How to set up the LinkedIn Ads source connector with Airbyte

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LinkedIn Ads

This page guides you through the process of setting up the LinkedIn Ads source connector.

Prerequisites

For Airbyte Cloud:

  • The LinkedIn Ads account with permission to access data from accounts you want to sync.

For Airbyte Open Source:

  • The LinkedIn Ads account with permission to access data from accounts you want to sync.
  • Authentication Options:
    • OAuth2.0:
      • Client ID from your Developer Application
      • Client Secret from your Developer Application
      • Refresh Token obtained from successful authorization with Client ID + Client Secret
    • Access Token:
      • Access Token obtained from successful authorization with Client ID + Client Secret

Step 1: Set up LinkedIn Ads

  1. Login to LinkedIn with a developer account.
  2. Click the Create App icon on the center of the page or use here. Fill in the required fields:

    1. For App Name, enter a name.
    2. For LinkedIn Page, enter your company's name or LinkedIn Company Page URL.
    3. For Privacy policy URL, enter the link to your company's privacy policy.
    4. For App logo, upload your company's logo.
    5. For Legal Agreement, select I have read and agree to these terms.
    6. Click Create App, on the bottom right of the screen. LinkedIn redirects you to a page showing the details of your application.
  3. Verify your app. You can verify your app using the following steps:

    1. To display the settings page, click the Settings tab. On the App Settings section, click Verify under Company. A popup window will be displayed. To generate the verification URL, click on Generate URL, then copy and send the URL to the Page Admin (this may be you). Click on I'm done. If you are the administrator of your Page, simply run the URL in a new tab (if not, an administrator will have to do the next step). Click on Verify. Finally, Refresh the tab of app creation, the app should now be associated with your Page.

    2. To display the Products page, click the Product tab. For Marketing Developer Platform click on the Request access. A popup window will be displayed. Review and Select I have read and agree to these terms. Finally, click Request access.

    3. To authorize your application, click the Auth tab. The authentication page is displayed. Copy the client_id and client_secret (for later steps). For Oauth 2.0 settings, Provide a redirect_uri (for later steps).

    4. Click and review the Analytics tab. This page shows the daily application and user/member limits with the percent used for each resource endpoint.

  1. (Optional for Airbyte Cloud) Authorize your app. In case your authorization expires:

    The authorization token lasts 60-days before expiring. The connector app will need to be reauthorized when the authorization token expires. Create an Authorization URL with the following steps:

    1. Replace the highlighted parameters YOUR_CLIENT_ID and YOUR_REDIRECT_URI in the URL (https://www.linkedin.com/oauth/v2/authorization?response_type=code&client_id=YOUR_CLIENT_ID&redirect_uri=YOUR_REDIRECT_URI&scope=r_emailaddress,r_liteprofile,r_ads,r_ads_reporting,r_organization_social) from the scope obtain below.

    2. Set up permissions for the following scopes r_emailaddress,r_liteprofile,r_ads,r_ads_reporting,r_organization_social. For OAuth2.0, copy the Client ID, and Client Secret from your Developer Application. And copy the Refresh Token obtained from successful authorization with Client ID + Client Secret

    3. Enter the modified URL in the browser. You will be redirected.

    4. To authorize the app, click Allow.

    5. Copy the code parameter listed in the redirect URL in the Browser header URL.

  2. (Optional for Airbyte Cloud) Run the following curl command using Terminal or Command line with the parameters replaced to return your access_token. The access_token expires in 2-months.

     curl -0 -v -X POST https://www.linkedin.com/oauth/v2/accessToken\
     -H "Accept: application/json"\
     -H "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"\
     -d "grant_type=authorization_code"\
     -d "code=YOUR_CODE"\
     -d "client_id=YOUR_CLIENT_ID"\
     -d "client_secret=YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET"\
     -d "redirect_uri=YOUR_REDIRECT_URI"
    
  3. (Optional for Airbyte Cloud) Use the access_token. Same as the approach in Step 5 to authorize LinkedIn Ads connector.

