Google Merchant Center is a tool that helps you upload your store and product
data to Google and make it available for Shopping ads and other Google services.
Linking your Merchant Center account to your Google Ads account allows your
product data to flow into Google Ads for use in campaigns.

## Account linking overview

Before you can create Shopping campaigns, you must first link your Google Ads
account to a Merchant Center account. There are three ways to establish a link:

1. **Direct linking**: If you have administrative access to both the Google Ads account and the Merchant Center account, you can link them immediately.
2. **Link invitations**: If you do not have administrative access to both accounts, you must send a link invitation from your Merchant Center account and accept it in your Google Ads account.
3. **Business Manager** : If both accounts are managed by the same [Business
   Manager](https://support.google.com/business/answer/13548166) account, they are linked automatically.

The following sections provide details on each of these methods, as well as how
to manage and verify existing links.

## Create direct links

If the user attempting to establish the link has administrative access to both
the Google Ads account and the Merchant Center account, you can use the direct
linking flow to link the accounts immediately without requiring a separate
invitation and approval.

There are two ways to directly link your accounts:

- If initiating the link from Merchant Center, use the Merchant API [`propose`](https://developers.google.com/merchant/api/reference/rest/accounts_v1/accounts.services/propose) method.
- If initiating the link from Google Ads, use the Google Ads API [`ProductLinkService.CreateProductLink`](https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/reference/rpc/v26/ProductLinkService/CreateProductLink) method and set `product_link.merchant_center.merchant_center_id` to the target Merchant Center account ID.

## Use link invitations

If you don't have administrative access to both accounts, you must use a link
invitation flow to establish a link.

### Send a link invitation from your Merchant Center account

There are two ways to send a link invitation:

1. [Use the Merchant Center web interface to send a link invitation](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6159060).
2. [Use the Merchant API for account linking](https://developers.google.com/merchant/api/reference/rest/accounts_v1/accounts.services/propose) to propose a new service link.

### List all link invitations

You can run a [Google Ads API report](https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/docs/reporting/overview) using the following GAQL query to retrieve a
list of all pending link invitations for a Google Ads customer ID from a Merchant
Center account:

    SELECT
        product_link_invitation.resource_name,
        product_link_invitation.merchant_center.merchant_center_id,
        product_link_invitation.type,
        product_link_invitation.status
    FROM product_link_invitation
    WHERE product_link_invitation.status = 'PENDING_APPROVAL'
        AND product_link_invitation.type = 'MERCHANT_CENTER'

To retrieve all link invitations regardless of status (such as `ACCEPTED`,
`REQUESTED`, or `PENDING_APPROVAL`), remove the filtering condition for the
`product_link_invitation.status` field in the preceding query.

> [!NOTE]
> **Note:** There can only be one active link invitation with status `REQUESTED` or `PENDING_APPROVAL` between a Google Ads account and a Merchant Center account.

### Accept a link invitation

You can approve a pending link invitation from a Merchant Center account in one
of two ways:

- [Use the Google Ads web interface](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6159060).
- Use the [`ProductLinkInvitationService.UpdateProductLinkInvitation`](https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/reference/rpc/v26/ProductLinkInvitationService/UpdateProductLinkInvitation) method by passing the invitation's `resource_name` and setting `product_link_invitation_status` to `ACCEPTED`. You can retrieve the resource name of the invitation by following the instructions in [List all
  link invitations](https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/docs/shopping-ads/merchant-center#list-all-link-requests).

### Reject a link invitation

You can reject a pending link invitation from a Merchant Center account in one
of two ways:

- [Use the Google Ads web interface](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6159060).
- Use the [`ProductLinkInvitationService.UpdateProductLinkInvitation`](https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/reference/rpc/v26/ProductLinkInvitationService/UpdateProductLinkInvitation) method by passing the invitation's `resource_name` and setting `product_link_invitation_status` to `REJECTED`. You can retrieve the resource name of the invitation by following the instructions in [List all
  link invitations](https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/docs/shopping-ads/merchant-center#list-all-link-requests).

If a link invitation is rejected, it cannot be subsequently accepted. Instead, a
new invitation must be proposed.

## Business Manager

[Business Manager](https://support.google.com/business/answer/13548166) is a unified representation of a business on Google. When
you manage both your Google Ads account and your Merchant Center accounts using a
Business Manager account, Business Manager [automatically creates links](https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/12499498)
between your Google Ads account and the Merchant Center account. You can retrieve
these links using the Google Ads API, but these links cannot be mutated with the
Google Ads API.

## Manage and verify links

You can manage and verify existing links between your Merchant Center and Google Ads
accounts using the Google Ads API.

### List all Merchant Center links

You can run a [Google Ads API report](https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/docs/reporting/overview) using the following GAQL query to retrieve a
list of active Merchant Center links for a Google Ads customer ID:

    SELECT
        product_link.resource_name,
        product_link.merchant_center.merchant_center_id,
        product_link.product_link_id,
        product_link.type
    FROM product_link
    WHERE product_link.type = 'MERCHANT_CENTER'

### Remove a link

You can unlink your accounts using either the Google Ads API or the Merchant API,
depending on which product you're using to initiate the unlink request.
Unlinking an account requires administrative access and prevents active Shopping
campaigns linked to that Merchant Center account from serving product ads.

If you're initiating the unlink request from Google Ads, use the Google Ads API
[`ProductLinkService.RemoveProductLink`](https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/reference/rpc/v26/ProductLinkService/RemoveProductLink) method and pass the
`product_link.resource_name` retrieved from the `product_link` report.

If you're initiating the unlink request from Merchant Center, use the [Merchant
API for account linking `accounts.services.reject`](https://developers.google.com/merchant/api/reference/rest/accounts_v1/accounts.services/reject) method on the active
service link.