A partner link connects an advertiser account to a data partner account.
This allows a data partner to manage audiences or events in the advertiser's
account using credentials for their own data partner account, rather than
needing credentials with *direct* access to the advertiser's account.

See the [data partner scenarios](https://developers.google.com/data-manager/api/devguides/concepts/destinations#data-partner) section in the destinations
guide to see how data partners can use partner links to manage access to
different accounts. For direct access that requires advertiser
credentials, see the [advertiser scenarios](https://developers.google.com/data-manager/api/devguides/concepts/destinations#advertiser) section.

We recommend that you work with your Google representative to allow advertisers
to manage partner links to your data partner account in the Google Ads, Display \& Video 360, or
Google Ad Manager UI. A data partner only needs to use the
[`PartnerLinkService`](https://developers.google.com/data-manager/api/reference/rpc/google.ads.datamanager.v1#partnerlinkservice) to create or delete
links if managing links to their data partner account isn't available in the UI,
or if they prefer to offer partner linking functionality within their
application.

> [!NOTE]
> **Note:** Partner links aren't the same as the links between a Google Ads manager account and a Google Ads account, or the relationship between a Display \& Video 360 partner account and its Display \& Video 360 advertiser accounts.

## Benefits of partner links

As a data partner, using a partner link to manage advertiser accounts provides
several advantages compared to the direct access approach.

|   | Partner link | Direct access |
|---|---|---|
| Narrowly-scoped credentials for the advertiser account | Credentials that only allow creating or deleting a partner link. Yes | Broadly-scoped credentials that allow changing many aspects of the advertiser's account. No |
| Credential management | Once you create a partner link in an advertiser account, all subsequent requests use a *single* set of credentials for a Google Account with access to the data partner account. Credentials for the advertiser account are *short-lived*. You can discard them once you've used them to create a partner link. Yes | Requires *separate* credentials for *every advertiser account* . Credentials for the advertiser account are *long-lived* . You must securely store the credentials for *every* advertiser, and then securely retrieve the specific credentials for each advertiser when you want to manage audiences or events for that advertiser. No |
| Change history | Changes made by the data partner are clearly identified. The user associated with each change is the Google Account in the data partner account. Yes | Changes made by the data partner are associated with the *advertiser* Google Account associated with the credentials, making it difficult to differentiate between changes made by the advertiser and changes made by the data partner on behalf of the advertiser. No |

## Data partner workflow

> [!TIP]
> **Tip:** This workflow isn't required if advertisers manage partner links to your data partner account in the Google Ads, Display \& Video 360, or Google Ad Manager UI. You can [retrieve partner links](https://developers.google.com/data-manager/api/devguides/accounts/partner-links/retrieve-partner-links) using credentials for your data partner account.

Here are the steps for a data partner to use partner links to manage an
advertiser account:

1. [Get credentials for the advertiser account](https://developers.google.com/data-manager/api/devguides/accounts/partner-links#get-credentials).

2. Use the credentials for the advertiser account to
   [Create a partner link](https://developers.google.com/data-manager/api/devguides/accounts/partner-links/create-partner-link).

3. Discard the credentials for the advertiser account. You don't need them
   now that you created the partner link.

4. **For all subsequent requests** to manage audiences or events in the
   advertiser account, use credentials for a Google Account that's a user in
   your *data partner account* .
   [Configure destinations and headers](https://developers.google.com/data-manager/api/devguides/concepts/destinations)
   to access the advertiser account using the partner link.

## Get credentials for the advertiser account

To create or delete partner links, you need credentials for a Google Account
that's a user in the advertiser account with the following scope:

`https://www.googleapis.com/auth/datamanager.partnerlink`

This scope provides limited access, specifically for creating or deleting a
partner link in the advertiser account. Since this scope is sensitive, you must
complete [OAuth app verification](https://developers.google.com/data-manager/api/devguides/concepts/oauth-verification) to avoid the
[unverified app screen](https://support.google.com/cloud/answer/7454865#unverified-apps).

To obtain the credentials for an advertiser account, build your own OAuth flow
to authenticate your users. There are multiple app types discussed as part of
the [Google Identity documentation](https://developers.google.com/identity/protocols/oauth2), and the
configuration you need to support each app type. All these app types are
supported by Data Manager API, but we recommend either
[Using OAuth 2.0 for Web Server Applications](https://developers.google.com/identity/protocols/oauth2/web-server)
or
[OAuth 2.0 for Client-side Web Applications](https://developers.google.com/identity/protocols/oauth2/javascript-implicit-flow)
for obtaining advertiser credentials for creating partner links.

As you complete the process, configure your application to authenticate for the
partner link scope:

    https://www.googleapis.com/auth/datamanager.partnerlink