via a Manager Account, TikTok Business Center, and Shopify. It also covers the three things people forget on the way out: Google Analytics, Tag Manager, and your Google Business Profile.

The first time I removed an agency from an account, it was Google Ads, and it was simple. Account settings, managing accounts, remove access, done. That simplicity is a trap, because it teaches you that leaving an agency is always that easy, and on Meta it is not. The reason is ownership, and it is the one thing that can cost you years of data on your way out the door.

It is written for owners and in-house marketers, not developers. You will need admin or owner access to your accounts, which is the first thing we will check. Budget an afternoon, and do not rush the audit at the start.

The one rule that saves you: reclaim before you revoke

If you remember nothing else, remember this: an asset the agency owns does not become yours when you remove the agency. It disappears from your view entirely.

There are two ways an agency can hold your accounts, and they look almost identical from the dashboard.

Shared access (safe to revoke). You own the ad account, the pixel, the Business Center, the store. The agency's business was added as a partner or manager with permissions on your assets. Removing them is one click, and everything stays in your name with full history. This is how it should have been set up. It is the exact model we walk clients through in the connect-your-accounts guide, run in reverse here.

Agency-owned assets (do NOT revoke first). The agency created the ad account, pixel, or Business Center inside their business and shared it back to you, or ran your marketing entirely under their entity. This is common with smaller agencies because it is less setup for them. It is also the trap. Cut the partnership and you do not inherit the asset. You lose access to it, along with every conversion, every custom audience, and every dollar of learning the algorithm built up.

So the order is fixed, and it matters:

1. Audit first, change nothing. Inventory every asset and note who owns versus shares each one.
2. Reclaim ownership of anything the agency owns, by having them transfer it, while the relationship is still cooperative.
3. Secure your foothold. Confirm you hold Owner or Admin everywhere, and make sure an admin you control can approve changes so you cannot be locked out.
4. Change passwords and enable two-factor on the core accounts.
5. Revoke the partner and manager links (Meta, Google, TikTok, Business Profile).
6. Remove individual users at the account and property or container level.
7. Rotate tokens and codes, uninstall apps (Shopify code and apps, Google Ads API, OAuth grants).
8. Verify tracking still fires.

The audit is not optional busywork. It is the step that tells you which assets are safe to cut today and which ones you have to reclaim first. Skip it and you are guessing with your own history on the line.

Before you start: a 5-minute audit

You'll need: Login access to each platform  ·  Time: 5 to 10 minutes

Open a blank doc and make three columns: Asset, Who owns it, Who has access. Then walk each platform and fill it in. You are looking for one thing above all: any asset where the owner is the agency's business, not yours.

• Meta: Go to business.facebook.com/settings. Under Accounts → Ad accounts and Data sources → Datasets (pixels), click each asset and check the owner. If the owning business is the agency's portfolio, flag it. Also note whether your Facebook Page and Instagram account live in your portfolio or theirs.
• Google Ads: Sign in at ads.google.com. Note your 10-digit Customer ID (format 123-456-7890). Under Admin → Access and security, confirm you personally have Admin. Under the Managers sub-tab, note which manager accounts (MCCs) are linked. If your account was created by the agency, confirm it is not sitting inside their manager as the owner.
• TikTok: Open business.tiktok.com. Under Assets → Advertiser accounts, check whether each ad account lives in your Business Center or was shared in from the agency's.
• Shopify: In your admin, go to Settings → Users. Confirm the store owner email is yours, not the agency's. Note every collaborator and staff account, and check Settings → Apps and sales channels for apps the agency installed.
• Analytics and tags: In GA4, Admin → Access Management at both Account and Property level. In Tag Manager, Admin → User Management. In Google Business Profile, Settings → People and access, and note who holds Primary Owner.

Anything in the "owned by agency" pile is a reclaim job, not a revoke job. Handle those transfers first, while your agency still has a reason to be helpful. Once you have sent the revocation, cooperation tends to evaporate.

