On June 12, 2023, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation's declaration of invalidity regarding Mexico's Advertising Contracting Law became effective. This invalidated the Law for Transparency, Prevention, and Combat of Improper Practices in the Matter of Advertising Contracting. Therefore, Google has updated its Google Ads Advertising Program Terms, effective September 25, 2023.
Derived from the invalidity of the Law and to comply with tax regulations, dual payment profiles setups are no longer available. This means you can no longer set up an advertiser as the primary liable party with an agency as the secondary liable party.
To better understand how to make this change, learn how to Make a billing transfer (for monthly invoicing accounts).
This article outlines the specific invoicing and reporting requirements mandated by Mexico's advertising market transparency law. It explains how these regulations impact Google Ads billing formats, payment settings, and account visibility for both advertisers and agencies.
On this page
- Before you begin
- Invoicing obligations: Must invoice advertising costs directly to the end advertiser
- Reporting obligations: Must provide reporting to advertisers
Before you begin
Mexico’s Law on Transparency, Prevention and Combat of Improper Practices regarding the Advertising Market establishes a set of requirements for advertising agencies and advertising service providers (such as Google). Among its provisions is a requirement that Google must invoice advertising costs directly to the end advertiser. This applies if the advertiser resides in Mexico and the ads are displayed there. In addition, Google must provide reports including certain information to advertisers on their campaigns details.
Invoicing Obligations: Must invoice advertising costs directly to the end advertiser
Customers using Monthly Invoicing payment setting
If Google currently invoices the agency as the primary* financially responsible party on behalf of an advertiser, changes are required to comply with the new law. Moving forward, these Google Ads accounts must bill the advertiser as the primary financially responsible party. The agency can still be included as a secondary** party to continue managing billing on the advertiser’s behalf.
This primary or secondary billing change above requires a new billing format which is being developed by Google over the coming weeks for all customers in Mexico. Agencies will be notified through email after the new billing format is available. This email will outline the steps to transition to the new format, which designates the advertiser as the primary billing party and the agency as the secondary party.
What else changes when setting the advertiser as the primary party and the agency as secondary party?
| Primary | Secondary | |
|---|---|---|
| Details to which facturas, complemento de pago and notas de credito will be issued | ||
| Details included in Commercial invoices (not valid from a tax perspective) | ||
| Receives documents through email | ||
| Has the ability to pay invoices | ||
| Has the ability to view invoices in the Statement of Account tool | ||
| Has the ability to view invoices within the Google Ads UI | ||
| Primarily liable party for payment obligation and suspension reinstatement | ||
| Initial party to be contacted by our collections team in the event of non-payment or suspension due to non-payment | ||
| No changes to current payments terms (time given to pay after invoice date) irrespective of who is primary or secondary |
Customers using prepayment setting
If the agency is currently listed as the primary financial party in the relevant Google Ads account, the account will need to be changed to reflect the advertiser as the primary financial party. Agencies and advertisers can make this change by contacting us.
When contacting us to make this change, ensure you're providing all the required information below:
- Google Ads Customer ID(s)
- Advertiser’s legal company name, according to registration documents
- Advertiser’s tax address, according to registration documents
- Advertiser’s Registro Federal de Contribuyentes (RFC) number
- Advertiser’s primary billing contact name
- Advertiser’s primary billing contact email (must be a company domain and linked to Google account, following the steps outlined below)
- Advertiser’s primary billing contact phone number
Link to a Google account
- Go to your Google Account.
- In the email/user field, select the "Use your existing email" option and fill in your corporate email.
- Fill in the remaining data and select Next until the process is finished.
- You may receive an email asking you to confirm the link (make sure it didn't get sent to the Spam folder). Confirm to finish the process.
Reporting obligations: Must provide reporting to advertisers
Advertisers with access to their Google Ads accounts can easily access their campaign information from their Google Ads user interface. However, advertisers may not have full visibility of their account activity under the setup mentioned above. This applies where an agency manages their campaigns and billing as a secondary liable party.
To comply with the law, all Google Ads advertisers that set up their accounts with this dual setup will receive a monthly report through email titled "Ads Campaign Report".
This report will be sent to the advertiser’s payment profile contacts at the beginning of every month and will contain the previous month’s account activity details including:
- Campaigns date range
- Campaigns names and statuses
- Ad network type (for example, Search or Youtube) where the advertisements were displayed in the corresponding format.
- Campaign cost and cost per interaction
Note the consolidated monthly Ads Campaign Report will include the above details for each month, irrespective of any changes to billed and invoiced parties.
