Google Ads MCC Account: How to Share Remarketing Lists across Sub-Accounts

Today, remarketing is one of the most effective strategies to increase sales. The basic concept of remarketing is simple – you focus on building a relationship with people that have already engaged your business, as they are more receptive to brand messaging from brands they know. By targeting these leads, you can reduce your cost per acquisition, increase conversions, and earn a much higher return on advertising spend (ROAS).

When you have a Google Ads manager account, you can take advantage of remarketing on a large scale by sharing your remarketing lists across multiple sub-accounts. Google Ads makes this easy through a feature called continuous audience sharing, which you can find within your Google Ads manager account.

In this article, we’ll show you how this feature works, and how you can use it to do more with remarketing through your Google Ads manager account.

What is Continuous Audience Sharing?

Previously, there were several steps involved to share audience lists from a Google Ads manager account to sub-accounts. Now, it’s as simple as toggling an opt-in switch, which you’ll find in the settings panel.

All you need to do is log in to your Google Ads manager account, navigate to Setting > Manager account setting, then check & Sub-account settings, then check the box for Continuous audience sharing.

How does Continuous Audience Sharing Work?

Once you opt-in to continuous audience sharing, any remarketing lists that you create in your Google Ads manager account will automatically be shared with all existing and future sub-accounts.

Accounts can receive lists from multiple Google Ads manager accounts, and you can control which audience lists are active. As of March 2020, sub-accounts cannot share audience lists with manager accounts, but Google Ads may add this option in the future.

Why is Google Adding the Continuous Audience Sharing Feature?

Let’s say you have a Google Ads manager account for a real estate business. With this new feature, you can share audiences from your account to another client’s account in the same niche. You can do this by going to My Client Center (MCC), where new clients onboard.

Continuous audience sharing makes it easy to share audiences between the accounts in MCC, so you can quickly build a target audience for a new client, and reach a wider group of prospects with shorter lead time and less advertising spend.

What to Know Before Remarketing List Sharing

In a Google Ads manager account, you can share tags and remarketing lists with some, or all, of its Google Ads accounts or sub-manager accounts. Keep in mind that manager accounts will need permission from individual clients before they can share remarketing lists from a client’s account.

You’ll need administrative access and authority to use the Google Ads manager account, and then you can complete the entire process.

How to Share Audience Lists Using Your Google Ads Manager Account

If your remarketing lists already appear in MCC, you can skip this step and go directly to Step #2, below.

Within MCC, you can share remarketing lists to other sub-accounts in Google Ads in one of two ways – automatically or manually. By doing it automatically, all accounts receive the lists. On the other hand, manual sharing enables you to choose specific accounts.

How to Share Audience Lists From Specific Sub-accounts to MCC (Sending Lists Upwards)

Step 1: Enable lists to be shared in your Google Ads Manager Account

When you’re using a Google Ads manager account, and you want to access and share remarketing lists owned by client accounts, you need to enable list sharing in each client account.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Sign in to the client account.
2. In the upper-right corner of the client account, select the tools icon.
3. Navigate to Shared library > Audience manager.
4. From the page menu on the left-hand side, select Settings.

(Note that the Settings link will only be available if the sub-account is in the manager’s sharing pool. In the Google Ads manager account, you can opt-in for continuous sharing mode, which will pull all the sub-accounts into the sharing pool. Otherwise, you can set the Audience manager account so that specific sub-accounts can join the manager’s sharing pool).

5. Under Remarketing list access, switch on the toggle to share your remarketing lists. A blue toggle indicates that list sharing is active, while a grey toggle indicates that list sharing is inactive.

