MCC Account in Bing ads

*** UPDATED: October 5, 2023 ***

Hi Arun,

Thank you again for using our Microsoft Advertising Community Forum! We are updating the information on this post so that the latest updates could be available to you and the whole community on our forum.

You can determine certain hierarchies on Microsoft Advertising. With hierarchies, you can scale Microsoft Advertising to meet the demands of your business, no matter its size. This feature allows you to create and arrange your Microsoft Advertising accounts so that they match the structure of your company, just like an org chart. Start with just one account and build up from there into a hierarchy of parent and subsidiary accounts. This feature is geared towards agencies and large businesses to allow for easier and more centralized management of campaigns, users, access, and billing.

How it works: A manager account vs. an account

When you sign up for a Microsoft Advertising account for the first time, you're technically getting two accounts in one:

• A manager account, which is a container for one account or for multiple accounts in a hierarchy. Additionally, a manager account can link to other manager accounts. Visually, think of a manager account as a file folder. A manager account, also known as an MCC, is the parent account that allows you to share important items across several child accounts. Items that can be shared include:

  • Users and user roles

  • Payment methods

  • Universal Event Tracking (UET) tags

  • Remarketing lists

• An account, which is the account that directly serves ads. Continuing with the folder analogy with the manager account, think of an account as a file within the folder. An account contains:

  • Campaigns

  • Ad groups

  • Keywords

  • Budgets

  • Account settings, which can specify such things as currency and time zone.

These two account types are complementary, meaning that you can't have a manager account without at least one account, and you can't have an account without a manager account. Both work in harmony to provide the flexibility you need to build a hierarchy, from the simple to the complex. So, whether you're a mom-and-pop shop or a global ad agency, we've got you covered.

A standard manager account can have up to six accounts (though advertisers who meet certain criteria and spend minimums are entitled to more accounts). Most small businesses have and need only one account. Why do you need both a manager account and an account? In a word: scale.

For example, imagine that you manage advertising for a large conglomerate. You want to create a nested account structure using manager accounts that reflect how your company is organized, with each layer nested under one another from top to bottom. Here's how you could order your setup:

• Parent company

• Geographic continent

• Market

• Brand name

• Product line

Each of those manager accounts has control over those below it. Each manager account can also have up to six accounts under it.

As a central folder, a manager account allows you to share important items—such as users, user roles, payment methods, and campaign resources like Universal Event Tracking (UET) tags and remarketing lists—across multiple accounts. And as you add accounts, you're able to leverage the manager account's central folder, thereby saving you time and effort by eliminating duplicate data entry.

When you go to the account level, you're freed to focus on campaign management within that space. Accounts are home to campaigns, ad groups, keywords, and budgets. The settings for accounts can also be customized to the needs of a marketplace. You can specify things such as an account's currency, time zone, and payment setting, which could all be different from account to account. You'll find this flexibility useful if, for example, your business targets customers in Canada, Mexico, and the United States, and you must track campaign performance by country and pay for advertising in different currencies.

Day to day, you'll work mostly within an account as you monitor and refine your campaigns. Occasionally, you may need to update a payment method or to add a user, both of which are managed in the overall manager account. Once you sign in to Microsoft Advertising, you'll be able to access both your manager account and your account. You won't need to sign in and out to go from one to the other.

Although you'll have a unique number for both a manager account and an account, you won't need to memorize either number, because they're listed in Microsoft Advertising in both the Accounts dashboard page and the account selector at the top of each page. Both types of numbers serve a specific purpose.

Use a manager account number to:

• Verify your manager account when you call in for support.

• Choose which account to sign in to through multi-user access, if you have access to more than one manager account (which is common for ad agencies or if you work with an ad agency to manage your Microsoft Advertising account).

• Send a linking request for access to another manager account.

Use an account number to:

• Review and compare performance data across accounts.

• Drill down into specific accounts.

• See spend by accounts on a billing document.

• Send a linking request to access another account.

For further details and steps, I highly recommend going through the below resources:

Hierarchies in Microsoft Advertising

Choosing between a hierarchy or multi-user access

Linking to an existing account

How do I give someone access to my Microsoft Advertising account?

Our support teams are happy to discuss your account in more detail via phone, chat or email to provide review assistance, please see our support page to reach out! 

I hope the information provided here was of some use to you in answering your query. If you have any additional questions please do not hesitate to reach out to our support. You are also welcome to contact us via a private message in case you need to discuss your query further. We will be more than happy to provide you with our continued assistance.

Kind regards, 

Vahid | Microsoft Advertising Support Specialist | 800-518-5689