This may cause eyebrows to furrow, but here is something every client should think about before setting up Google Accounts in general, but Adwords in particular.
Who Owns the Account?
(or…Would you let your CPA setup your bank accounts in THEIR name?)
Google wants agencies to sell their biggest money-making product Adwords. So Google is not going to tell you about the conflict of interest embedded into most client-agency relationships. That conflict of interest is who owns the Account?
The agency is not going to tell you that they own your account. When you stop paying the agency, everything is gone. Would you let your CPA setup your bank accounts in their name, then when you switch CPAs, all your money is gone?
This is not a superficial problem that goes away when the agency relationship is over. The code that has been embedded in your website still calls Google every time a page is loaded. (and your next agency may not remove the old code!) And chances are the agency CLAIMED your business in Google Webmaster Tools (as the owner of your business). And when you or another agency try to setup a new Google Account, Google has a duplicate in their system that causes other problems (beyond the scope of this post). Also consider, the agency relationship usually grows to include other services, that have accounts with passwords. Who has those passwords?
If you need a reality check, just look at one example in the Google Forums: My Google Analytics Account was deleted. Note the lack of responses; because there is no recourse.
The Right Way
Day 1, Job 1, setup the accounts in the name of the owner. Google is silent on the issue because there are more incentives in doing it the wrong way, there are simply more dollars passing though agencies into Google than there are small firms and individuals doing it the right way.
Once in their program, an agency has every reason to build a wall at your exit. But is that really how you build trust in a very trust-based business?