Intro

This page documents how Pirates of Tokyo Bay uses the Google Ads API. It exists so that anyone reviewing our API access, including Google, can see exactly what we do with it.

Who we are

Pirates of Tokyo Bay is an improv comedy group based in Tokyo, Japan. We perform a monthly public show and our revenue comes from ticket sales to our own performances.

We are an advertiser, not a software company. We are not an agency, we do not manage advertising for any other business, and we do not sell or license software. Our website is a theatre company website because that is our business.

Why we use the API

We buy Google Ads to sell tickets to our own shows. Today we read those results by logging into the Google Ads interface and copying figures by hand, then comparing them against our website analytics and our ticket sales.

We use the API to read the same numbers automatically, so advertising cost and click data can sit alongside our website analytics in one place. The question we are trying to answer is simple: are the ads selling tickets?

What the tool is

We have not written our own Google Ads API client. We use the official open-source server that Google publishes:

https://github.com/googleads/google-ads-mcp

It runs locally on one laptop, installed into an isolated Python environment. It is connected to Claude Code, a command-line assistant made by Anthropic, used from a terminal on that same laptop.

There is no web application, no hosted service, no mobile app, and no product offered to anyone else. Nothing is deployed and nothing is distributed.

What it reads

The Google-published server exposes three read operations, and those are the only calls we make:

  • List accessible customers, to confirm which of our own accounts the credential can see
  • Search, to read reporting rows
  • A metadata lookup, to read the API's own field definitions

Typical fields we query on our own account: campaign name and status; impressions, clicks, cost and conversions; and date, for filtering.

What it does not do

We make no mutate calls of any kind. We do not create, edit, pause or remove campaigns, ad groups, ads, keywords, budgets or bids. The server we use implements no mutate operation at all, so this is enforced by the tool itself and not only by our intent.

Who has access

One person: the owner of the group. There are no other users, no employees using the tool, and no clients. The credential is stored on his laptop in a permission-restricted directory and is not shared.

Accounts accessed

Only our own:

  • 183-418-2778, POTB Manager. Created only to hold the developer token, because the API Center is available only in manager accounts.
  • 489-437-8037, Pirates of Tokyo Bay. Our live advertising account.

We will never access an account belonging to another advertiser.

Expected volume

Very low. A handful of read queries on the days we review ad performance, and none on other days. Realistically under 100 operations per day and often zero, far below the Basic Access limit of 15,000.

Contact

Questions about our API use can be sent to the address on our contact page or email directly at info@japancomedy.com