Step 2: Add lists to the Manager Account Sharing Pool

Follow the steps below to add remarketing lists to the sharing pool of a Google Ads manager account:

1. In the upper-right corner of the manager account, select the tools icon.
2. Navigate to Shared library > Audience manager.
3. Select the plus button, then select Add list from an account.
4. Next, navigate to Select an account, and choose the specific Ads account that contain the audience lists you require.
5. Select all current lists to add all of the remarketing lists from the selected accounts. To select only some lists, choose Select specific lists.
6. Click Save. All accounts with a Remarketing account set to the name of their actual Audience Manager will soon get access to these remarketing lists, typically within a few hours. After that, you can share audience lists with MCC.

How to Share Lists From MCC to All Other Sub-accounts (Sending Lists Downwards)

You have two options when sending lists down the chain of command – you can either share remarketing lists with all sub-accounts or just with specific sub-accounts.

Option A: Share lists with all sub-accounts (automatic)

1. Sign in to your Google Ads manager account.
2. From the page menu on the left-hand side, select Settings.
3. Check the box next to Add this manager as an audience manager for all sub-accounts to share lists from this manager account to all sub-accounts.

Option B: Share specific sub-accounts to receive lists (manually)

1. Log in to your MCC.
2. From the page menu on the left-hand side, navigate to Accounts > Management.
3. In the Audience Manager account column, change account manager to the name of the Google Ads manager account you wish to receive lists. Leave the other accounts that you don’t want to share marked as None.

7 Key Aspects of Sharing Re-marketing Lists Across Accounts

1. Can client account see the list?: Remarketing lists owned by a manager account, or shared with a manager account, will be shared and accessible for all client accounts that are set to “This manager” under the same “Remarketing account.”
2. Who can edit the list? Only the owner of a shared list can edit it.
3. How does changes in list impact? Any changes made to a shared list will be applied across accounts.
4. What about video remarketing list? The sharing of Video remarketing lists, DoubleClick (DFA) lists, or licensed lists is currently not supported.
5. What about Google Analytics list? To share Google Analytics lists, Google considers the Google Ads account to which the list was linked during setup. You can see the status of Google Analytics in the “Audience sources” tab of Audience Manager.
6. What about list sharing for dynamic remarketing? List sharing happens automatically for dynamic remarketing dynamic attributes (custom parameters).
7. How list owner can see? List owners can see which accounts have access to their lists by going to “Audiences” in “Shared library.”

Common Scenarios when Sharing Lists with a Google Ads Manager Account

There are a few things to be aware of when using a Google Ads manager account. Consider these common scenarios:

1. What access do client accounts have after sharing?

If a manager account shares tags and lists with a client account, that client account will have access to any lists created within the manager account — including future lists. Conversely, if a client account shares lists with a manager account, the manager account is free to share those lists with all of its other client accounts.

2. What happens when remarketing tags are incorrectly configured?

If a remarketing tag isn’t correctly implemented, the tag won’t add website visitors to remarketing lists. This problem can stop your ads from showing, which will impact traffic. Any client accounts using these lists would be affected.

3. What happens if a client disables list sharing in their account?

If a client account disables list sharing, any campaign or ad groups in the other client accounts that use these shared lists will stop running. Also, these accounts will no longer be visible in your Audience manager.

4. What happens if a remarketing account gets transferred to another manager?

If the Remarketing account within a client account gets transferred from one manager account to another manager account, the client account will no longer have access to the original manager account tag or any of its associated remarketing lists. Any ad groups or campaigns in these accounts that use these lists will stop running as described in the previous point.

5. What happens when you remove a client account from sharing?

If a manager removes a client account from list sharing, the client account will lose access to the manager account’s tag and lists. If the client account was sharing their own lists, this change would affect ad groups and campaigns in other accounts that target these lists.

Wrap Up

The idea of running a Google Ads manager account may seem like a challenge too far for many people, especially if you face the prospect of overseeing multiple large sub-accounts. However, once you get familiar with the setup, you can leverage list sharing to build audiences for your clients through smart remarketing campaigns quickly.

When you’re ready to take your remarketing to the next level, read our blog to Master the Art of Dynamic Remarketing in Google Ads.