Businesses, accounts and products
A business is the company that you advertise. An account is a Google Ads account that Hero Marketer connects to. A product is something that the business sells. Each account is in one business. The products of a business are available on all the accounts of that business.
What a business is
A business is the company that you advertise. For most users, it is their own company. A fractional marketer or an agency has one business for each client. A business holds:
- Products. Up to 10. Two products in one business cannot have the same name.
- Accounts. The Google Ads accounts that advertise for the business.
Hero Marketer creates your first business when you connect your first account. The business gets the name of the domain of your work email. For example, jane@acme.io gives "Acme". If you sign up with a personal address, such as a Gmail address, the business gets the name of the account. To change the name, open Settings > Connections and click Rename next to the business.
A business belongs to you only. There are no seats, roles, or shared businesses. There is no limit on the number of businesses.
What an account is
An account is a Google Ads account that Hero Marketer connects to. Hero Marketer identifies each account by a Google Ads customer ID with 10 digits (like 123-456-7890). Accounts in Hero Marketer match accounts in Google Ads one to one. Hero Marketer connects to existing accounts. It never creates one. Each account carries:
- Billing. You pay Google directly for ad spend on the account. Hero Marketer never bills your ad spend.
- Time zone and currency. You set these in Google Ads. Hero Marketer inherits both for reporting.
- Permissions. The Google identities that can manage the account.
- Campaigns. Every campaign that you build through Hero Marketer's wizard or directly in Google Ads.
- Assets. Sitelinks, callouts, and other extensions that live at the account level.
Each account also keeps its own dashboards, reports, Hero AI chats, and alerts. They stay with the account when you move the account to another business.
What a product is
A product is something that a business sells. It is a Hero Marketer concept, not a Google Ads concept. Google Ads has no "product" object. Each product carries:
- A name. What customers know it as.
- A website URL. The default landing page for its ads.
- Product context. Who buys the product, their struggles, the problem it solves, what makes it different, and the proof and offers that its website shows. Hero Marketer reads it from the product's website when you add the product, or before the product's first campaign. Onboarding does not create it. Ad copy and landing page drafts use the full product context. Keyword research uses only the product name and the first point of What problem does your product solve?.
- Ad styles and a look. The three color styles for the product's ad images (dark, brand color, and light), and the look that every ad image of the product shows. Hero Marketer builds them from the website and the logo the first time you use Create images for the product. You pick the look from three sample ads. See Create ad images.
A product is the thing your customer buys. Linear is a product. Salesforce is a product. Each pricing tier of your own product can be a separate product in Hero Marketer. All tiers can also be a single product, if your positioning treats them as one.
Why Hero Marketer separates the three
Google Ads has no business and no product. A Google Ads account contains campaigns, and each campaign points at a destination URL. Google does not know if two campaigns are for the same product or for different products. Hero Marketer needs that distinction, because different products have different customers, jobs, keywords, and copy. Hero Marketer also needs the business, because one company can advertise from more than one account. With these objects, Hero Marketer can:
- Capture and refine product context for each product independently.
- Generate ad copy that fits a specific product's positioning instead of generic copy for the whole account.
- Use the same products on all the accounts of one company.
Hero Marketer does not link campaigns to products. Campaigns belong to the account. Hero Marketer uses the product that you pick in the campaign wizard to find keywords and write ad copy. The dashboard, the All campaigns page, and reports show campaigns by account, not by product.
How businesses, accounts and products nest
Your Hero Marketer login contains businesses. A business contains products and accounts. An account contains campaigns. A campaign does not belong to a product:
Your Hero Marketer login
└── Business (the company that you advertise)
├── Product A
├── Product B
└── Account (a Google Ads account)
└── Campaigns
Two limits apply. You can connect up to 10 Google Ads accounts to your login. Each business can hold up to 10 products. There are no plans or tiers, so every user gets the same limits. See Hit the account or product limit.
Daily checks cost 0.25 credits a day for each connected account. The charge starts when you buy credits for the first time. To stop it, turn off all 17 alert types and all automations. Or disconnect the account. See Monitoring and the daily rate.
When to use one business or more than one
How many businesses you need depends on the companies that you advertise:
- One business, one account. One company advertises from one Google Ads account. This is the most common setup. The business can hold up to 10 products.
- One business, more than one account. One company advertises from separate Google Ads accounts, for example one account for each region. All the accounts use the products of the business.
- More than one business. You manage paid search for separate companies, for example as a fractional marketer or an agency. Put each client in its own business, so that each client keeps its own products.
Move an account to another business
To move an account, open Settings > Connections. Click Move on the account. Pick one of your other businesses, or pick A new business and type a name. Click Move account. The dashboards, reports, Hero AI chats, and alerts of the account stay with the account.
Merge two businesses
To merge two businesses, move the last account of one business into the other business. Hero Marketer then moves the products of the first business too, and removes the first business. The Move to another business dialog tells you this before you click Move account.
You cannot merge two businesses in these conditions:
- Both businesses have a product with the same name. Rename or delete one of the two products. Then move the account again.
- The merged business would have more than 10 products. Delete products in one of the two businesses. Then move the account again.
Manage several Google Ads accounts from one login
With a manager (MCC) login, the account list shows the manager's direct client accounts that are enabled. Clients under a sub-manager do not appear. Connect those from a login with direct access. You connect client accounts one at a time. Each client account is a separate account in Hero Marketer, with its own dashboard, chats, and reports. There is no view across accounts or across businesses.
Your alert and automation settings apply to every Google Ads account that you connect, not only the active account. Custom alerts and custom automations are different. Each one runs on the account that was active when you saved it. One credit balance pays for all your accounts. See Add another Google Ads account.
How you switch between businesses, accounts and products
You operate on one account at a time. You set the active account in the account switcher at the top of the sidebar. The switcher shows the accounts of the active business. When you have more than one business, the switcher also shows a Business row at the top. Pick the business there, then pick the account.
There is no active product setting. You pick a product in the campaign wizard, in the Show my ad for sentence on the Choose what to target step. For product work such as ad copy, Hero AI uses the only product of the business. When the business has more than one product, Hero AI asks which product to use. To learn how to switch the active account, see Switch between accounts.