If you’ve found yourself here in a panic after deleting your google analytics account, you’ve come to the right place. I’m sure you’re probably anxious to find out what steps need to be taken to restore your account, and we’ll get to that shortly. But first, I’d like to share my own experience and how I came about this information.

About a week ago I decided to sign in to my analytics account and noticed that one of my client’s accounts had been assigned to my list of personal accounts. This was a first for me because up to this point the only analytics accounts I have ever been in charge of have been my own. I tried to think as to how this account found its way into my list of accounts and remembered that a few weeks earlier I had installed a google analytics plugin on my client’s wordpress site. The client had assigned my name to their account and had given me admin privileges in order to authenticate their account through the plugin.

Fair enough. But being the OCD wonder that I am and also assuming that my client would probably not want me having access to their sensitive analytics data, I decided to remove the account from my list. All I’d have to do is delete it from my account and since they are the owner’s of the account, they would be free to manage their account as they see fit. It only makes sense right? WRONG.

Well, yes and no. Ethically speaking, yes. But deleting a client’s account from your list of personal accounts is not the proper way of removing the account from the list. So how is it done? In order to have that account removed from the list, YOU MUST CONTACT THE CLIENT AND REQUEST THAT THEY REMOVE YOUR ADMIN PRIVILEGES FROM THAT ACCOUNT.

Unfortunately for me, this was something I had to learn the hard way. Because I chose to delete the account, which in turn not only deleted the account from my list, but also deleted the account from my client’s analytics profile as well. And as you’ve probably guessed, once the account is deleted, it’s gone. Forever. Or is it?

Well, if you did your panic stricken run through the google analytics forum and read helplessly through the sea of deleted analytics account threads as I did, you probably already know that there is absolutely NOTHING reassuring about deleting an analytics account. And sorry to break your heart, but writing to Analyticspro.Anna on that support forum isn’t going to help you one bit. So what’s the solution?

It’s very simple really. Call Google support. Their number is (866) 246-6453 and their office hours are 9am to 8pm EST. You’ll want to have a few things on hand including your analytics tracking code (UA-XXXXXXXX), the name of the web site your tracking code was assigned to, as well as your Ad Words Customer ID. If you did not have an Ad Words account at the time your analytics account was deleted, don’t worry. Just sign up for one as this will be the first piece of information the Google support rep will ask for and is essential in retrieving your deleted account.

The Google rep will probably tell you something along the lines of “There is no guarantee that we can restore your deleted account, but we will be in touch with you shortly”. Again, don’t worry. You’ll receive an email soon after that looks something like this:

Hello Joel,

Thank you for calling Google.

I spoke with some Analytics specialists who explained we can recover accounts which have been deleted up until 14 days have passed. That being said, we should be able to recover this for you.

I’m happy to assist you with recovering the Analytics from your Client’s Google account. Since you are currently an admin for him, I will need you to authorize me to make changes to your account. We require a letter of authorization in a specific format. I’ve given you a sample email message below. Please reply to this email in the format of the example.

————————————
I authorize Google to modify my Google Analytics in the following way(s):

To which you should reply:

I authorize Google to modify my Google AdWords account in the following way(s):

Please take any necessary measures to restore my client’s analytics account for www.yourwebsite.com UA-XXXXXX.

And that’s it. It took roughly 24 hours to restore the account but at the end of the day, my client’s account was restored and I only suffered a mild cardiac episode which is a fair trade if you ask me.