OfflineConversionFeed with multiple AdWords accounts

[Rob]

Hi,

We're working on sending data to the OfflineConversionFeedService and some questions have arisen regarding our larger clients that have multiple AdWords accounts.

The problem with multiple accounts is that we can't extract the client ID from the gclid without running a click performance report. That's a lengthy process since these are usually high volume clients.

It would be much quicker and easier to send the same conversion to each of the client's accounts and have AdWords work it out for us, since presumably you already know the client ID from the gclid. We could also send the conversion data in real time, giving a much better user experience.

It looks like the OfflineConversionFeedService requires a client ID to work at all, so...

Is it possible to send a conversion feed using an MCC client ID, and have the conversions show for whichever individual account matches the click ID?

If we send the same conversion event (click ID, conversion name and timestamp) to two different AdWords accounts, will it always show in the correct account, and only in the correct account?

[Takeshi Hagikura (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Rob, 

I don't think it's possible to send a conversion feed using an MCC client customer ID. 
You need to use a client AdWords account. 

Best
- Takeshi, 

[Rob]

Thanks Takeshi,

Any idea about the second question, sending the same conversion to multiple client accounts? I'm trying to resolve the problem described above.

[Takeshi Hagikura (AdWords API Team)]

Based on my quick test, if you try to upload an offline conversion with a Gclid that doesn't belong to your account, an error is returned. 

I recommend trying it on your own just in case. 

Best,

- Takeshi, AdWords API Team

[Rob]

Hi Takeshi,

I know this is old, but the problem of multiple accounts has just cropped up again in a big way with MCC conversions.

I can confirm that when uploading a gclid for a different account to the one specified in the client ID, the API returns an error. Unfortunately, that error is UNAUTHORIZED_USER. In this case, the user has access to the both accounts, but we have no idea which one to upload to.

https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/reference/v201409/OfflineConversionFeedService.OfflineConversionError

It means that we can't tell the difference between a true failed auth (e.g. if an MCC is unlinked and the user no longer has access), and our scatter-gun approach of firing the conversion into multiple accounts.

What would be really useful is if we could either:

- check what account a particular gclid belongs to, without having to run a report; or

- get the API to return an "account ID mismatch" error in these cases, instead of UNAUTHORIZED_USER

Otherwise we're constantly asking the end user to check their credentials, due to the error code returned.

Thanks,

Rob.

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Rob,

Have you tried uploading the conversions using the following setup?

• OAuth credentials from a user with access to your MCC
• clientCustomerId SOAP header set to the MCC customer ID
• Body contains conversions for individual AdWords accounts managed by your MCC

I just ran a quick test using one of my accounts, and the upload was successful using this approach.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Rob]

Thanks for the suggestion Josh, I'll certainly take a look when I get time.

I suspect we'll need to cater for situations where e.g. we have an MCC login, a Conversion Name that exists only in one of the sub accounts, and a gclid that matches a different account. It will be interesting to see what we get back :)

For now we're ignoring this particular error. After some more testing we found that a "true" auth failure gives something like AuthorizationError.USER_PERMISSION_DENIED" instead of "OfflineConversionError.UNAUTHORIZED_USER".

Rob