Meta Business Manager (Facebook & Instagram)

You'll need: Admin on your Meta business portfolio  ·  Time: 15 to 30 minutes

Meta is the platform where the ownership trap bites hardest, because a business portfolio (Meta's current name for what everyone still calls Business Manager) can own your ad account, your Page, and your pixel, then simply share them to you. Removing the partner cuts the sharing. It does not hand you the asset.

So confirm ownership before you remove anything. In Business settings → Accounts → Ad accounts, click your ad account and look at the owning business. Do the same for your Page and for each dataset under Data sources. If the owner is the agency's portfolio, do not remove them yet. Ask them to transfer ownership of that asset to your portfolio first. Only once your business is the listed owner is it safe to cut ties.

Step 1: Reclaim any agency-owned assets first

If the audit turned up an ad account, Page, or pixel owned by the agency's business, request the ownership transfer now, in writing, before you touch anything else. This is the single step that protects your history. Everything below assumes your business already owns its core assets.

Step 2: Remove the agency as a partner

In Business settings → Users → Partners (you will see it as "Partners you share assets with"), find the agency's business, click it, review the assets they can reach, and click Remove. This severs their partner access to everything you shared with them in one move.

Step 3: Remove the partner from your pixel or dataset specifically

Partner-level removal usually covers this, but verify it. Go to Events Manager, or Business settings → Data sources → Datasets, select your pixel, open Assigned partners (or assigned assets), and confirm the agency is gone. The pixel is the asset people most often leave a stray connection on, and it is the one carrying your conversion signal.

Step 4: Remove individual people

A partner can also have added individual staff to your assets directly. In Business settings → Users → People, review the list, click anyone from the agency, and click Remove. Do not assume removing the partner removed their people.

What to remove, and what to check:

Google Ads Manager Account (MCC)

You'll need: Admin on your Google Ads account  ·  Time: 15 minutes, plus a possible approval delay

Google Ads has two separate removals, and one 2025 to 2026 wrinkle that can strand you if the agency holds your only other admin seats. First the two removals: unlinking the agency's manager account (MCC) from your account, and removing any individual users they added by email.

Before either, confirm one thing from the audit: that you hold Admin, and that your account is not owned inside the agency's manager. If the agency created your Google Ads account under their MCC as the owning manager, unlinking can cut your access. In that case, have them make you the account owner or move the account to your ownership first. Google's client-account ownership docs cover this case.

Step 1: Know the Multi-Party Approval rules before you touch anything

Google has been rolling out Multi-Party Approval (MPA) across 2025 and 2026. On accounts with more than three admins, sensitive changes like removing a user need a second admin to approve them, and the request expires after about 20 days if no one acts. MPA does not apply to accounts with three or fewer admins, and it pauses entirely if an account drops to a single admin. Here is the trap when you leave an agency: if the agency's people hold the only other admin seats, they can sit on your removal request, and Google support cannot approve or override it for you. Before you start, make sure at least one admin you control (you, a business partner, or your new agency) is on the account so the approval can actually clear.

Step 2: Unlink the agency's manager account

Go to Admin → Access and security, open the Managers sub-tab, find the agency's manager account, and choose Actions → Remove access. Google shows you an impact review before you confirm. Read it, then confirm the Unlink. This detaches their MCC from your account.

Step 3: Remove individual users

Still under Admin → Access and security, on the Users sub-tab, find each person from the agency, and choose Actions → Remove access. This is where MPA may ask for the second admin's approval. Remove everyone tied to the agency, not just the main contact.

Step 4: Revoke API and OAuth access

Unlinking the manager does not necessarily stop a script or connected app the agency built. Check for any third-party or API connections tied to your account and revoke what you do not recognize. Rotating this off is what stops programmatic access after the people are gone.

