On 12 June 2023, the declaration of invalidity made by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation in Mexico regarding the Law for Transparency, Prevention and Combat of Improper Practices in the Matter of Advertising Contracting (the Law) became effective. Therefore, we updated our Google Ads advertising program terms effective 25 September 2023.
As a result of the Law being made invalid and to comply with tax regulations, setting up dual payments profiles (where the advertiser is the primary liable party and an agency is the secondary liable party) is no longer available.
To better understand how to make this change, learn more about how to change the payments profile for your client account.
Mexico’s Law on Transparency, Prevention and Combat of Improper Practices Regarding the Advertising Market establishes a set of requirements for advertising agencies and advertising service providers (such as Google). Among its provisions is a requirement that Google must invoice any advertising costs directly to the end advertiser if the end advertiser has residence in Mexico and if ads are being displayed in Mexico. In addition, Google must provide reports including certain information to advertisers on their campaigns details.
Invoicing Obligations: must invoice any advertising costs directly to the end advertiser
Customers using monthly invoicing payment setting
If Google currently invoices the agency as the primary* financially responsible party – billed and invoiced on behalf of an advertiser – moving forward to comply with the new law, these Google Ads accounts will need to be changed to bill the advertiser as the primary financially responsible party, while the agency can be included as a secondary** party to continue to manage billing on the advertiser’s behalf.
This primary/secondary billing change requires a new billing format that is being developed by Google over the coming weeks for all customers in Mexico. Agencies will be notified via email with the steps to follow to move to the new format (where the advertiser is the primary billing party and the agency secondary) once the new billing format is available.
What else changes when setting the advertiser as the primary party and the agency as secondary party?
| Primary* | Secondary** | |
|---|---|---|
| Details to which facturas, complemento de pago and notas de credito will be issued | ||
| Details included in Commercial invoices (not valid from a tax perspective) | ||
| Receives documents via email | ||
| Has the ability to pay invoices | ||
| Has the ability to see invoices in the statement of account tool | ||
| Has the ability to see invoices within the Google Ads UI | ||
| Primarily liable party for payment obligation and suspension reinstatement | ||
| Initial party to be contacted by our collections team in the event of non-payment or suspension due to non-payment | ||
| No changes to current payment terms (time given to pay after invoice date), irrespective of who is primary or secondary |
Customers using Manual Payment setting
If the agency is currently listed as the primary financial party in the relevant Google Ads account, the account will need to be changed to reflect the advertiser as the primary financial party. Agencies and advertisers can make this change by contacting us.
When contacting us to make this change, please ensure that you provide all the required information below:
- Google Ads customer ID(s)
- Advertiser’s legal company name, according to registration documents
- Advertiser’s tax address, according to registration documents
- Advertiser’s Registro Federal de Contribuyentes (RFC) number
- Advertiser’s primary billing contact name
- Advertiser’s primary billing contact email (must be a company domain and linked to a Google Account***)
- Advertiser’s primary billing contact phone number
***To link to a Google Account, follow the steps below:
- Go to 'Create your Google Account'.
- In the email/user field, select the 'Use my current email address instead' option and fill in your corporate email.
- Fill in the remaining data and click Next until the process is finished.
- You may receive an email asking you to confirm the link (make sure that it didn't get sent to your spam folder). Confirm the link to finish the process.
Reporting obligations: Must provide reports with Google Ads campaign details to advertisers
Advertisers with access to their Google Ads accounts can easily access their campaign information from their Google Ads user interface. However, advertisers who have opted for the setup mentioned above, where an agency manages their campaigns and billing on their behalf (as a secondary liable party), may not be able to fully see their account activity.
Thus, to comply with the law, all Google Ads advertisers who set up their accounts with the advertiser as the primary billing party and an agency as the secondary will receive a monthly report via email entitled 'Ads campaign report'.
This report will be sent to the advertiser’s payments profile contacts at the beginning of every month and will contain details of the previous month’s account activity, including:
- Campaigns date range
- Campaigns names and statuses
- Ad network type (for example, Search or YouTube) where the advertisements were displayed in the corresponding format.
- Campaign cost and cost per interaction
Please note that the consolidated monthly Ads campaign report will include the above details for each month, irrespective of any changes to billed and invoiced parties.
