Getting started
Open your own Google Ads account
Your account, your card, your data — Mmedia only receives manager access, which you can revoke at any time. This guide walks you through every step, including the traps. About 30–40 minutes of your time, then Google reviews your verification within 1–10 days. It works the same whether you advertise as a company or as a sole trader — where the two paths differ, the step says so.
Why you set it up yourself
Verification is personal
Google verifies who is behind the ads — with your company registration if you advertise as a company, or with your own ID document if you are a sole trader. Nobody can (or should) do this for you.
Your card never touches us
You bind your company card inside your own Google account. We only ever see that billing is active — never the card.
You can walk away anytime
We manage your campaigns through a manager link. Remove it with one click and the account — with all its data — stays fully yours.
The four steps
- 1
Register the account (10 min)
Sign in to ads.google.com with your company email and create an account. On the “choose your campaign goal” screen, scroll to the very bottom and click the small link “Create an account without a campaign” — do not build any campaign in the wizard. Then confirm three settings that can never be changed later: billing country (where your company is registered), time zone, and currency. Note: currency follows your billing country — don’t switch countries to chase a currency; our engine works with any currency.
Sole trader — Use your own email, and set the billing country to where you live and trade. Everything else on this screen is the same.
- 2
Billing profile and company card (10 min)
Choose or create a payments profile in your company’s legal name, with your tax number. Bind a company credit card — not a personal one (Google doesn’t mind, but your accountant will). A small temporary authorization (about $10–20) appears and disappears within a week. Answer “No” to the two marketing questions. Keep an eye out for a new-advertiser promotion (spend X, get X back) — free experiment budget.
Sole trader — Choose Individual for the payments profile, in your own legal name and address. Your personal card is the right card here — the line above about company cards applies only if you trade through a company. If you are GST-registered, put the GST number in the tax field; if you are not, leave it empty.
- 3
Advertiser verification (15 min + review)
Go to Admin → Policies → Account. Five tasks: answer the organization questions (you pay for your own ads); claim your Dun & Bradstreet record — search inside Google’s wizard using your company’s exact legal name (as registered, not your brand name); if nothing comes up, look up or request your free D-U-N-S number on the D&B website below (takes a few business days), then come back; confirm your affiliation — the trickiest step: Google matches against the contact details in the D&B record, so if your email and phone are rejected, don’t keep retrying — use the ID document option (passport) and let it go to manual review; answer “No” to EU political ads. Review takes 1–10 days, usually 3–5. Your ID goes to Google only — we never see it.
Sole trader — This is where the two paths differ most. When Google asks for the account type, choose Individual rather than Organization — that skips the Dun & Bradstreet section entirely. Verification then runs on a government ID instead: in New Zealand a passport, a driver licence or a Kiwi Access Card all work. The review clock is the same 1–10 days, and the document goes to Google only.
- 4
Link to Mmedia (2 min)
Send us your 10-digit Customer ID (top right corner). We send a manager link request; you accept it under Admin → Access and security → Managers. From then on we operate campaigns for you — but the owner column says it all: you are the owner, we are not.
Quick answers
I do not have a company — can I still advertise?
Yes. Google Ads has an Individual account type alongside Organization, and everything after verification — linking, tracking, campaigns, reporting — is identical. The one difference is the verification step, where you use your own ID instead of a company record. What you do still need is a website: conversion tracking lives there, and without it nobody can tell you what the ads produced.
Do I ever give Mmedia my card details?
Never. Ad spend goes directly from your card to Google. Mmedia only charges its own service fee, separately.
I accidentally entered the campaign wizard. Now what?
Just exit without filling anything in. A leftover draft can be discarded from the account list.
What can we do while verification is under review?
Everything except serving ads: linking, tracking setup and landing-page fixes all proceed in parallel.
What if I get stuck on any screen?
Send us a screenshot at contact@mmedia.biz — we have walked every screen of this flow and will point you to the exact button.