Lakeside CMS
The internal operations platform Lakeside Marketing uses to manage its client accounts, connect each client’s analytics and advertising sources, and produce growth reports from the data those sources return.
What this application does
Lakeside Marketing is a marketing agency. Lakeside CMS is the software its staff use to run the agency’s work for clients. It is not a consumer product and it is not sold or licensed to anyone — it exists to do one company’s job.
- Keeps a record of each client — the services they sell, the towns they serve, their economics, and which marketing systems they use.
- Connects a client’s own accounts, with that client’s authorisation, so their performance can be read rather than guessed at.
- Measures demand and competition for the services a client offers, in the towns they actually serve, using paid search-data providers.
- Produces growth plans that show what a client ranks for, what their market is searching for, and where the gap between the two is.
- Researches prospective clients from publicly available information, so a first conversation is grounded in evidence rather than guesswork.
How Google data is used
When a Lakeside Marketing client asks the agency to report on their marketing, a member of staff connects that client’s Google accounts through this application. Google asks for the client’s consent before any access is granted.
- Google Analytics
- Read-only. Sessions, traffic sources and conversions for the client’s own property.
- Search Console
- Read-only. Impressions, clicks and queries for the client’s own verified site.
- Google Ads
- We read spend, conversions and campaign performance. Google publishes no read-only scope for this API, so the permission granted is broader than our use.
- Business Profile
- We read the client’s listing details to confirm local presence. As with Ads, Google offers no read-only alternative.
Two kinds of reporting, two different sources
The distinction matters, so it is stated plainly: data from a Google account is used to report to the person or business that owns that account. We do not disclose one client’s data to another business, and no report we produce for one business identifies another’s account, spend, or performance.
- Existing clients
- Reported on using their own Google data, with their authorisation, plus public sources.
- Prospective clients
- Researched using public information only — their public website, search-volume and search-results data licensed from third-party providers, and public business listings. No Google account data is involved, and none is requested until they become a client and connect their own accounts.
The application only ever reads. It does not create campaigns, change budgets, edit listings, publish content, or modify anything in a connected Google account, and it has no feature that could.
Google’s consent screen will nonetheless say we can edit your Ads account and your business listings. That is because Google publishes no read-only scope for either API — the narrowest permission available is the one that also permits writing. We do not write, and you can revoke the grant at any time.
Data is used solely to produce reporting for the client it came from, is never sold, never used for advertising, and never transferred to anyone except as needed to provide this service or where the law requires it.
Lakeside CMS’s use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
Who can use it
Access is restricted to Lakeside Marketing staff. There is no public sign-up, and the application has no public content — every page other than this one, the privacy policy and the terms requires an account created by an administrator.
Contact
Lakeside Marketing — pete@madebylakeside.com
madebylakeside.com