Re: AdWords API Linking Existing Accounts

[Patrick Chanezon]

Thanks for the detailed use case Dmitry. Good idea to extend the discussion.
I CC the Forum because I'd like to get other developer's feedback about this requirement, to determine wether they would find such a feature useful.

P@

On 12/28/05, Dmitry Dimov <dmi...@swivel.com> wrote:

Patrick,

 

Thanks for your response. Let me be more specific. I'm not looking for a completely automatic link creation--that would indeed cause the problems you mention. All I'm looking for is the ability to automatically trigger the invite message, after the user supplies the account number. As is the case now, the user would still need to approve the link from within the AdWords account. The process is still manual from the user's perspective: it would still work only and only if they supply their account number to begin with, and then approve the link. I do not believe this would lead to link creation spam. The business use case for this is as follows: our perspective users would choose to let us manage their existing AdWords account via the MMC. They would still need see the Google invite message with all the caveats and risks of letting another party manage their account. A simple API that would be the equivalent of initiating the linking from within MMC would be sufficient. Any chance something like this could be added?

 

Also, would you mind if this thread was posted on the Google Group, so that others can chime in on the need for this API?

 

Thanks,

Dmitry

---

From: Patrick Chanezon [mailto:chan...@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 5:59 PM
To: Dmitry
Subject: Re: AdWords API Linking Existing Accounts

No sorry there is no plan to expose that functionality.
Creating a MCC relation involves starting a commercial relationship, where the linked account must agree for the link to be created, so automating link creation does not seem to be a priority item, and even may be a bad idea altogether (we'd have to manage link creation spam, and it may incommodate adwords users).

P@

On 12/7/05, Dmitry <dmi...@swivel.com> wrote:

Patrick,

Do you plan to implement this action in the API? Given the latest
addition to the MMC where clients can be added with API-only access,
this feature would make much sense.

Thank you,
Dmitry

Patrick Chanezon wrote:
> No, sorry, this action is not exposed in the Adwords API.
>
> P@
>
> On 7/27/05, mouieman <moui...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > There are several existing accounts that we need to add to our Adwords
> > account so that they can be managed by us. When we login to our
> > Adwords account on Google, under the My Client Center tab it has a link
> > named "Link existing account" that allows us to manage existing
> > accounts. We need to do this every day to capture new accounts. Is
> > there a way to perform this action using the XML api?
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> -- Patrick Chanezon, AdWords API evangelist

--
Patrick Chanezon, AdWords API evangelist
http://blog.chanezon.com/
http://www.google.com/apis/adwords/

--
Patrick Chanezon, AdWords API evangelist
http://blog.chanezon.com/
http://www.google.com/apis/adwords/

[Dmitry Trunikov]

Hi ALL!
This is great and very useful feature.
But I think that just invite message triggering is not sufficient. Why
we can't automatically link user's account if we supply in call
parameters user's private credentials such as password? If user gave me
his password this act can be considered as "Creating a MCC relation
involves starting a commercial relationship". Am I right?

Thanks,
Dmitry Trunikov

Patrick Chanezon wrote:

> Thanks for the detailed use case Dmitry. Good idea to extend the
> discussion.
> I CC the Forum because I'd like to get other developer's feedback
> about this requirement, to determine wether they would find such a
> feature useful.
>
> P@
>

> On 12/28/05, *Dmitry Dimov* <dmi...@swivel.com

> <mailto:dmi...@swivel.com>> wrote:
>
> Patrick,
>
> Thanks for your response. Let me be more specific. I'm not looking
> for a completely automatic link creation--that would indeed cause
> the problems you mention. All I'm looking for is the ability to
> automatically trigger the invite message, after the user supplies
> the account number. As is the case now, the user would still need
> to approve the link from within the AdWords account. The process
> is still manual from the user's perspective: it would still work
> only and only if they supply their account number to begin with,
> and then approve the link. I do not believe this would lead to
> link creation spam. The business use case for this is as follows:
> our perspective users would choose to let us manage their existing
> AdWords account via the MMC. They would still need see the Google
> invite message with all the caveats and risks of letting another
> party manage their account. A simple API that would be the
> equivalent of initiating the linking from within MMC would be
> sufficient. Any chance something like this could be added?
>
> Also, would you mind if this thread was posted on the Google
> Group, so that others can chime in on the need for this API?
>
> Thanks,
> Dmitry
>

> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Patrick Chanezon [mailto:chan...@gmail.com
> <mailto:chan...@gmail.com>]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, December 07, 2005 5:59 PM
> *To:* Dmitry
> *Subject:* Re: AdWords API Linking Existing Accounts

