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The GA4 AdSense link picker is empty and gives no reason

ANALYTICS · GA4

In Google Analytics you go to Admin, Product links, Google AdSense links, and click to create a link. The publisher picker opens and says No results found. You definitely have an AdSense account. There is no error and no explanation.

The requirement nobody states plainly

Creating this link needs two permissions held by the same signed in Google account:

• Edit rights on the Analytics property
• Administrator access on the AdSense publisher

The picker lists only publishers the current account administers. If your AdSense account belongs to a different Google login than the one you are using in Analytics, the list is legitimately empty. The interface does not say so, which is what makes this cost an afternoon.

Find out which account actually owns AdSense

This takes about fifteen seconds. Sign in as any account and go to your AdSense URL. If that account lacks access, the denial page helpfully lists the other accounts on the browser that do have it:

https://adsense.google.com/adsense/u/0/pub-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/home

Vary the u/0 index to check each profile. The account that loads the dashboard is your AdSense owner.

The fix, in order of preference

Sign in as the owning account. If that account already has access to the Analytics property, this is the whole fix and it changes nothing permanent. Go directly to the link screen as that user:

https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/?authuser=1#/aACCOUNTpPROPERTY/admin/integrations/google-adsense/new

Only if that is not possible, add your preferred account as an AdSense administrator under Account, Access and authorization. Do not reach for this first. Adding an administrator to a revenue account is a permanent change to who controls your payments, made to solve a temporary inconvenience.

Search Console linking fails the same way

The neighbouring Search Console link has the same shape of requirement: you must be a verified owner of the Search Console property, from the same account. An empty list there means the same thing, and the same account check applies.

Write down which account owns what

Analytics, AdSense and Search Console can each sit under a different Google account, and nothing in any of their interfaces tells you when they do. Once you have worked it out, record it somewhere durable. It is the single most useful line of documentation for a small site network, and reconstructing it takes far longer than writing it down.