Connect Google Ads
Link a Google Ads account to a website so RankGrep can read its campaigns, propose changes, and apply the ones you approve. Money always waits for you.
On this page
RankGrep Ads lives at ads.rankgrep.com. It uses the same sign-in and the same websites as the SEO dashboard, and it does for a Google Ads account what RankGrep does for a website: watch it every night, find what a careful manager would change, propose each change with its evidence, and apply the ones you approve.
This article covers the connection. What RankGrep Ads proposes, and how a change is applied and undone, are described as each part ships.
Before you start
- You need a Google login that can open the account at ads.google.com. In Google Ads, that is anyone listed under Admin → Access and security. A manager (MCC) login works too: RankGrep lists the accounts under it and you choose one.
- The account must be an advertiser account. A manager account on its own cannot be linked, because nothing is advertised from it.
- Google requires two-step verification on the Google login before its Ads API will act for it. Turn it on for that login if it is not already.
1. Connect
Open ads.rankgrep.com, choose the website, and click Connect Google Ads. Google asks you to sign in and to allow RankGrep to manage your AdWords campaigns. That wording is Google's; it is the one permission the Ads API offers, and there is no read-only version of it. What RankGrep actually does with it is governed by the rules below.
2. Choose the account
RankGrep asks Google which advertiser accounts your login can see and lists them with their name, customer ID, currency and time zone. Choose the one that belongs to this website and click Link this account. A second website can reuse the same authorization: the Overview page offers it under Or use an authorization you already gave, so you go through Google once, not once per site.
If the list is empty, the page says why. The usual causes: the Google login you used is not listed under Access in Google Ads; the account is cancelled; or RankGrep's own access to the Ads API is still at test level (see Common problems).
What RankGrep may do alone
Every change RankGrep Ads wants to make is a proposal with its evidence. On the Autonomy page you decide, per kind of change, whether RankGrep may apply it without waiting, must ask you first, or should not suggest it at all.
Two rules are fixed and no setting can change them:
- Anything that spends money always asks. A budget, a bid or target, switching a campaign on or off, and where ads show are proposed with the amount and applied only when you approve. The page shows these rows with a lock.
- A ceiling you set is a ceiling. If you set the highest daily budget RankGrep may propose, a proposal above it is never written, so you are never shown a number you have already ruled out.
A fresh connection starts with everything set to Ask me. The Unattended changes a day limit caps what RankGrep may do alone across every row set to Do it; once reached, the rest of the day's changes wait for you instead of being dropped.
What is stored
RankGrep stores an encrypted refresh token for the Google login, the account's customer ID, name, currency and time zone, and your autonomy settings. Your Google password is never seen. Nothing from the account is sent to an AI provider except the campaign facts needed to write a specific proposal, and that is described with the proposal.
Revoking access
Unlink the account on the Overview page to stop RankGrep using it. To withdraw Google's permission as well, open myaccount.google.com/permissions and remove RankGrep; every call fails from that moment and the page asks you to reconnect.
Common problems
"RankGrep's Google Ads access is still at test level." Google grants an Ads API developer token in levels. At test level it reaches only Google Ads test accounts; real accounts need Explorer level or above, which Google grants on application. This is RankGrep's setup, not your account, and nothing you do in Google Ads changes it.
"The Google account you signed in with does not have access to this Google Ads account." The login you chose at Google's sign-in screen is not listed under Admin → Access for that account. Connect again with the right login, or ask the account's admin to add you.
"Google requires two-step verification." Turn it on for the Google login at myaccount.google.com/security, then reconnect.
"That is a manager account." You chose the MCC itself. Choose one of the advertiser accounts listed under it instead.