Google Ads Now Requires a Passkey. Ask Who Holds It.
Google Ads just added a passkey requirement for logins. Translation: a cryptographic credential tied to one specific device now replaces the password for sensitive account actions and for generating new API refresh tokens. PPC Land reported the change on August 30. No rollout date beyond that. No exemption for smaller accounts either.
You don't touch the campaign console. Stay with me anyway.
Most multifamily ad management runs through the API, whether that's your agency's platform, a bid-management tool, or the in-house dashboard that feeds your reporting deck. Every one of those integrations runs on a refresh token. Refresh tokens now need a passkey to generate. And a passkey doesn't live in a shared password vault where your whole team can grab it. It lives on one device.
If that device belongs to one person at your agency, and that person is out sick, on vacation, or just gone, you've got a locked account at the exact moment your leasing team needs a budget shift or a paused campaign switched back on.
This isn't a slow-month hypothetical.
Fall lease-up pushes, renewal campaigns, reputation-driven budget pulls: all of it depends on someone being able to get into the account fast. Right now, that access rides on a single phone or laptop. That's a single point of failure sitting directly on top of your leasing budget.
Ask these on the next call. Make them answer with specifics, not reassurance.
Source: PPC Land, August 30, 2026
A weekly for the people who run apartment marketing.
Get it Tuesdays