Google’s Billing integration solution with Prisma for Google Ads enables automated budget management, delivery data and invoice data reconciliation, eliminating hundreds of hours of duplicate effort in operation today across multiple tools and media buying teams.
Why should you leverage this integration?
- Faster budget management: Connect Prisma to Google Ads to automate budget management and track spending in real time. This would result in 50% less time wasted on duplicate entries across Google Products and Prisma.
- Streamlined data entry process: Edits made in Prisma will automatically update budgets in Google Product UI’s.
- Quickly reconcile invoice discrepancies: Use Prisma to automatically reconcile delivery data and invoice data.
- On-demand invoice PDF access: Invoice Integration enables direct invoice downloads without Google account login.
How does the budget component work?
The budget component allows for budgets to be pushed from Prisma to Google Ads along with Prisma unique identifiers to be printed on invoices.
- Media buyers access Prisma to add/edit a Campaign and Campaign Budgets.
- Media booking system (Prisma) will use ‘Integration calls’ to add/edit budget in the relevant Google Product.
- Every month, relevant Google Product will generate an invoice including all details submitted within the budget Integration call for example, amount, flight date, unique identifier (Prisma IO#).
How does the invoice component work?
The invoice components allows Google invoice data to appear directly in Prisma inclusive of client, product, estimate and IO# and actual invoice amounts in order to easily reconcile.
- Invoice data will be programmatically pulled into the customer’s internal booking system (Prisma).
- Media booking system (Prisma) will show ‘booked budget’ against invoice amount and automatically highlight any discrepancies (Prisma has created this functionality in their UI).
- Finance team can now process payments (or disputes) immediately since they no longer have to manually reconcile bookings against invoices.
Setup Checklist for Google Ads
- Identify an “Agency Integration POC” who is familiar or has a working knowledge with various Integrations
- This person should have admin access to Google Ads Paying Manager and the appropriate level of access to Prisma.
- The Agency Integration POC may be identified on the Ad Operations, Data Science, or similar team and is typically already responsible for linking Prisma to Campaign Manager 360 for the trafficking Integration (commonly used Integration).
- The Agency Integration POC should ensure that the following steps are complete
- Verify that Ads accounts are not using Account Budget Controls - Follow instructions below under ‘Setup Details: Account Budget Controls’.
- Ask the Ads support team to verify whether the Account Budget Control (ABC) feature has been activated for their payments profile.
- Have a list of Accounts/Prisma instances that you would like to onboard.
- Review Mediaocean onboarding materials.
- Contact Mediaocean if you run into any issues during setup
Note: You no longer need to create Google Project IDs as part of the setup. Mediaocean/Prisma has implemented a more simplified and secure solution.
Setup Details: Account Budget Controls
- Verify that Ads accounts are not using Account Budget Controls:
- In Google Ads ,we have a feature called Account Budget Controls, which allows the user to force an extra approval workflow for budget creation. This feature provides an extra safety measure to guard against accidental or malicious budget activation.
- This feature forces a manual approval workflow, it is not compatible with the Prisma Integration integration and needs to be deactivated before a budget can be created via Prisma. As such, Google and the agency should take the following steps as part of the pre-onboarding process.
- Remove Account Budget Controls
- Agencies should ask the Ads support team to verify whether the Account Budget Control (ABC) feature has been activated for their payments profile.
- If it has, the agency will need to submit a written request to the Ads support team to deactivate it. The requester must have the appropriate authority at the agency. That means someone who is listed as a payments profile contact or someone who has access to the Paying Manager MCC.
- The submitter should use the following language in their request:
- Requested Change: Please remove all account budget controls for Google Ads from my payments profile.
- Payments profile name: [enter the payments profile name here] & Payments profile ID: [enter 12-digit payments profile ID here] Both can be found in an Ads account or in a Google invoice
- I authorize Google to remove all account budget controls for Google Ads associated with my company’s payments profile. I understand this is a change to the entire payments profile and it will be reflected across all Ads accounts billed to this line of credit.
- The Google Ads support agent will confirm when the change has been made.
- After confirmation has been received the agency should proceed with the remaining Ads<>Prisma onboarding steps.
- You are now ready to review the Mediaocean setup steps.
Mediaocean to Google Ads Mapping
| Prisma | Google Ads |
|
Provider instance |
Google Ads Manager Account |
| Prog. header | Customer Account |
| Prog. header | Insertion Order |
| Programmatic line | Account Budget |
| (no equivalent) | Campaign |
| Prog. placement (manually via tag) | Creative |
Reach out to your Mediaocean representative for further details on the mapping and Prisma descriptions.
FAQs
Q. If something is not working or if there is an error, who should we reach out to?
A: We hope this help article will address most of your questions. However, If your question remains unresolved, always contact your Mediaocean representative first if there is an error or problem with the Ads integration in Prisma.
Our Google Ads API support team ([email protected]) can provide any technical troubleshooting (for example, errors or issues with the Ads API, authentication errors using OAuth2 or developer tokens, reporting data discrepancies between the Ads API and the UI). Review common account budget proposal status descriptions and errors here.
Here are some things you can provide when contacting Ads API support to expedite troubleshooting:
- Background: Provide the history of what the API user is trying to do and what has been tried so far.
- Customer IDs: Provide the customer IDs where the issue is being seen.
- Logs
- Note: Do not post logs to the forum
- Query (Google Ads API Reporting): For issues with Google Ads API reports, provide the query.
- Other relevant screenshots and code snippets.
If their question is specific to Google Ads, and not API related, you should contact the Google Ads support team here.
Q. How can I submit a new feature request?
A. To submit a new feature request for Google, use this form.
Q. What level of access do I need to set up the integration?
A. The identified person should have admin access to the Google Ads Paying Manager. This help center article is another great resource for understanding our different access levels across Google Ads.
Q. How do CPE (Client|Product|Estimate) get incorporated?
A: Mediaocean will work with each agency partner on a client mapping process which will incorporate the relevant CPE codes into the budget setting workflow and subsequently on delivered invoices. Speak with your Mediaocean representative for more information.
Q: Does this just create a budget order or does it create Google Ads campaigns?
A: The Ads budget API integration only creates budgets at the Ads account (Customer ID) level. It does not affect Google Ads campaigns, ads groups or keyword level budgets.
Q: How will this API integration impact reporting? Will it map delivery data back to Prisma placements?
A: Yes, Prisma will pull back delivery data on a daily basis. Agencies can then consume that in whichever way works for them.
Q. What is the current Purchase Order character limit in Google Ads?
A. In January 2024, the Google Ads Purchase Order character limit was increased from 80 to 750 characters. This enhancement aims to provide our agency partners with greater flexibility and control, making it easier to include detailed information in their POs and streamline reconciliation processes.
Q. Will changes made to budgets/placements in Google Ads automatically reflect on Prisma?
A. No. It is important to note that information flows only one way from Prisma to the Google products. So if you make changes to placements in Prisma, it will reflect in Google Ads. However, if you make a change in Google Ads, it will not be automatically reflected in Prisma.
Think of Prisma as your single source of truth. All changes to budgets and placements should be made in that system and pushed into each Google product. The name should match what is in Prisma for invoicing purposes, as whatever is in Google Ads is what will be printed on the invoice.
Note: There is reporting that can be pulled from Prisma that will tell you when there are discrepancies between Ads and Prisma. Speak with your Mediaocean representative for more information.
