Agency Account -- Definitely Use? And Best Practices

[RMortis]

Hi Everyone:

I wanted to post this last week, and decided to today with the other post that is going on regarding Agency Accounts.

At the last webinar (which was awesome by the way ... if you haven't seen it, I would check it out Watch: Should You Really Follow Google's Guidelines? - A Free LocalU Webinar) I was left with some questions on agency accounts.

I kind of felt that the feelings were:

a) They are great and safe and everyone should be using them
b) They are OK and come with risk.
c) Use at your own peril. (With comments such as "i wouldnt set up an agency account unless you enjoy suspensions"

I'd like to get everyone's take on whether an agency account should be used, and if so, what are the best practices in doing so?

For an example, let's say I manage 10 clients, each of which has 5 locations and a GBP for each location.

Thanks ... hopefully this will be helpful to a lot of people!


Full disclosure I use an agency account to manage hundreds of client GBPs, but a co-worker was recently "suspended" for some reason, and with some of the comments and threads, I am starting to get a little spooked!

 

[ElizabethRule]

I think an agency account is a great thing to set up for any agency. I do not think it inherently leads to more suspensions, if anything I would think the opposite as Google is more likely to "trust" the account.

You should set up an agency account and then set up business groups within that for each of your clients.

 

[RMortis]

Is it OK to set up a new e-mail address for the agency account and use that?

Should it be the same domain as your company? (Even though this is not for a business profile.)

 

[ElizabethRule]

Yes, you can set up a new email and that is actually a good idea since that email cannot be currently managing any GBPs. You should 100% use a domain level email - one associated with your agency brand website.