>
> No sorry there is no plan to expose that functionality.
> Creating a MCC relation involves starting a commercial
> relationship, where the linked account must agree for the link to
> be created, so automating link creation does not seem to be a
> priority item, and even may be a bad idea altogether (we'd have to
> manage link creation spam, and it may incommodate adwords users).
>
> P@
>

> On 12/7/05, *Dmitry* <dmi...@swivel.com

> <mailto:dmi...@swivel.com>> wrote:
>
> Patrick,
>
> Do you plan to implement this action in the API? Given the latest
> addition to the MMC where clients can be added with API-only
> access,
> this feature would make much sense.
>
> Thank you,
> Dmitry
>
> Patrick Chanezon wrote:
>> No, sorry, this action is not exposed in the Adwords API.
>>
>> P@
>>
>> On 7/27/05, mouieman <moui...@hotmail.com

[Peer]

I think this is a great idea and it would be even better if we could do
the linking using the API.

[Robert]

A new "account linking API" is only a little bugfix of the linking +
TOC + quota problem.
I think, nobody needs the account linking. (Perhaps Google to have more
control of the Adwords API software...)
IMHO, the account linking is a big limitation only, it forbids the
creation of software like Adwords dominator. The most Adwords account
owner will not link the account to a company, but without linking there
is a quota & TOC problem.

If you talk about the account linking, you have to understand the quota
and TOC problem:
http://groups.google.com/group/adwords-api/browse_thread/thread/343b1e240f88a3cd/682ccef0ebaa1e99#682ccef0ebaa1e99
http://groups.google.com/group/adwords-api/browse_thread/thread/b5afb9fcb88eb948/a10d5cee23c79651#a10d5cee23c79651
http://groups.google.com/group/adwords-api/browse_thread/thread/dcc9c0b5bb8e59b9/0cf0fb8a1af59356#0cf0fb8a1af59356
http://groups.google.com/group/adwords-api/browse_thread/thread/8ad8ec6d228489f3/33404442bd3ce358#33404442bd3ce358
http://groups.google.com/group/adwords-api/browse_thread/thread/ed7181f5b959457c/f9971b7663f8d9fb#f9971b7663f8d9fb

Does anybody remember GeoWorks - this was a much better OS than Windows
3.0. Everybody loves it, but the developer support was poor. You know
the end of the story.
So, Google team: Don't limit the creative power of the developer.
Doesn't you understand the secret of the success of "Web 2.0"?

[Zweitze]

Patrick, I think you want to hear a business case, and most of us are
anxious to provide one :-) Let me have a go:

Assume I lay my hands on some automatic translation libraries - like
Babelfish. I want to use it for automatic translation of Adwords
campaigns, in which case I run through all creatives and keywords and
translate them all, storing them in new campaigns targetted on the
requested language. You get the idea.
Ideally I would want to create a website, where I ask the customer for
his Adwords account, and credit card data. When everything checks out,
my program does its work.

I know this particular case has a some flaws, but an API for link
creation (and deletion!) would make scenarios like this possible.

Regards
Zweitze

> > ------------------------------
> > *From:* Patrick Chanezon [mailto:chan...@gmail.com]

> > *Sent:* Wednesday, December 07, 2005 5:59 PM
> > *To:* Dmitry

> > *Subject:* Re: AdWords API Linking Existing Accounts

[JezC]

I'll add a use case, too. Assume the development of an ASP (App Service
Provider) tool for SME's. This could be automated (reducing the costs
of service) by allowing a form to be completed that included the
Account ID/account name and password. This would reduce hours of
telephone and other discussion, to self-service registration with a
service - much like the AdWords signup.

I am very conscious of the costs of service to SME's. If Google insists
that developers have to establish a commercial relationship, it limits
the use of the API to only mid-sized and large businesses, not to the
small and very small businesses. Many SME's would be perfectly happy to
turn over account management, to varying degrees. I know very few SME's
that run their own telephone service (they use AT&T, C&W, BT, etc).
Very few run the presses for local newspaper adverts - it is all
contracted out at low fees, because it is automated to the hilt to keep
the costs to a level than an SME can afford.

This should be a competitive advantage to Google. Yahoo limits access
by charging $2500/month for API usage (last time that I checked). This
presented quite a burden unless it is amortised over a large count of
small clients, or even quite a large body of big accounts.

