Google Ads API - Get customer campaigns reporting data - server to server on daily base

[Sergi Sergiev]

Dear community,

We are new to google ads API and looking for help. We are data scientists and not big gigs in developing some fancy applications and also these authorisations steps confuse us. 

So our task is to get access to our customers google ads campaign performance data and wondering how to do it. 

Should we use service account which we implement for GA and Google Ad Manager or something else with refresh token. We need the fastest and easiest way to do it. There is a service that is run once per day and get data from the server without someone granting access, so I assume refresh token is not an option. If the customer can add email somewhere and grant us respective access should be perfect.

Please advise us how to approach this and share some guidence or links.

PS for service accounts we didn't get it where the email needs to be added. Is it at google ads -> Access and security or somewhere else. 

Thanks

Sergi 

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hi Sergi,

Thank you for reaching to the Google Ads API support team.

With regard to your concern, kindly note that all Google Ads API calls must be authorized through OAuth2(http://oauth.net/2/). OAuth2 enables your Google Ads API client app to access a user's Google Ads account without having to handle or store the user's login info. Service accounts enable server-to-server interactions between a web app and a Google service. If you want to use the Service Account, you may check this documentation guide as it discusses how to access the Google Ads API with service accounts. In addition to that, kindly check the prerequisites for service account.

If you don't have all the prerequisites, then I'm afraid that you won't be able to use service accounts in Google Ads API. As discussed in the documentation guide, we strongly recommend using OAuth2 desktop app or web app flow instead of service accounts unless you need a domain-specific feature (for example, impersonation). Furthermore, because user impersonation is controlled only at the domain level, using service accounts and assertion flow with Google OAuth2 requires you to have your own domain registered with Google Workspace. Your app and its users can then impersonate any user in the domain.

With OAuth2 desktop app or web app flow, the API user needs to have access to the Google Ads account. You may refer to the Managing User Access Invitations guide for instructions on how to invite/revoke/retrieve user invitations. Kindly note that only Google Ads Admin can manage user access invitations to a Google Ads account. 

Reference links:

• Managing User Access Invitations - https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/docs/account-management/managing-invitations
• documentation guide - https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/docs/oauth/service-accounts
• prerequisites - https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/docs/oauth/service-accounts#prerequisites
• OAuth2 desktop app or web app flow - https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/docs/oauth/cloud-project#choose_an_application_type

Regards,

Google Ads API Team

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