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Connect Google Ads to Experience Platform using the Flow Service API

A base connection represents the authenticated connection between your source and Adobe Experience Platform. Use this tutorial to connect your Google Ads account to Experience Platform using the Flow Service API.

A Google Ads base connection stores the authentication details required to access the Google Ads API and creates the connection ID that you will use in later steps to explore your source configuration and create a dataflow.

Get Started

This guide requires a working understanding of the following components of Experience Platform:

The following sections provide additional information that you will need to know in order to successfully connect to Google Ads using the Flow Service API.

Using Experience Platform APIs

For information on how to successfully make calls to Experience Platform APIs, see the guide on getting started with Experience Platform APIs.

Gather values for required headers

In order to make calls to Experience Platform APIs, you must first complete the authentication tutorial. Completing the authentication tutorial provides the values for each of the required headers in all Experience Platform API calls, as shown below:

Authorization: Bearer {ACCESS_TOKEN}
x-api-key: {API_KEY}
x-gw-ims-org-id: {ORG_ID}
x-sandbox-name: {SANDBOX_NAME}
Content-Type: application/json

All resources in Experience Platform are isolated to specific virtual sandboxes. All requests to Experience Platform APIs require a header that specifies the name of the sandbox the operation will take place in.

Gather required credentials

For information on authentication, read the Google Ads source overview.

Create a base connection

A base connection retains information between your source and Experience Platform, including your source’s authentication credentials, the current state of the connection, and your unique base connection ID.

To create a base connection ID, make a POST request to the /connections endpoint while providing your Google Ads authentication credentials as part of the request parameters.

API format

POST /connections

Request

The following request creates a base connection for Google Ads:

curl -X POST \
  'https://platform.adobe.io/data/foundation/flowservice/connections' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer {ACCESS_TOKEN}' \
  -H 'x-api-key: {API_KEY}' \
  -H 'x-gw-ims-org-id: {ORG_ID}' \
  -H 'x-sandbox-name: {SANDBOX_NAME}' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json'
  -d '{
      "name": "Google Ads base connection",
      "description": "Google Ads base connection",
      "auth": {
          "specName": "Basic Authentication",
          "params": {
              "clientCustomerID": "{CLIENT_CUSTOMER_ID}",
              "loginCustomerID": "{LOGIN_CUSTOMER_ID}",
              "developerToken": "{DEVELOPER_TOKEN}",
              "refreshToken": "{REFRESH_TOKEN}",
              "clientId": "{CLIENT_ID}",
              "clientSecret": "{CLIENT_SECRET}",
              "googleAdsApiVersion": "v19"

          }
      },
      "connectionSpec": {
          "id": "d771e9c1-4f26-40dc-8617-ce58c4b53702",
          "version": "1.0"
      }
  }'

If your target advertiser account is directly accessible and does not require manager-account routing, you may omit loginCustomerID from the auth.params object.

Response

A successful response returns details of the newly created base connection, including its unique identifier (id). This ID is required in the next step to create a source connection.

{
    "id": "2484f2df-c057-4ab5-84f2-dfc0577ab592",
    "etag": "\"10033e77-0000-0200-0000-5e96785b0000\""
}

Verify your connection details

After you create your base connection, validate the following before proceeding:

If authentication succeeds but downstream data access fails, the most common cause is an incorrect or unnecessary loginCustomerId.

Next steps

By following this tutorial, you have created a Google Ads base connection using the Flow Service API.

You can now continue with the following tutorials:

Troubleshooting

Authorization errors for child advertiser accounts

If requests fail when you attempt to access a child advertiser account, verify that loginCustomerId is set to the correct manager account. This is required when access is mediated through an MCC hierarchy.

Invalid or revoked refresh token

If the connector cannot refresh access tokens, re-authorize the Google Ads account to generate a new refresh token.

Unsupported API version

If requests fail due to version mismatch, ensure that googleAdsApiVersion is set to a version supported by Experience Platform.