Error: Request Had Insufficient Authentication Scopes

Issue

While creating a Google Ads destination in Activations through the REST API, the following error appears:

Google services error: Request had insufficient authentication scopes

Environment

• Activations destination: Google Ads
• Setup method: Activations REST API

Resolution

To resolve this issue, generate a new Google OAuth access token that includes the required scopes:

1. In Google OAuth 2.0 Playground, start a new authorization flow.
2. Request the following scopes in the same authorization request:
   • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/adwords
   • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/datamanager
3. Complete the consent flow.
4. Generate a new access token.
5. Add the new token to your Activations API request payload.
6. Retry the API request.

If the error persists, check the following:

• In Google OAuth 2.0 Playground, confirm that you authorized the token with a Google account that has access to the target Google Ads account. If you used the wrong account, sign in with the correct one and generate a new token.
• Check whether the token has expired. For more information see the Google documentation on using OAuth 2.0 to access Google APIs.
• If you already created the destination with an incorrect token, replace its credentials using the Update destination endpoint, or recreate it using the Create a new destination endpoint.

Cause

This issue occurs when the access token lacks one or both scopes required by the Google Ads destination. When this happens, Google may accept the token during authorization but reject a request that requires a missing scope. For more information, see the Google Ads destination documentation.