What to remove, and what to check:

TikTok Business Center

You'll need: Admin on your TikTok Business Center  ·  Time: 10 to 15 minutes

TikTok's model mirrors the others: your Business Center can partner with the agency's, and assets are shared across that partnership. The same ownership question applies. If the agency's Business Center owns your advertiser account and merely shared it to you, deleting the partnership loses your access to an account you never technically owned. Confirm in the audit that your advertiser account lives in your Business Center. If it does not, have it transferred before you cut the partner.

Step 1: Confirm the advertiser account lives in your BC

Go to business.tiktok.com, then Assets → Advertiser accounts. If the account is one the agency shared in from their Business Center, that is a reclaim job first. Have them move it to your Business Center, or accept that removing the partnership ends your access to it.

Step 2: Remove the partner

In your Business Center, open Partners. Depending on the partnership type, either select the agency from your partner list, or click View details in the Action column for an agency-type Business Center. Choose Remove (shown as Delete on some partnership types), then confirm. This ends the partnership and the asset sharing that ran through it.

Step 3: Remove individual members

Open Users, find each member from the agency, and in the Actions column choose Remove, then Confirm. TikTok confirms member removals with a verification code sent to your email, so have your inbox open.

Step 4: Check ad accounts a partner shared in

Return to Assets → Advertiser accounts and confirm no agency-shared account is still attached. This is the tab that reveals a partner connection that survived the partner deletion.

What to remove, and what to check:

Shopify

You'll need: Store owner or staff with user-management access  ·  Time: 15 to 20 minutes

Shopify is where "I removed them" most often fails to mean "they're out," for three reasons: a collaborator is only one door, the collaborator request code is now a live security control, and installed apps keep their access even after the human is gone. Work all three.

First confirm from the audit that the store owner email is yours, not the agency's. If the agency is the store owner, that is a separate and heavier ownership-transfer process, and you should start it before anything else. Removing a collaborator does nothing about ownership.

Step 1: Remove the collaborator account

Go to Settings → Users (single stores still label this "Users and permissions"), open the collaborator. On a single store, click Remove collaborator account and confirm. On an organization-level store, use Actions → Remove. Either way it is permanent and cannot be undone. If you want them back later, they would have to send a fresh collaborator request.

Step 2: Rotate the collaborator request code

The collaborator request code is mandatory to initiate any request for store access, so rotate it, or the old agency can simply request back in. Go to Settings → Users, click Security, and in the Collaborators section click Generate new code. The old code becomes invalid immediately. Existing approved collaborators are unaffected, but nobody can request access with the old code again.

Step 3: Uninstall the agency's apps and rotate API tokens

This is the step almost everyone misses. Removing a collaborator does not revoke apps the agency installed or the API access those apps hold. Go to Settings → Apps and sales channels, review every installed app, and uninstall anything the agency added that you do not need. Custom or private apps carry API tokens that keep working until the app is removed. If you built anything custom together, rotate those tokens.

What to remove, and what to check:

Don't forget: Analytics, Tag Manager & Business Profile

You'll need: Admin or owner on each  ·  Time: 15 minutes

The ad platforms get the attention, but three quieter accounts hold data and access that matter just as much on the way out. Two of them have a lockout risk if you are not careful.

Google Analytics 4. Access is granted at both the Account level and the Property level, and removing one does not remove the other. Go to Admin → Access Management and check both. Remove the agency's users at each level. This is low-risk for your data, since access is not ownership, unless the GA4 property itself lives under the agency's Analytics account. If it does, treat it like any owned asset and get the property moved to your account first.

Google Tag Manager. Remove the agency at the account level, not just the container, or you can leave residual account access behind. Go to Admin, and in the Account column open User Management, select the user, Remove, and Save. Lockout risk: if the agency's Google account is the only account-level Admin, confirm you hold Admin before you remove them, or you will lock yourself out of your own container. Add yourself as Admin first if needed.

Google Business Profile. Go to your Business Profile settings and open People and access, select the agency user, and choose Remove person. The catch: only owners can remove owners or managers, and if the agency holds Primary Owner, you cannot remove them until primary ownership is transferred to you first. Request that transfer while they are still cooperative, then remove.

