Remove User Access
Use this process to offboard users from Display & Video 360 (DV360). Properly removing access protects your partner account from unauthorized activity, maintains compliance, and ensures business continuity.
Removing a user is permanent and cannot be undone. Always transfer asset ownership before removal.
When to Remove Users
Remove DV360 access when:
- Employee leaves the organization
- Agency contract ends or agency no longer manages specific advertisers
- User changes roles and no longer requires DV360 access
- Security or compliance teams request removal due to policy violation or audit
- Temporary contractor's project concludes (seasonal campaign, product launch, etc.)
- User has been inactive for 90+ days per access policy
- Finance or legal requests removal for billing or compliance reasons
- Consolidating access to different partner account or role change
- User needs downgrade to read-only rather than full removal
Deactivation Triggers
Common triggers for immediate removal:
- Employee termination: Revoke access same day as termination date
- Agency contract termination: Remove within 24 hours of contract end
- Role change: If transitioning to non-advertising role, assess removal vs. read-only
- Security incident: Immediately remove if credentials compromised or policy violated
- Quarterly access review: Remove users inactive for 90+ days per governance policy
- Policy violations: Remove per security team or compliance request
- Duplicate accounts: Remove redundant user accounts or old email addresses
Pre-Removal Assessment
Before removing a user, complete the following assessment:
Identify access level
Determine if user has:
- Partner-level access: Removal clears access to all advertisers under partner
- Advertiser-level access: Must remove from each advertiser individually
- Billing visibility: Removal affects who can see invoices and payment details
- API credentials: Removal may break automated integrations
- Floodlight ownership: Removal transfers or orphans conversion tags
Identify owned assets
Campaign assets:
- Insertion orders they created or manage
- Line items and campaigns
- Creative assets they uploaded
- Saved audience lists
- Custom bidding strategies
Configuration assets:
- Floodlight activities and tags they configured
- Audience segments they created
- Inventory sources they set up
- Data transfer configurations
API and integration assets:
- API keys or service accounts
- SDF (Structured Data Files) upload credentials
- Automated reporting scripts
- Third-party integrations
Transfer ownership
For each asset identified:
- Identify new owner (must be another Administrator)
- Transfer Floodlight activity ownership in Floodlight configuration
- Document transfer in handoff notes
- Notify new owner of transferred responsibilities
- Verify new owner can access and manage assets
Critical: Floodlight activities and audience lists require explicit ownership transfer. If user is only Administrator with Floodlight ownership, transfer before removal.
Confirm approval
Obtain written approval from:
- User's manager or partner account owner
- Finance or HR if due to termination
- Security or compliance if part of audit or incident response
- Legal if contractual or vendor-related removal
Save approval in ticketing system or access log for audit trail.
Removal Steps
Step 1: Access user management
- Sign in to Display & Video 360
- Navigate to the correct Partner from the partner selector
- Go to Settings (gear icon) → User Management
- Verify you have Administrator access before proceeding
Step 2: Review current access
- Locate user in the active users list
- Review their:
- Current role (Administrator, Standard, Read-only, Billing, Finance)
- Access level (Partner-wide or specific advertisers)
- Advertiser assignments (if advertiser-level)
- Billing visibility status
- Screenshot user details for compliance and audit record
- Document in access log or ticket
Step 3: Transfer Floodlight ownership (if applicable)
If user is Administrator with Floodlight activities:
- Navigate to Advertiser → Floodlight → Configuration
- Identify Floodlight activities owned by the user
- Change owner to another active Administrator
- Verify transfer successful
- Document ownership change
Step 4: Revoke API credentials (if applicable)
If user has API keys or service account access:
- Navigate to Settings → API Access or Service Accounts
- Identify credentials tied to the user
- Deactivate or delete API keys
- Transfer service account ownership to another Administrator
- Notify teams using those credentials that rotation is needed
Step 5: Remove user
For partner-level access:
- Find user in User Management
- Click Remove or Delete
- Confirm removal when prompted
- User immediately loses access to all advertisers
For advertiser-level access:
- Option A: Click Remove to delete user completely
- Option B: Click Edit and deselect specific advertisers to reduce access without full removal
- Confirm changes
- Verify advertiser list updated
For reducing role instead of full removal:
- Click Edit for the user
- Change role to Read-only if they need reporting access only
- Adjust advertiser scope if needed
- Save changes
Step 6: Verify removal
- Refresh User Management page
- Confirm user no longer appears in active users list (or has updated role/advertisers)
- Screenshot updated list for audit trail
- Check both partner-level and advertiser-level user lists to confirm removal
- Verify billing access removed if applicable
Post-Removal Tasks
Update documentation
Update the following:
- Access log or ticketing system:
- User email and name
- Date removed
- Reason for removal (e.g., "Employee termination," "Contract ended," "Quarterly review")
- Approver name and approval date
- Access level removed (Partner or Advertiser, specific advertisers)
- Role removed (Administrator, Standard, Read-only, etc.)
