Best practice - read only access

[Scott Spradlin]

We have a new aspect of our business where we need to simply pull Google Ads data via the API for multiple customers -- in a read-only fashion. Let's say we'll have 20 new customers in the next few months -- each has a couple dozen accounts respectively.

Can you suggest the proper way to be doing that? Do our clients add one of OUR accounts to their MCC? We're not a fan of handing out an individual's email for that purpose. Can we use a service account instead of a user account?  (From the documentation, it seems that service accounts only give you the ability to impersonate other users in your domain -- and this would be cross domain.)

Thoughts? Directions? Advice? Any help appreciated. Does anyone else do this?

Scott

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Scott,

Thank you for reaching out. If you do not want to have your email added to the client MCC as a user, then you could consider having the client MCC linked to your main MCC instead. This way you don’t have to expose your email to the client. You could follow the instructions in this guide to have their MCC account linked to your MCC account. Once these accounts are linked, you would be able to query their accounts directly from your MCC account. 

Thanks and regards,
Xiaoming, Google Ads API Team
 

Xiaoming Google Ads API Team

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[Scott Spradlin]

How can we link to their account of some kind but NOT have full access? We want to guarantee that we only have read-only access.

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor Prod]

Hello Scott,

Thanks for getting back to us.

With regard to your concern on updating user access levels, you can check on these available guides ( Managing User Access | Managing User Access Invitations ) instead.

Regards,

Mark Kevin Albios Google Ads API Team

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[Scott Spradlin]

Thanks for the link. When OUR MCC invites a customer's MCC, the customer is presented with a disclaimer saying:

Grant XXX access to this account?

If you grant XXX access to this account, they can change and manage your

entire account, including all ads and keywords, as well as accept Terms and Conditions

on your behalf. They won't be able to change your Google account's email and password.

If you don't know this manager, and feel this is an unquthorized attempt to access your

account, you may contact us and report a complaint.

Our customers will STOP at that point and say "no thank you." Our UI access appears to be read only but this text says otherwise. I know this isn't an API issue, but we appreciate you helping us.

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Scott,

We may be able to file a feature request on your behalf for this. However, I would just like to confirm -- the 'Grant access' screen presented seems to suggest the inviting manager is permitted to make changes to the invitee's account, but you do in fact only have read only access (the desired result)? Your issue is specifically with the language of the message?

Thanks,
Matt
Google Ads API Team

Matt Google Ads API Team

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