Verify everything is disconnected

You'll need: Your accounts and your live site open side by side  ·  Time: 20 minutes

Removal is not done when you click the last "remove." It is done when you have confirmed the doors are shut and the lights still work. Run this final pass.

• Meta: The agency no longer appears under Users → Partners or Users → People, and is gone from your pixel's Assigned partners. Your business is the listed owner of the ad account, Page, and pixel.
• Google Ads: The agency's manager account no longer shows under Admin → Access and security → Managers, and their people are gone from Users. Any pending MPA removals have actually cleared.
• TikTok: The partnership is gone from Partners, members are removed from Users, and no agency-shared account remains under Assets → Advertiser accounts.
• Shopify: The collaborator is removed, the request code has been regenerated, and the agency's apps are uninstalled with any custom tokens rotated.
• Analytics, Tag Manager, Business Profile: The agency is gone from GA4 at both levels, from Tag Manager at the account level, and from Business Profile, with you holding Owner or Admin on each.
• Passwords and 2FA: You have changed passwords and enabled two-factor on the core accounts, so a saved session or bookmark cannot be reused.
• Tracking still fires: This is the one people skip. Do one real test conversion and confirm your pixel and conversion tags still record it. Removing an agency's access should never break your tracking, but a tag they managed can go quiet if it was tied to their account. If you are unsure it survived, our guides on Google Ads conversion tracking and the Meta pixel and Conversions API walk the checks.

The 5 mistakes that cost people their data

Almost every offboarding that goes wrong fails in one of these five ways, and every one of them is avoidable with the audit-first order.

• Revoking before reclaiming. The big one. You remove the partner before confirming ownership, and an agency-owned ad account or pixel vanishes with all its history. Reclaim first, always.
• Leaving pixels, tags, and API tokens behind. You remove the people and think you are done, but an installed app or a stray pixel connection keeps the agency's programmatic access alive. Uninstall apps, rotate tokens, and check the pixel's assigned partners.
• Losing conversion and attribution history by starting fresh. Instead of transferring an owned asset, you let the agency keep it and stand up a brand-new pixel or account. You just threw away years of learning the algorithm cannot rebuild quickly. Transfer, don't restart.
• Missing the two-level access model. You remove container-level access in Tag Manager or property-level access in GA4 and miss the account level, so the agency still has a way in. Check every level.
• Not resolving primary ownership. The agency stays Primary Owner of your Google Business Profile or the owner of your Shopify store, and you find you cannot remove them at all. Sort ownership before you try to revoke.

The pattern underneath all five is the same. People treat leaving an agency like changing a password, when it is really an inventory-and-transfer problem first and a removal problem second. Get the order right and none of these can happen to you.

Switching to Pedal? How we take over cleanly

If your next move is bringing in a new agency, the offboarding above and their onboarding should be one coordinated handoff, not two disconnected scrambles. When that new agency is us, here is how we run it.

We start from the same principle this whole guide is built on: what's yours is yours. We take partner access to your existing assets, never your passwords and never ownership of your accounts. If a previous agency owned your ad account, pixel, or Business Center, the first thing we help you do is get ownership back into your name, before anything is cut, so your history survives the switch. You keep the keys the entire time.

We coordinate the handoff so there is no gap and no double-management. Read-only overlap for a transition window is fine and often smart. What we avoid is two agencies with full manage access fighting over the same campaign settings, which is how changes get overwritten and attribution splits. We time the revocations so your tracking never goes dark.

The commercial part is deliberately simple, because we have seen how hard some agencies make leaving, and we build against that. Pedal runs paid media from $2,500 per month, month to month, with no long lock-in. You own your ad accounts, your tags, and your data, and we build everything inside your accounts, not ours. If we ever part ways, everything walks with you. That is the whole point. If you are still weighing options, our reads on what a marketing agency costs and how to choose one are a fair place to start.

Frequently asked questions