Common Issues

Connection issues

"We could not connect your account" error during authorization

This error occurs when Microsoft's OAuth flow fails, usually due to account restrictions or permissions.

Steps to fix:

1. Verify you're signing in with a Microsoft account that has access to the Microsoft Ads account (not a Gmail or other email)

2. Confirm your Microsoft Ads account role is Admin or Standard — Read-only users cannot authorize OAuth connections

3. Check if two-factor authentication (2FA) is enabled on your Microsoft account; if so, complete the 2FA challenge during sign-in

4. Clear your browser cache and cookies, then try again

5. Use an incognito/private browser window to avoid cached credential conflicts

6. If the issue persists, contact support — it may be an account-level restriction on Microsoft's side

"Could not authenticate" after clicking Authorize

The Microsoft OAuth token may have expired or failed mid-flow.

Steps to fix:

1. Go back and click Disconnect, then Connect account again to start fresh

2. During sign-in, ensure you don't get logged out or encounter any verification prompts

3. If you have multiple Microsoft accounts, make sure you're signing in with the correct one

4. Wait 1–2 minutes after signing in and try again; the token may not have been issued yet

5. If the error repeats, it may indicate a temporary issue with Microsoft's API — wait 30 minutes and retry

No ad accounts appear in the account selector

The authorized account has no Microsoft Ads accounts linked to it.

Steps to fix:

1. Verify that the account you logged in with is associated with at least one active Microsoft Ads account

2. Log in to Microsoft Ads directly with the same account to confirm you have ad accounts there

3. If you see ad accounts in Microsoft Ads but not in Coupler.io, refresh the page and try connecting again

4. If the issue persists, contact Microsoft support to ensure the account is linked correctly

Missing data

Report shows no data or fewer rows than expected

This is often caused by report period settings or API latency.

Steps to fix:

1. Check the date range: Microsoft Ads may not have data for today or yesterday due to processing delays. Try selecting a date range from 2+ days ago

2. Verify campaigns were active: If you're reporting on old campaigns, confirm they were running during the selected period

3. Check for filters: Review your advanced filters — if you filtered by campaign, ad group, or keyword, you may have excluded active ads

4. Wait for data availability: Give Microsoft Ads 24–48 hours to fully process and report data. Run the import again the next morning

5. Test with a shorter period: Try a 7-day report instead of 90 days to isolate the issue

"Duplicated rows" in reports or unexpected duplicate data

Duplicate rows can occur when splitting data by period or when running multiple overlapping imports.

Steps to fix:

1. Check your Split data by period setting — if set to Daily/Weekly, you may see one row per period per dimension (not a duplicate, just granular)

2. Verify you're not running multiple data flows pulling the same report type and period to the same destination

3. If appending data from multiple accounts, ensure each account appears only once in your account selector

4. Clear and re-run the data flow to remove old duplicates from your destination

5. If the issue persists after these steps, contact support with your data flow ID

Data is missing for specific keywords, campaigns, or ads

Microsoft Ads only reports on keywords and ads that received at least one impression during the period.

Steps to fix:

1. Confirm the campaign or keyword was active during your selected report period

2. Verify it received impressions in Microsoft Ads directly — paused keywords or ads with zero impressions won't appear in reports

3. Check your advanced filters — you may have accidentally filtered out the keyword or campaign

4. For new keywords (added today), wait 24–48 hours for data to appear

5. If a campaign was running but still missing, it may be a Microsoft API issue — contact support

Permission errors

"Permission denied" or "Unauthorized access" error

Your Microsoft Ads account role may not have enough permissions.

Steps to fix:

1. Confirm your role in Microsoft Ads is Admin or Standard — log into Microsoft Ads and check Account settings > Users

2. If you're a Read-only user, ask your account Admin to upgrade your role

3. If you just gained new permissions, sign out of Microsoft Ads and Coupler.io completely, wait 5 minutes, and sign back in

4. Disconnect the Coupler.io connection, wait 1 minute, and reconnect with your Admin account

"Account access denied" when selecting multiple accounts

You don't have access to all the accounts you're trying to select.

Steps to fix:

1. Deselect accounts you don't have Admin/Standard access to

2. Ask account Admins to grant you access to those accounts, then disconnect and reconnect Coupler.io

3. If you're unsure which accounts you can access, log into Microsoft Ads directly and check the account list

Data discrepancies

Revenue metric appears as text instead of a number in Looker Studio

Microsoft Ads exports revenue as text with formatting (commas, decimals), which Looker Studio detects as a string.

Steps to fix:

1. In Looker Studio, go to Data source > select the Microsoft Ads connection > click Edit

2. Find the Revenue field and change its type from Text to Number

3. Click Reconnect to apply the change

4. If the field still shows as text, create a calculated field: CAST(Revenue AS NUMBER) and use it in your charts instead

5. Alternatively, export to Google Sheets or BigQuery where revenue will be properly converted to numeric format

Metrics in Coupler.io don't match Microsoft Ads directly

Metric discrepancies can stem from report lag, filtering differences, or timezone issues.

Steps to fix:

1. Check the date range: Microsoft Ads displays finalized data 24–48 hours after the reporting period ends. If you're comparing today's data in Coupler.io to today's data in Microsoft Ads, they will differ

2. Verify report period: Ensure your Coupler.io report uses the exact same date range as the one you're viewing in Microsoft Ads

3. Check filters: If you applied advanced filters in Coupler.io (campaign, device, network, etc.), disable them to see unfiltered data

4. Account for timezone: Microsoft Ads may use a different timezone than Coupler.io. Align both to the same timezone in settings

5. Try a different report type: Pull Account performance report for a top-level view to confirm total spend and conversions match

6. If discrepancies persist, contact support with screenshots of both sources

Search query data is missing or incomplete

Microsoft Ads limits search query visibility based on privacy and minimum threshold rules.

Steps to fix:

1. Verify the search query triggered at least 10 clicks (Microsoft's threshold for reporting)

2. Check if you have search query exclusions or negative keywords that might be filtering results

3. Ensure you're reporting on a date range where the query had traffic

4. If using a custom report with Search query as a dimension, add at least one metric (Clicks, Impressions, Conversions) to see results

5. For aggregated trends, use the Search query performance report (pre-built) instead of a custom report

Rate limits

"Memory limit exceeded" or "Request timeout" errors

Your report is too large for Microsoft's API to process in a single request.

Steps to fix:

1. Reduce the date range: Instead of 90 days, try 30 days or 7 days

2. Use Split by Period: Set Split data by period to Daily or Weekly instead of Summary — this breaks the large report into smaller chunks

3. Add filters: Use advanced filters to limit the report to specific campaigns, ad groups, or devices

4. Remove unnecessary fields: If using a custom report, include only the dimensions and metrics you need

5. Increase frequency: Instead of one monthly import, run weekly imports and append them together

6. If none of these work, contact support — your account may be exceptionally large

Data flow is slow or takes a long time to run

Large reports or API throttling can cause slowdowns.

Steps to fix:

1. Check Microsoft's service status: Visit Microsoft Ads service health and confirm no outages are occurring

2. Reduce report scope: Use advanced filters or smaller date ranges

3. Split by period: Enable Split data by period to break the report into chunks

4. Schedule off-peak times: Run imports during early morning or late evening to avoid congestion

5. Avoid overlapping runs: If you have multiple data flows running, space them out by 15–30 minutes

6. Contact support if a simple 7-day report is consistently slow — it may indicate an account-level API issue