The three layers
- Connection — one authorization against a platform: “I linked this account.” You can authorize at the organization level (a manager account that reaches many ad accounts) or at the advertiser level (a single ad account). The connection carries the credential; revoking it on the platform side stops all access.
- Discovered accounts — the accounts that grant can reach. After you authorize, Interchange lists them from the platform. Each account carries an account type and, where the platform has hierarchy, its parent organization.
- Advertiser mapping — links a platform ad account to one of your advertisers, so campaigns for that advertiser transact on the right account. Each connection also has a default account — the account used for new buys on that platform when a request doesn’t name one.
Account types
Every discovered account is classified so you (and Murph) can tell what it is and what it can do:
Accounts with a parent also report
parentExternalId and parentName, so an
agency grant reads as one organization with its client accounts underneath.
What each platform calls these
Manager accounts and agencies
If your access flows through a manager account — an agency MCC on Google, a Business Manager on Meta — connect that account. Interchange expands the manager into its client ad accounts automatically: on Google, client accounts under an MCC are discovered through the manager grant, attributed to the MCC as their parent, and available to map and buy on individually. The manager account itself is listed for context but can never be selected or transacted on. For an agency to buy on a client’s behalf, the grant happens on the platform, not in Interchange: the client adds the agency’s manager account / Business Manager / Business Center as a partner with campaign-management access. Once the platform-side grant exists, connecting the agency’s manager account in Interchange surfaces the client’s ad accounts. Each platform’s agency setup runbook walks through the client-side steps per platform.After connecting
- Interchange discovers the accounts the grant can reach and classifies them.
- If the grant reaches exactly one buyable account, it becomes the connection’s default account automatically; otherwise pick one on the Connections tab.
- Map each ad account to the advertiser whose campaigns should run on it.
The Connections page (Settings → Connections) splits this into two
tabs: the Connections tab is where you link, unlink, and re-authorize
grants; the Advertiser mapping tab is where discovered accounts —
grouped under their manager account — are mapped to advertisers. An account
can be mapped to more than one advertiser, and an advertiser can be mapped
on several platforms. The mapping decides which account a buy runs on:
a media buy for an unmapped advertiser fails with an
account_mapping_requiredblocker pointing back to the Advertiser mapping tab — it never silently falls back to another account. - Connection summaries report a mapped advertiser count so you (and your agent) can see “connected, but 0 advertisers mapped” — connected is not the same as buyable — before a campaign trips over it.
- Account lists refresh when the connection re-authorizes. If accounts were added on the platform side (for example, a new client under your MCC), refresh the connection to pick them up.
Unlinking
Unlinking a connection archives the grant and its credential, but your advertiser mappings are kept, not deleted. A mapping whose ad account is still reachable through another connection of the same platform (for example, a second grant that covers the same account) keeps working. A mapping only this connection reached is marked unreachable (unreachableAt on the
linked-account resource): it never resolves at buy time — a buy on it fails
with mapped_account_unavailable rather than silently using another account —
and it recovers automatically when you reconnect the platform or re-map the
account. A temporary disconnect/reconnect never loses your mapping work.