Access link or Meta and Google's own screens: when a tool is worth it

You do not need a tool to get access to a client's Meta and Google accounts: Meta's partner settings, the manager-account link in Google Ads and the user settings in Analytics and Tag Manager do the job. They are enough when the client is already an admin and you need one or two accounts on one platform. Asking for the client's login is not a safe third option: Meta's terms and Google's passkey rules both point away from it. A link earns its place when you need several accounts across Meta and Google from a client who is not sure who the admin is, because it puts every request in one box where the client picks accounts and sees what is missing.

We make Adcato, a tool that sends such a link.

The platforms' own path, step by step

Meta: partner access in the client's business portfolio

You send the client your business portfolio ID. In the settings of the business portfolio that owns the assets, someone with full control adds your business as a partner with that ID, then picks each asset to share (the Page, the Instagram account, the ad account, the dataset) and switches on the tasks for it. Each asset is its own choice of asset and tasks. When Meta asks for it, a second admin of the client's business approves before the access arrives. How to give an agency partner access in Meta Business Suite has the exact steps.

Google Ads: a link request from your manager account

The client finds their customer ID and sends it to you. You send a link request from your manager account; Google's help lists six steps for it, from signing in to Send Request. Someone with administrative access to the client's account then accepts it in Google Ads under Admin, Access and security, Managers. How to link a client's Google Ads account to your manager account walks through both sides.

Analytics and Tag Manager: a user added by email

The client adds your Google account's email address as a user. In Analytics that is Admin, Access Management, then the plus button and Add users, with a role. In Tag Manager it is Admin, User Management, with an account permission and a container permission. Both need an administrator on the client's side. In Analytics, a user added at account level gets every property in that account, so the property is usually the right place.

Put together, a client who uses all of these goes to four places in their own settings (Meta's business settings, Google Ads, Analytics and Tag Manager), each needing its own admin, after you have swapped two IDs.

Asking for the client's login

Some agencies skip all of this and ask the client for their username and password. Both platforms' own rules point away from it.

• Meta. Meta's Terms of Service, effective January 1, 2025, say each user must "Not share your password, give access to your Facebook account to others, or transfer your account to anyone else (without our permission)." The same terms say: "You may not proxy, request, or collect Product usernames or passwords, or misappropriate access tokens."
• Google Ads. Google's passkey article asks "Why aren't passkeys compatible with shared agency logins?" and answers that a passkey "is always personal" and "can't be shared among a group." Its advice to agencies: "Agencies should transition to individual user access. Invite each employee using their unique email address so they can secure their access with their own personal passkey." Google Ads can ask for a passkey before sensitive actions such as account linking updates or user access changes, and the article's FAQ says that without a passkey "you won't be able to complete sensitive actions in the Google Ads account." Google Ads passkeys and 2-Step Verification covers what this means for an agency.

What to do instead is the path above: partner access in Meta, a manager link in Google Ads, and a user added by email in Analytics and Tag Manager. Each gives your business, or each of your people, their own access, separate from the client's login. The client sees it in its own settings and can remove it later without changing a password.

When the platforms' own path is enough

• You need one platform, or one or two accounts.
• The client is already an admin and has done this before.
• You need something the link does not cover today, such as Meta catalogs, TikTok, Shopify, Pinterest or Snapchat. The integrations page lists what it covers.
• You take on a few clients a year, and a short call with each is no trouble.

What no tool can do for the client

• Share for someone who is not an admin. Meta lets only the business that owns an asset grant access to it. In Google Ads the request goes to people with administrative access. In Analytics and Tag Manager, adding a user needs an administrator.
• Make Meta's ad account step automatic for a new app. Meta has limited the API that apps use to request a client's ad account or Page since 8 June 2021. Leadsie's own help lists ad account access as semi-manual, and in Adcato it is a guided step on Meta's screen, with a check afterwards.
• Skip a second admin's approval. Meta says a review by another business admin is sometimes required. On a Google Ads account with more than three administrators, Google applies multi-party approval to user changes and to linking the account to a manager account; its help page says read-only roles and API users are exempt. Google Ads multi-party approval explains it.