Making All Your Google Accounts Work Together
Wednesday, 17 March 2010 10:42
As we grow up online and sign up for different Google services and accounts, we suddenly realize how Google really is set up - sometimes a little too late unfortunately.
The thing is that if you sign up for one Google program like Adwords, then sign up for another Google program like Google Analytics... and you use two different e-mails... you are going to run into some trouble.
Reason being is that Google runs everything from your Google Account. When you log in to your Google Account, you can automatically login to your different services (Adsense, Adwords, Analytics, Ad Manager, Gmail and More!).
So you'll run into trouble where you login to one service and when you go back to another in the same browser, it either won't log you in automatically or it'll log you into an account you didn't want to log in to.
If you use several different e-mails, it can get very confusing and it's a pain to log in and out all the time!
Solution #1
One way of solving this is using different browsers. Even though I have a way to manage most things with one e-mail Google account, I still find reasons to need to, or want to, be logged into different Google Accounts..
So I'll just work in Chrome and Firefox at the same time. Each using a different Google Account.
I actually do this a lot when I'm working on my niche websites because I use a pen name and a completely different account associated with it. So I'll work in Chrome managing it (or a different firefox profile if I don't need to work on anything else that moment) and then work on my Matt Levenhagen accounts in Firefox in between.
But there is something you can do to make your life easier. I'll use examples of some of the services I personally use in my daily business. Those include: Google Adwords, Google Analytics, Google Ad Manager, Google Adsense and Gmail.
Solution #2
Choose one Master e-Mail. Consider this e-mail your main business e-mail where you'll manage everything. The umbrella you'll use for ALL your different services.
GOOGLE ADWORDS
Use THAT e-mail to signup for an Adwords MCC Account. If you manage multiple Adwords accounts (yours and/or clients), you can manage them all with one login. You login to your MCC and you'll be able to toggle between accounts without having to log out.
GOOGLE ANALYTICS
Something many people don't know is that you can do something very similar with G Analytics that you can with Adwords. You can have a Master Account to manage all of your G Analytics accounts. All you do is allow access to your other accounts (when you login find 'User Manager' at the bottom of the screen).
Just set up administrator access to all your accounts from your Master e-Mail Account.
GOOGLE'S GMAIL SERVICE
This one's easy enough.. you can create different Gmail accounts, different webmail accounts for your websites etc.. and just have them redirected to your Master e-Mail Account Gmail service.
In fact, you can even create filters and labels for each account so you can collect them all in one place.
THE REST OF YOUR ACCOUNTS
Unfortunately, as far as I know you can't create a single account to access all your Adsense and Ad Manager accounts.. so you'll have to rely on my multiple browser option above.
Still, hopefully, the above has given you some more insight on how to manage those different services most effectivaly.
Just remember for anything you want to access in one browser, set up a Master e-Mail Address (and account) for all of them so you won't be logged in and out of your different services.
Notes:
You can still link your G Adwords, G Analytics, G Adsense accounts together using separate e-mails. But now you can login and manage them with your Master e-Mail Account!
What if you already have different accounts with different e-mails?
You would have to make some changes and update the e-mails you use. It might take some time and thought.. I had to do this at one time and just figuring out how I wanted to access everything required writing down what I had and deciding what e-mails to use for what.
Changing Adsense (and I think Ad Manager - I didn't need to change that one) e-mails are impossible. So you'll need to start over with a new account with the associated address. I have two Adsense accounts because I technically run two businesses. One under Matt Levenhagen and I have a business run under a pseudonym (pen).
Adwords and Google Analytics is actually fairly easy to change from my experience in the past. You can change your primary e-mail in your Google Account associated with them and it'll update the associated services. That'll probably work for a lot of things.
That's about it!
If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comment section below. :-)
-Matt Levenhagen
Comments (3)
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Awesome advice! I have multiple profiles too.. depends what I'm doing. Sometimes I find when multi-tasking across niches it's easier to do the multi-browser thing because you have to log in and out of the profiles in FF if I'm not working on plugin dependent things..
Unless there's a way to have multi-profiles open at the same time.
Thanks John!
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Hey Matt,
Another option for managing different accounts is to use Firefox profiles. You can run multiple instances of Firefox, each with its own profile, which is essentially the same idea as your first solution of running multiple browsers.
But this way you can still have all your extensions and stuff that you normally work with (assuming you use Firefox of course
)
There are lots of sites that explain how to do it, but this one is pretty easy to follow:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/internet/firefox/ use-multiple-firefox-profiles-at-the-same-time/
Or if you use a Mac, MultiFirefox takes care of it for you:
http://davemartorana.com/multifirefox/
Each profile can have its own cookies, and be logged into different Google accounts. I use it all the time for pen name accounts - each new site or pen name gets a new profile in Firefox.