AdWords API access with service account set up

[Evan Troelstra]

 am writing an application that is

meant to automatically access the AdWords API to download among things performance report data. This application will need to impersonate a user for automatically logging in without  manual intervention. It was my understanding that the service account email will need to be verified, however this can only be done with a business apps account. See: 

http://blog.apartmentlist.com/dashboards-for-dummies-decypher-analytics-and-adwords-authentication-so-you-can-build-an-awesome-dashboard/ . 

Is this true? 

Is there a detailed step by step description of what needs to be done to access the AdWords API without user intervention somewhere, including example code showing how to impersonate a user? 

Finally, is it necessary to use google email servers to accomplish this, is there a way around this? 

I do not want to change the MX files just to get access to the AdWords API.

[Danial Klimkin]

Hello Evan,

We strongly recommend avoid using Service Accounts with AdWords API. It requires Google Domain to be in place and generally, provides no benefits comparing to offline access.

Please see this guide as a starting point:

  https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/guides/authentication

-Danial, AdWords API Team.

[Justin Coon]

I was able to implement a service account, and while not extremely easy, there are guides on how to do it, and they are a bit confusing in parts. I love it though and it was exactly what we needed - works perfectly

[John Reynolds]

Justin, can you share how you got this working?

Thanks!