Notes:

The API user account should be assigned the following permissions for the API endpoints: Endpoints such as: Accounts, Account Users, Ad Direct Sponsored Contents, Campaign Groups, Campaigns, and Creatives requires the following permissions set:

  • r_ads: read ads (Recommended), rw_ads: read-write ads Endpoints such as: Ad Analytics by Campaign, and Ad Analytics by Creatives requires the following permissions set:
  • r_ads_reporting: read ads reporting The complete set of permissions is as follows:
  • r_emailaddress,r_liteprofile,r_ads,r_ads_reporting,r_organization_social

The API user account should be assigned one of the following roles:

  • ACCOUNT_BILLING_ADMIN
  • ACCOUNT_MANAGER
  • CAMPAIGN_MANAGER
  • CREATIVE_MANAGER
  • VIEWER (Recommended)

To edit these roles, sign in to Campaign Manager and follow these instructions.

Step 2: Set up the source connector in Airbyte

For Airbyte Cloud:

  1. Login to your Airbyte Cloud account.
  2. In the left navigation bar, click Sources. In the top-right corner, click + new source.
  3. On the source setup page, select LinkedIn Ads from the Source type dropdown and enter a name for this connector.
  4. Add Start Date - the starting point for your data replication.
  5. Add your Account IDs (Optional) if required.
  6. Click Authenticate your account.
  7. Login and Authorize the LinkedIn Ads account
  8. Click Set up source.

For Airbyte Open Source:

  1. Go to the local Airbyte page.
  2. In the left navigation bar, click Sources. In the top-right corner, click + new source.
  3. On the Set up the source page, enter the name for the connector and select LinkedIn Ads from the Source type dropdown.
  4. Add Start Date - the starting point for your data replication.
  5. Add your Account IDs (Optional) if required.
  6. Choose between Authentication Options:
    1. For OAuth2.0: Copy and paste info (Client ID, Client Secret) from your LinkedIn Ads developer application, and obtain the Refresh Token using Set up LinkedIn Ads guide steps and paste it into the corresponding field.
    2. For Access Token: Obtain the Access Token using Set up LinkedIn Ads guide steps and paste it into the corresponding field.
  7. Click Set up source.

Supported Streams and Sync Modes

This Source is capable of syncing the following data as streams:

Sync ModeSupported?(Yes/No)
Full Refresh Overwrite SyncYes
Full Refresh Append SyncYes
Incremental - Append SyncYes
Incremental - Append + Deduplication SyncYes

NOTE:

The Ad Direct Sponsored Contents stream includes information about VIDEO ADS, as well as SINGLE IMAGE ADS and other directly sponsored ads your account might have.

For Analytics Streams such as Ad Analytics by Campaign and Ad Analytics by Creative, the pivot column name is renamed to _pivot to handle the data normalization correctly and avoid name conflicts with certain destinations.

Data type mapping

Integration TypeAirbyte TypeNotes
numbernumberfloat number
integerintegerwhole number
datestringFORMAT YYYY-MM-DD
datetimestringFORMAT YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm: ss
arrayarray
booleanbooleanTrue/False
stringstring

Performance considerations

LinkedIn Ads has Official Rate Limits for API Usage, more information here. Rate limited requests will receive a 429 response. These limits reset at midnight UTC every day. In rare cases, LinkedIn may also return a 429 response as part of infrastructure protection. API service will return to normal automatically. In such cases, you will receive the following error message:

"Caught retriable error '<some_error> or null' after <some_number> tries. Waiting <some_number> seconds then retrying..."

This is expected when the connector hits the 429 - Rate Limit Exceeded HTTP Error. If the maximum available API requests capacity is reached, you will have the following message:

"Max try rate limit exceeded..."

After 5 unsuccessful attempts - the connector will stop the sync operation. In such cases check your Rate Limits on this page > Choose your app > Analytics.

Changelog

VersionDatePull RequestSubject
0.1.122022-10-1818111for adDirectSponsoredContents stream skip accounts which are part of organization
0.1.112022-10-0717724Retry 429/5xx errors when refreshing access token
0.1.102022-09-2817326Migrate to per-stream states.
0.1.92022-07-2114924Remove additionalProperties field from schemas
0.1.82022-06-0713495Fixed base-normalization issue on Destination Redshift caused by wrong casting of pivot column
0.1.72022-05-0412482Update input configuration copy
0.1.62022-04-0411690Small documentation corrections
0.1.52021-12-218984Update connector fields title/description
0.1.42021-12-028382Modify log message in rate-limit cases
0.1.32021-11-117839Added OAuth support
0.1.22021-11-087499Remove base-python dependencies
0.1.12021-10-026610Fix for Campaigns/targetingCriteria transformation, coerced Creatives/variables/values to string by default
0.1.02021-09-055285Initial release of Native LinkedIn Ads connector for Airbyte
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