How to provide your digital agency access to your Google Services

There are a number of distinct Google services critical to performing your job as a digital marketer. They include services such as;

Google Tag Manager
Google Search Console (previously known as Google Webmasters)
Google Analytics
Google My Business
Google Adwords

It is important that business owners and in-house marketers maintain integrity of these services as it relates to management and ownership (especially of data) and how third parties such as digital agencies are given access. Here’s some tips;

You should use the same Google Account credential across all your Google Services so they are all connected. That is, setup one email address such as marketing@your-business.com.
Use an email address on your business domain name, rather than a Gmail address. This makes it s easier to recover access should you lose the credentials of your company account ID.
Your Google Service Accounts belong to your business. There is no reason for a digital agency to setup a service for you under their own account and then withhold access, or only provide access to individual properties. The proper way to achieve this is to setup service under your business account, and for external parties to be provided access as a manager or viewer.

There are a number of benefits to this.

Users (staff, freelancers, consultants, agencies) come and go, but the business account will always remain in tact and accessible at the business level (ie, you always have the master login credentials)
Any time you finish up with a consultant or agency, you only need to remove their user ID from the account permissions rather than resetting passwords
You can monitor who has access with what permission, to ensure integrity and security of your systems

Even if an agency is acting on your behalf in setting up any Google services, they should follow the above methodology.

Below are instructions for how to setup access for each of the above listed Google services.

Google Tag Manager

Click here for information about Google Tag Manager and Tag Management.

Step 1 – Log into Google Tag Manager

Go to website: https://tagmanager.google.com
If you haven’t set up Google Tag Manager yet, let us know so we can assist with this process

Step 2 – Click on your domain to view the drop down options

Step 3 – Select Accounts Page at bottom of drop down

Step 4 – Select the 3 circles and then User Management from the drop-down box

Step 5 – Click Add to add new user

Step 5 – Complete the details as shown in the screenshot, then click “Add”

Finished – You should now see the following screen

Google Search Console

Click here for more information regarding Google Search Console.

Step 1 – Go to Google Search Console

Website: https://google.com/webmasters/
If you haven’t set up Google Search Console yet, let us know so we can assist with this process

Step 2 – If you find yourself in the new version, click on the hamburger menu and select ‘go to old version’

Step 3 – Select the red title ‘search console to go to the Search Console homepage.

Step 4 – Next to your website, select ‘manage properties’ and then ‘add or remove users’

Step 5 – Under property owners, select ‘Add’, complete the fields as show, and then click ‘Add’

Finished – You should now see the following screen

Google Analytics

Click here for more information regarding Google Analytics.

Step 1 – Log into Google Analytics

Website: https://analytics.google.com
If you haven’t set up Google Analytics yet, let us know so we can assist with this process

Step 2 – In the left hand icon bar select the cog wheel, then ‘User Management’ in the main window

Step 3 – In ‘Account permissions’ select the blue plus symbol, and select ‘add new users’ from the drop down.

Step 4 – In the new window, enter the email address and select permission levels as shown below, before clicking the ‘Add’ button

Finished – You should now see the following screen

Google My Business

Step 1 – Log into Google My Business

Website: https://www.google.com/business/
If you haven’t set up Google My Business yet, let us know so we can assist with this process

Step 2 – Click on the hamburger menu top left, then select ‘Users’ from the menu

Step 3 – Within ‘manage permissions’ window select the +Users icon (top right), then enter email address, and permission level as shown. Click ‘Invite’ to finish the process.