Adthena connects to your Google Ads account so we can read the advertising performance data our platform runs on. This page answers the questions we're asked most often about what that connection means for you, with links to Google's own documentation where it's useful.
- About the connection
- What data can Adthena see?
- Billing and payment information
- Security and control
About the connection
How does linking actually work?
Adthena connects using the Google Ads API, Google's standard interface for technology partners, via OAuth-based Manager Account (MCC) linking. You link your Google Ads account yourself, from inside the Adthena app. Your own Google Ads administrator signs in directly with their own Google identity, in a standard Google sign-in popup, and approves the connection. Adthena never sees or handles your Google password, and no shared or generic account is used on our side. The identity that grants access is recorded against the connection, so the authorizing individual is identified and auditable.
Who is allowed to set this up on our side?
Only a Google Ads administrator can complete the link. If the person setting it up in Adthena isn't an admin on the Google Ads account, Adthena sends a one-click approval request to an actual admin. Nothing connects until an admin has approved it.
Why does Adthena use MCC linking rather than asking for individual account logins?
This is the access model Google built for technology partners, and it's the standard way agencies, measurement platforms, and other Google Ads integrations connect (see Google's overview of manager accounts). It:
- creates an organization-to-organization relationship rather than handing over individual credentials
- is fully visible in your own Google Ads admin panel at all times
- is centrally governed, so nothing breaks when staff join, leave, or change roles on either side
- covers new accounts automatically as they're added, with no need to set up a new link each time
This is our supported model because it provides better organizational governance and resilience at scale, not because direct account-level access is technically unavailable to us.
If we link our top-level manager account, does Adthena see every account underneath it?
By default, yes, following Google's standard account hierarchy model (see Google's manager account access levels). If you'd prefer to limit this, you have two options:
- link individual accounts directly, or
- set up a dedicated sub-manager account containing only what you want Adthena to access
For clients who want least-privilege access, the dedicated sub-account model may be preferable. We're happy to work with either approach.
Does linking via MCC give Adthena access to more, or different, data than linking an individual account?
No. The type of data Adthena reads is identical regardless of which link type is used. The only thing an MCC link changes is scope, how many accounts are covered, not what's read from any individual account.
What data can Adthena see?
What does Adthena actually read from our account?
Advertising performance data: spend, clicks, cost per click, click-through rate, search terms, and ad copy. This is aggregated report-level data, imported into our systems via Google BigQuery to power your reporting. It doesn't include personal data or user-level identifiers. Separately, at the point of linking, Adthena reads your account's user list once, to confirm the access level of the person authorizing the connection, this is not stored.
Is our data kept separate from other clients' data?
Yes. Your connection only ever provides access to your own linked accounts, and this is enforced structurally in how we store and map account data, not just by policy.
Software access vs. human access: two different things
This is worth separating clearly, because they're governed differently.
What Adthena's software can do
Adthena's application is read-only by implementation: it only implements reporting and data retrieval, and there is no function in the product capable of creating, editing, or removing a campaign, ad, keyword, bid, or budget. The only two write actions our software ever performs against your account are the two halves of the connection handshake itself: issuing the link invitation and accepting it. Neither touches your advertising configuration.
You may see a broad-sounding permission on Google's consent screen when you link ("see, edit, create and delete your Google Ads accounts and data"). That's Google's fixed, standard wording shown to every application requesting this type of access, not a description of what Adthena's software actually does with it. Google doesn't offer a narrower version of this permission to request instead.
What Adthena's own MCC, and the small number of people who administer it, can technically do
This is a separate matter. Google's MCC model doesn't offer a "read-only" administrator role, so by Google's own default permissions, an administrator of Adthena's MCC does hold write-capable access to linked accounts (see Google's access level documentation). This is standard for any organization running an MCC account, not something specific to Adthena.
Our control here is governance, not software. Adthena's MCC operates under a dual-admin model:
- Write-capable access is held by exactly two senior, named roles: our Security Lead and our VP of Customer Experience
- Both have undergone background checks and operate under Adthena's internal security and access control policies
- Both operate under oversight from our CTO
Using that access to make a change to a client's account would be a deliberate act well outside the bounds of their role, not something our product or any automated process can do on its own.
Does Adthena take ownership of our account?
No. Adthena has no ability to take ownership of your Google Ads account or manage its ownership settings (see Google's documentation on manager account ownership). You retain full control at all times, including the ability to revoke Adthena's access whenever you choose.
Billing and payment information
Can Adthena see our credit card details?
No. Google masks card details down to the last 4 digits on the Billing screen for every user, regardless of access level, this is Google's standard practice across its payment systems.
Can Adthena see our invoices or billing history?
This depends on how your Google Ads account is configured, not on anything Adthena's software does. Google Ads users with Admin or Billing-level access may be able to view, and in some cases edit, non-sensitive billing information at the account level, such as which payment method is on file, its expiry, and invoice history, and monthly invoicing is generally managed at the manager-account level (see Google's documentation on payments profile access). Rather than saying this access is impossible, we'll be straightforward: our safeguard is that only the two specifically authorized individuals described above hold that level of access on our side, governed by internal security policy and bound by our contractual confidentiality obligations to you.
Security and control
What happens if we want to remove the connection?
You can revoke access at any time, entirely on your side. To fully revoke access, both steps are needed:
- remove Adthena's MCC from your account's manager list in Google Ads, this is what stops data access, and
- withdraw Adthena's access from your Google Account permissions, this additionally invalidates the stored credential we use to set up and extend links
(see Google's guide to managing account access). Access stops the moment you revoke it, enforced directly by Google, not by us. Our own records simply update the next time we attempt a read. No need to contact us first, and nothing we do can delay or block it.
Can we see what's changed on our account, and by whom?
Yes. Google Ads' own Change History gives you visibility into most material account and campaign changes, retained for two years (see Google's Change History documentation). Since Adthena's software doesn't make changes to your campaigns, you won't see any there from us. Separately, Adthena's MCC is named permanently in your own Google Ads account under account access for as long as the link exists, alongside the control to remove it, giving you an always-available record independent of change history.
What happens to our data if we end our contract with Adthena?
Data is deleted in line with our standard 30-day deletion policy on contract termination. Access itself ends sooner than that: your stored connection credential is deleted and the link is removed at the point of termination, so data collection stops immediately rather than continuing through the deletion window.
Is Brand Activator making changes through the MCC link?
No, not directly. The MCC link and the Brand Activator script are two separate mechanisms, and it's important to be precise about the distinction.
- The MCC link is how Adthena connects to the account and retrieves data. It is read-only by implementation: it cannot modify campaigns, ads, keywords, bids, or budgets. For Brand Activator specifically, this link is used to pull the account's own campaign performance data (clicks and spend), which Adthena uses to calculate savings and report on ad clicks.
- The decision to add or remove a term from the negative keyword list is made from Adthena's own SERP monitoring, Adthena tracks competitor bidding activity directly from the search results page, and determines when a term qualifies as a "Lone Ranger" (no competitors currently bidding on it) or when competitor bidding on a term resumes.
- Brand Activator does not itself make any changes to the account. That SERP-based determination is acted on by a separate Google Ads script, which is created and owned by the client and runs entirely within the client's own account, under Google's own security framework. It is this script, not the account link, and not "Brand Activator" as a concept, that actually adds or removes the term from a campaign-level negative keyword list.