Google Ads API Usage

Summary

Recipe Finder uses the Google Ads API solely to enrich first-party attribution data for advertising Recipe Finder itself. Specifically, we resolve gbraid click identifiers captured on our own web and mobile landing pages into the campaign, ad group and creative metadata that produced them, so we can measure the performance of our own paid acquisition spend.

We do not manage third-party Google Ads accounts, do not resell API access, and do not expose the Google Ads API (or any data derived from it) to end users of the Recipe Finder app.

Application details

Application name

Recipe Finder

Company

Recipe Finder (operator of recipe-finder.net)

Developer contact

support@recipe-finder.net

Access level requested

Basic Access

Tool type

Internal tool — single Google Ads account (our own)

What we do with the API

Our backend receives signed requests from our own iOS, Android and web clients when a user installs the app or subscribes to Recipe Finder Premium. Those requests carry a gbraid parameter that originated from a Google Ads click on one of our own ads.

We call the Google Ads API to:

1. Resolve that gbraid to the originating campaign, ad group and ad.
2. Join that information with our own first-party install and subscription records.
3. Produce internal attribution reports that tell us which campaigns are actually driving paying Recipe Finder users.

The resulting reports are read only by Recipe Finder's own growth and engineering team. They inform bidding and creative decisions inside the same Google Ads account the API is authenticated against.

What we do NOT do with the API

• We do not manage, query, or touch any Google Ads account other than our own.
• We do not offer Google Ads management as a service to any third party.
• We do not share raw Google Ads API responses with any third party.
• We do not surface Google Ads data inside the Recipe Finder consumer app.
• We do not use the API for automated bidding, auto-creation of campaigns, or bulk account management.

Expected API call volume

Because the API is only called when we need to resolve a newly observed gbraid, call volume is directly proportional to our own paid install volume — typically well under 1,000 calls per day. Results are cached, so the same click identifier is never resolved twice.

Security and data handling

• OAuth credentials and the Google Ads API developer token are stored as encrypted secrets on our production infrastructure and are never committed to source control.
• Access to resolved campaign metadata is limited to Recipe Finder's own internal dashboards, behind authenticated staff accounts.
• No Google Ads API data is shared with third parties, advertising networks, or end users.
• Data handling is described in our Privacy Policy.

Contact

Questions about our Google Ads API usage should be sent to support@recipe-finder.net.