Linked accounts are the connections between your Google Ads account and other Google products or approved third-party platforms, such as Google Merchant Center, Google Analytics 4, YouTube, Search Console and Google Business Profile. Each link lets data or assets pass between the two: product listings flowing into your ads, for example, or conversion data flowing back.
How linked accounts work
A link is a two-sided agreement. One account sends a request and the other accepts it, which is why linking usually needs someone with admin rights on both sides. In Google Ads the links sit under the Tools menu, in the data manager area in most accounts at the time of writing (October 2026). Google has renamed and moved this menu more than once, so the label in your account may differ.
The links most UK businesses use, and what each one does:
- Merchant Center Supplies the product data behind Shopping ads and the product listings in Performance Max. Without it, an online shop cannot advertise individual products. See how Google Merchant Center works.
- Google Analytics 4 Imports GA4 key events as conversions and audiences for remarketing, and sends cost and click data into GA4. GA4 linking has its own settings worth checking.
- YouTube channel Lets you run your own videos as ads, build audiences from people who watched them and see the extra views your ads led to.
- Search Console Puts organic search data next to paid data, which shows where you pay for clicks on searches you already rank well for.
- Google Business Profile Feeds your address into location assets and makes ads eligible to show on Google Maps.
- Third-party platforms CRMs such as HubSpot or Salesforce, through Google’s connectors, so offline outcomes like signed contracts can be imported as conversions.
These product links are different from manager accounts, which connect Google Ads accounts to each other for management and billing.
Why it matters
Most of the useful features in Google Ads depend on a link. Smart Bidding needs reliable conversion data, which often arrives through GA4 or a CRM. A shop’s product ads need Merchant Center. A salon’s address in its ads needs the Business Profile. When a link breaks, the symptom shows up somewhere else: conversions fall to zero, product ads stop serving or the address disappears from ads, and nobody connects it with a link someone removed weeks earlier.
Links also raise ownership questions. If a former agency linked your Merchant Center to its own Ads account, or your GA4 property sits in a freelancer’s personal Google account, you can lose data and history when the relationship ends. There is a data protection angle too: under UK GDPR your business is the controller of the visitor data your analytics collects, so the business should control the property it lives in.
Common mistakes
- Importing a purchase from GA4 and also tracking it with the Google tag, with both set as primary conversions, so every sale is counted twice.
- Leaving old links active to accounts the business no longer uses, including ones held by previous suppliers.
- Linking the wrong Business Profile, such as a duplicate listing or a closed branch, so ads show an out-of-date address.
- Expecting a new link to bring history with it. Linking GA4 today does not backfill past conversions into Google Ads.
- Sending a link request to an account where nobody with admin rights is watching, then waiting for an approval that never comes.
How to act on it
Open the linked accounts screen and list every link: what it connects to and who owns the account on the other side. Remove anything you do not recognise once you have checked nothing depends on it. Make sure the business, not a supplier, owns the GA4 property, the Merchant Center account and the Business Profile, with people inside the business as admins.
Then check each link is doing its job: conversions arriving from one source per action, products approved in Merchant Center and the right address appearing in your ads. I review every link in the first week of Google Ads management, because a broken one quietly undermines every bidding decision built on top of it.