Linking product accounts

The Google Ads API supports linking Google Ads accounts to other product accounts. This guide explains how to use the API to link your accounts.

Ways to link accounts

When linking a Google Ads account to another product account, there are two different ways in which the linking can happen.

Invitation flow

Invitation flow is used when you have administrator access to the Google Ads account, but not the product account. This flow works in two scenarios:

1. You want to link the two accounts and create an invitation for an administrator of the product account. The product account administrator accepts the invitation to complete the account linking process.
2. The product account administrator wants to link the two accounts, but doesn't have access to the Google Ads account. The product account administrator creates an invitation, and you accept the invitation and complete the linking process.

The following methods are used in this scenario:

Scenario	Action	Remarks
Scenario 1	Create an invitation	Use the ProductLinkInvitationService.CreateProductLinkInvitation method to create an invitation. The status of the ProductLinkInvitation shouldn't be set; the Google Ads API server will set this to REQUESTED upon the successful completion of the API call.
	Inspect the status of an invitation	Use GoogleAdsService.Search or GoogleAdsService.SearchStream to query the product_link_invitation resource and inspect its status.
Scenario 2	Retrieve an invitation	Use GoogleAdsService.Search or GoogleAdsService.SearchStream to query the product_link_invitation resource. Filter for status = PENDING_APPROVAL to accept or reject a pending invitation.
	Accept or reject an invitation	Use the ProductLinkInvitationService.UpdateProductLinkInvitation method to update the status of the ProductLinkInvitation to ACCEPTED or REJECTED.
	Revoke an invitation	Use the ProductLinkInvitationService.RemoveProductLinkInvitation method to revoke an existing ProductLinkInvitation.

The following common errors can be thrown in this workflow:

Error code	Explanation
ProductLinkInvitationError.PERMISSION_DENIED	The customer doesn't have the permission to perform this action.
ProductLinkError.NO_INVITATION_REQUIRED	An invitation couldn't be created, since the user already has administrator access to the invited account. The user should use the ProductLinkService to directly create an active link.

Direct linking flow

Direct linking flow is used when you have administrator access to both the Google Ads account and the product account. In this case, you directly link the Google Ads account to the product account instead of sending an invitation.

The following methods are used in this scenario:

Action	Remarks
Create an active link	Use ProductLinkService.createProductLink to create a ProductLink.
Disable an active link	Use ProductLinkService.removeProductLink to remove an active ProductLink.
Retrieve active links	Use GoogleAdsService.Search or GoogleAdsService.SearchStream to query the product_link resource.

The following common errors may be thrown in this workflow:

Error code	Explanation
ProductLinkError.CREATION_NOT_PERMITTED	An account linking was attempted using the direct link flow, but this isn't supported due to lack of permissions. The user should use ProductLinkInvitationService to do the invitation flow instead.
ProductLinkError.INVITATION_EXISTS	A link cannot be created because a pending invitation already exists.

Changes to AccountLinkService

If you use AccountLinkService to link a Google Ads account to another product account, you must migrate your existing application to one of the workflows listed earlier. For the following link types, migrate off AccountLinkService and use ProductLinkService:

• GoogleAdsIdentifier
• MerchantCenterIdentifier
• AdvertisingPartnerIdentifier

For ThirdPartyAppAnalyticsLinkIdentifier, continue to use AccountLinkService.