Google will permanently delete canceled Google Ads accounts six months after cancellation, sending a 30‑day warning email beforehand. This change threatens the loss of valuable historical data, conversion setups, and refined campaign structures—especially harmful for home services contractors who rely on seasonal trends and call-driven metrics. Contractors should quickly audit canceled accounts, decide whether to reactivate or export, back up structures via Google Ads Editor, document conversion tracking, and ensure deletion alerts reach the right admins. For seasonal pauses, they should pause campaigns rather than cancel accounts to avoid triggering the deletion timeline.

Google Will Nuke Canceled Ads Accounts After 6 Months — Here’s What Contractors Must Do Now

TL;DR Google will permanently delete canceled Google Ads accounts six months after cancellation, with a 30-day warning email. If you rely on historical data for seasonality or have old agency accounts floating around, export what matters now or reactivate before you lose it for good.

What Changed (and Why You Should Care)

Google is moving to permanently delete canceled Google Ads accounts after six months. You’ll get a 30-day warning email before the axe drops. Previously, you could cancel, leave the account dormant for years, and still reopen it with all the history intact. That safety net is gone.

Google says it’s about streamlining systems and clearing unused data. Fine. But for contractors, the practical impact is simple: if you’ve got a canceled account with gold in it—years of seasonality, search terms, conversion insights, and proven campaigns—assume it’s going away unless you act.

Why This Hits Home Services Hard

HVAC, plumbing, and electrical live on seasonality and phones ringing. Year-over-year performance tells you when to lean into AC tune-ups, when to push IAQ, and how to budget for frozen pipe emergencies. Lose that history and you’re flying blind into peak seasons. And if you (or a past agency) built strong campaigns in a legacy account, allowing that account to be deleted means:

• Loss of historical performance data you use for planning and forecasting.
• Loss of conversion tracking setups and naming conventions you rely on for “calls not clicks.”
• Loss of campaign structures, negatives, audiences, and assets that took years to refine.

If you’ve ever switched agencies and they spun up a new account, you might have multiple canceled accounts in your manager (MCC) with valuable history. Those are now on a countdown clock.

Action Plan: Keep What Makes the Phone Ring

Do these steps this week. Not later.

1. Inventory canceled accounts. In your manager account, filter for canceled accounts. Make a list with account name, customer ID, cancel date, owner, and whether it contains valuable history.
2. Decide: Reactivate or Archive. If you’ll ever need the account—reactivate it. Otherwise, archive by exporting everything you’ll want later.
3. Export the essentials. At minimum:
   • Performance reports (by day, device, network) for last 3–5 years.
   • Search terms, keyword, and negative keyword reports.
   • Campaign/ad group/ad/asset (extensions) settings and performance.
   • Conversions list (names, definitions, attribution model, count settings).
   • Change history exports around major performance swings.
   • Audience lists and how they were applied (if applicable).
4. Use Google Ads Editor for structure backups. Download the account and keep a full export so you can restore structures into a new account later.
5. Document your tracking. Record which numbers, forms, and events were counted as conversions, and where the tags live (hard-coded vs. Tag Manager). Take screenshots of conversion settings.
6. Protect your alerts. That 30-day deletion email goes to account admins. Verify who’s on the notifications, set inbox rules so it doesn’t get buried, and add a calendar reminder at 5 months post-cancel.
7. Pause, don’t cancel, for seasonal shutdowns. If you routinely stop spend in off-season, just pause campaigns. Don’t cancel the account.

Common Scenarios I’m Seeing

• Old agency accounts with priceless history. You moved on, they canceled it, and now it’s on the chopping block. Grab the data while you still can.
• Duplicate accounts created during a rebuild. Someone spun up a fresh account “for a clean slate.” The old one has

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