- Assets transferred and new owners
- Screenshots attached
- SSO/IAM directory: Remove user from DV360 access groups
- Internal roster: Update team roster, org charts, or RACI matrices
- Floodlight documentation: Update ownership records
- API documentation: Update credentials and service account ownership
Notify stakeholders
- Inform user of removal if appropriate (non-termination scenarios)
- Alert team members who collaborated with removed user on campaigns
- Notify new asset owners of their new responsibilities
- Update documentation or runbooks referencing the removed user
- Inform finance team if user had billing access
Audit remaining users
Post-removal audit checklist:
- Verify user fully removed from both partner and advertiser levels
- Check for duplicate accounts or old email addresses for same user
- Review other users' access for similar cleanup needs
- Flag Administrators who no longer need that role for downgrade
- Identify inactive users for next review cycle
- Verify Floodlight ownership distributed among multiple Administrators
Rotate credentials
If removed user had sensitive access:
- Rotate API keys and service account credentials
- Update SDF upload credentials if user had access
- Change shared passwords if any were in use (not recommended practice)
- Review audit logs for user activity before removal
- Notify security team if removal was due to incident
Schedule next review
- Add removal to quarterly access review log
- Set reminder to review all users in 90 days
- Document any access patterns to improve future onboarding/offboarding
Troubleshooting
Cannot remove user because they own Floodlight activities:
- Transfer Floodlight activity ownership first in Floodlight configuration
- If blocked, contact Google DV360 support
- Ensure new owner is an Administrator
User removed but can still access:
- Verify removed from correct partner account
- Check if user has access through different partner or advertiser
- User may be cached - have them log out and clear browser cache
- Contact Google support if access persists after 24 hours
Need to restore removed user:
- Removal is permanent; cannot restore or undo
- Re-invite user through Add User workflow if needed
- User will receive new invitation and must re-accept
- Rebuild advertiser assignments and role
User had billing access and invoices no longer accessible:
- Ensure another Administrator or Billing user has billing visibility enabled
- Verify billing toggle enabled for remaining users
- Add new billing user if needed
- Contact Google support if invoices inaccessible
User had API credentials and integrations broke:
- Integrations using user's API keys will fail after removal
- Rotate API credentials to new user before removal to prevent downtime
- Update scripts, ETL jobs, and reporting tools with new credentials
- Test integrations after credential rotation
User was only Administrator with Floodlight ownership:
- Must transfer ownership before removal or Floodlight configs may become inaccessible
- Promote another user to Administrator first if needed
- Transfer ownership, then proceed with removal
- Keep at least 2 Administrators to prevent lockouts
Removing advertiser-level access but user still appears:
- If user has partner-level access, they retain access to all advertisers
- Must remove at partner level to fully revoke
- Advertiser-level edits only work for advertiser-scoped users
Best Practices
- Remove access same day as termination or contract end date
- Always transfer ownership of Floodlight activities and audiences before removing
- Screenshot before and after removal for compliance and audit trails
- Run quarterly access reviews to identify and remove inactive users
- Document every removal with date, reason, approver, and transferred assets
- Verify removal at both partner and advertiser levels to ensure full removal
- Rotate API keys and service accounts when removing Administrators
- Keep at least 2 Administrators to prevent partner lockout scenarios
- Use read-only role instead of removal if user needs reporting access
- Maintain access matrix showing all current users, roles, and advertisers
- Save approval documentation for compliance and audit purposes
- Notify affected teams when removing users with shared responsibilities
- Test Floodlight tags after ownership transfer to ensure continuity
- Review billing access to ensure invoices remain accessible after removal
Common Use Cases
Employee termination:
- Receive termination notice from HR
- Transfer Floodlight activities and campaigns to manager
- Rotate API credentials if user was Administrator
- Remove user same day as termination
- Screenshot and document removal
- Update internal rosters and access logs
Agency contract ends:
- Confirm contract end date with procurement or legal
- Transfer campaigns back to internal team or new agency
- Transfer Floodlight ownership if agency managed conversion tracking
- Remove agency users within 24 hours of contract end
- Update vendor contact list and access documentation
Role change to non-digital:
- Confirm role change with manager
- Assess if Read-only access needed for reporting or oversight
- If no access needed, transfer assets and remove completely
- If read-only needed, edit user to downgrade to Read-only role
- Document change and reason
Quarterly access review cleanup:
- Export user list from User Management
- Cross-reference against HR roster and project assignments
- Identify users who left organization or haven't logged in for 90+ days
- Transfer assets and remove inactive users
- Document batch cleanup in access log
Security incident or policy violation:
- Receive removal request from security or compliance team
- Immediately remove user to prevent further access
- Document incident and removal
- Transfer ownership after removal (unless security team advises otherwise)
- Rotate API keys and credentials
- Report completion to security team
Contractor project completion:
- Confirm project completion date with project manager
- Transfer deliverables and campaign ownership to internal team
- Remove contractor access within 48 hours of project end
- Document removal and project completion
- Archive contractor documentation