I could mutter a bit more about the importance of multiple, competing,
differentiated services. And fitness. Bluntly, Yahoo has painted itself
into a niche of large developers with a fairly common interface and
mindset - Google can reach channels and advertisers that Yahoo can't,
if it encourages diversity of development. Diversity is encouraged
through (at least) low cost programmes, easy access, accessible and
informative documentation, ability to generate and collect revenue from
clients, technical support and a healthy user group. Some of these
exist for Google and do not exist for Yahoo (or MSN, yet).

Cheers, JeremyC.
--
Merjis : web marketing : http://merjis.com/

[Patrick Chanezon]

Thanks for the business case Zweitze.

P@

[Patrick Chanezon]

BTW do you plan to implement that or is it just an example?

P@

[Patrick Chanezon]

Thanks very much Jeremy, this makes a lot of sense, as usual with your mails.

Thanks for that, I wholeheartedly agree.

P@

Cheers, JeremyC.
--
Merjis : web marketing : http://merjis.com/

[Zweitze]

Patrick Chanezon wrote:
> BTW do you plan to implement that or is it just an example?

Not this business case: I don't think automatic translation on this
kind of text is possible, and even then I can't see how to deal with
the Google ad policies.

It's the concept of "give me your campaigns and I'll do a special
service on it", where I have some ideas for services.
BTW One other wish for this concept is an undo-facility in the campaign
history, think of a backup and restore program. Sceptical users could
use this for obvious reasons.

Regards
Zweitze

[Robert]

JezC, I agree with you.
Here are some other business cases:
- Shareware apps like AdwordsDominator, AWManager.
- Adwords management tools (desktop apps or webservices)
- Adwords optimization tools
(add similar keywords, delete keywords with bad convention rate...)
- Adwords reporting tools (Charts and Graphs...)
- Adwords backup tool
I'm sure, the adwords account owner (the advertiser) will accept and
use these software only if it fast and easy to start working with it.
Download+install+run, without an registration procedure or establishing
a commercial relationship.
But I'm afraid, Google doesn't want such programs. The Adwords API
focused to mid-sized and large businesses.

Cheers, Robert.

[JezC]

Here's a related issue... and Use Case...

Imagine that developers focus on those thing about which they are good.
As above examples, graphing data, or bidding, or keyword management. A
single account may need several products in order to function best. At
the moment it is possible to link two products to an account. There is
no granularity as to what the linked accounts can do other than that
one gets API and the other gets API and UI. It should be possible for a
product to nominate what it needs (add/delete keywords, use reports
with keyword, impression, match type, date range, clicks, conversions)
and for *only* those items to be available (so that you don't have two
products bidding - if you have two products that *can* bid, but you
want only one to do so, you allocate the bidding rights to the
preferred program).

This is probably getting a bit complex... But if Google wants to see a
competitive marketplace for products, this level of granularity and
authorisation is needed. We've already dealt with a case in which we
were supposed to use a third party analytics-cum-bidding service (but
not to bid with it) and supply our own bidding. The bugs in the
analytics-cum-bidding service meant that it kept interfering with bids.
It should have been possible to lock the PoS out.

Maybe there's an easier way to deal with this. I may be uncommonly
focused on the problems of multiparty access. However, all the signs
that I see are that analytics packages will need to integrate ever
tighter with data from advertising and bidding if they are to be
useful, and the natural result will be for marketing managers to ask
them to do ROI bidding - and since most of the analytics packages offer
great visuals and semi-stupid statistics, I wouldn't trust one of them
to perform correct ROI based bidding for years... It's way off focus
and expertise. Grumble, mutter.

I don't think I can be alone in asserting that analytics vendors don't
usually get the conversion and transaction data accurate, or reported
in a way that makes sense (like aggregating all sources that lead to a
conversion)? More focused on data like how many web pages were seen...
Mutter, mutter.

Anyway, the upshot is that I consider it quite plausible that we will
be involved with at least three agency access requirements in the next
year. A "media agency" who does the integrated comms thing, an
analytics package that yields more or less usable data in pretty graphs
so that senior management can have a backslapping session with some
pretty slideware followed by asking meaningless questions as a result
of having misunderstood poorly explained statistics, and us actually
trying to increase the ROI with logfile, conversion tracking, keyword,
advert and bidding management. Not sounding too bitter about analytics
packages and their misuse, am I? :)

Cheers, JeremyC.
--
Merjis : web marketing services : http://merjis.com/

[Patrick Chanezon]

Thanks for the additional use cases and details Jeremy and Robert.
Jeremy as you explain very well, allowing multiple applications to access a customer account in the general case would require a much more finer grained and complex security policy component (I'm thinking about the java security model as an example).
This is not currently in our task list, but it is good to have the use cases hashed out as you 2 did.

P@