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Head to head · Ads reporting · October 2026 research run

Google Ads API vs LinkedIn Marketing APIs

Google Ads API scores 76.4 (BB) on agent readiness against LinkedIn Marketing APIs's 62.4 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do ads reporting.

Google Ads APIGoogle · HTTP API BB76.4/100#30 of 578 LinkedIn Marketing APIsLinkedIn Corporation · HTTP API B62.4/100#272 of 578

Which one, for what

Google Ads API BB

Good for It suits an agent that reports on or manages Google Ads accounts for an advertiser or agency that can get a Cloud project approved.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 82 against 66
  • Schema & documentation, 84 against 66
  • Agent ergonomics, 87 against 63
  • Security & auth, 71 against 66
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 87 against 64

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • Runs on your own machine

Watch for

One OAuth scope, adwords, covers reading, editing, creating and deleting. Read-only access depends on the Google Ads user role

LinkedIn Marketing APIs B

Good for An agent that reports on and manages LinkedIn campaigns for accounts its operator administers, especially read-only reporting, which has no account limit on Development tier.

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

Standard rate limits are not published. An app sees its limit in the Developer Portal only after calling the endpoint

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runGoogle Ads APILinkedIn Marketing APIsEdge
Reliability16%208266Google Ads API +16
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28466Google Ads API +18
Agent ergonomics13%16.28763Google Ads API +24
Security & auth14%17.57166Google Ads API +5
Payments & pricing10%12.54030Google Ads API +10
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88764Google Ads API +23
Transparency & trust7%8.88284LinkedIn Marketing APIs +2
Negative events≤1500
Total76.4 · BB62.4 · B

Facts side by side

FactGoogle Ads APILinkedIn Marketing APIs
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorGoogleLinkedIn Corporation
Hosted endpointhttps://googleads.googleapis.comno (local only)
TransportsHTTP, stdio, Streamable HTTPHTTP
AuthOAuthOAuth
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under the Google Ads API terms. The client libraries and the google-ads-mcp server are Apache-2.0Proprietary service under the LinkedIn API terms of use and the Marketing API terms. The beta Python and JavaScript clients carry LinkedIn's API development software licence
Tools exposed3none
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-09-232026-09-16
Terms last updated2019-02-21couldn't be read
Privacy policy last updated2026-10-01couldn't be read
Customer content may train modelsyescouldn't be read
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textcouldn't be read
Arbitration or class-action waiveryescouldn't be read
Popularity753 stars, 3.1M PyPI/wk25k npm/wk, 386k PyPI/wk

Verdicts

Google Ads API

Test accounts are free and need no approval, and validate_only checks a change without running it. Production access needs a Google Cloud project approved at Explorer level or above and a person to set up OAuth. One OAuth scope covers both reads and writes. The official MCP server is read-only, self-hosted and at version 0.0.4.

LinkedIn Marketing APIs

Monthly API versions are each supported for at least a year, with dated sunsets and a changelog, and a test ad account lets an agent create campaigns that are never served or billed. Access needs LinkedIn's approval and a member's OAuth consent, standard rate limits are not published, and no OpenAPI specification was found.

Before you call either

Google Ads API

  1. Send validateOnly: true on a mutate first. It returns errors without making the change. Batch jobs don't support it
  2. Create campaigns with status PAUSED and enable them in a separate step, since an enabled campaign with a budget can spend
  3. Send login-customer-id (digits only, no hyphens) when you reach a client account through a manager account
  4. A failed request still counts against the daily operation quota. Paging with a valid next_page_token doesn't
  5. Wait at least 12 hours between account budget changes on one account, and use the Data Manager API for new Customer Match or offline conversion work

LinkedIn Marketing APIs

  1. Send Linkedin-Version: YYYYMM and X-Restli-Protocol-Version: 2.0.0 on every call. A missing or sunset version returns an error (426 for a deprecated one)
  2. Create one test ad account with "test": true and build there first. Its creatives are auto-rejected and never billed, and it returns no reporting data
  3. Create campaigns as DRAFT or PAUSED and check servingStatuses before activating. Some validation is postponed until activation
  4. Pass fields= on adAnalytics. Responses stop at 15,000 elements and the endpoint throttles at 45 million metric values per 5 minutes
  5. On Development tier, map each ad account to the app in the Developer Portal. Edits are limited to five accounts

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Google Ads API or LinkedIn Marketing APIs?

Google Ads API scores 76.4 (BB) on agent readiness against LinkedIn Marketing APIs's 62.4 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

Do Google Ads API and LinkedIn Marketing APIs need an API key?

Both use an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call Google Ads API and LinkedIn Marketing APIs without installing anything?

Google Ads API has a hosted endpoint at https://googleads.googleapis.com. No hosted endpoint is listed for LinkedIn Marketing APIs.

Other comparisons with Google Ads API or LinkedIn Marketing APIs

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