An API sunset is the scheduled point at which a platform permanently stops serving a version of its application programming interface (API), or a single endpoint within it. Until then, the old version still answers requests even if labelled deprecated. Sunsets exist because platforms that let outside software place bids, pull reports or upload audiences cannot change those interfaces at will without breaking their customers' systems. A published end date is the compromise: the platform gets to retire old code, and the developers who depend on it get a deadline they can plan around.

How a sunset works

Most advertising platforms run a sunset as a sequence of four stages. A new version is released. The previous one is marked deprecated, which means it still works but will receive no new features. A notice then sets the sunset date, usually through a developer blog, a changelog and email to registered developers. On that date the version is switched off.

Google's handling of Google Ads API version 19 shows the sequence in practice. Version 19 launched on February 26, 2025, and Google announced its sunset on December 15, 2025. On February 11, 2026, all v19 requests began to fail. Google supports at most four major versions at once and plans at least 20 weeks between the release of a client library for a new version and the sunset of the previous one. Each major version is supported for about a year.

The window differs sharply by platform. LinkedIn, according to its Marketing API documentation, supports each monthly version "for a minimum of one year before sunset". Meta, according to its versioning page, keeps the previous Marketing API version available "for at least 90-days" after a new one ships, a far shorter guarantee than the two years it offers for core Graph API endpoints. Google Display & Video 360 (DV360) gave about seven months' notice before Structured Data Files (SDF) v9 is retired on January 28, 2027; requests that still name the old format will then receive a 400 error.

How a client learns which version it is calling is also platform-specific. LinkedIn requires a Linkedin-Version request header in YYYYMM format and rejects calls that omit it or name a retired version. Meta added an automatic upgrade path in May 2024: calls to a deprecated Marketing API version are moved to the next version if the endpoint has not changed, and the response carries an X-Ad-Api-Version-Warning header.

There is also an open standard for the signal. The Sunset HTTP header, defined in RFC 8594, lets a server state the date on which a resource "is expected to become unresponsive", written as an HTTP-date such as "Sat, 31 Dec 2018 23:59:59 GMT". A companion "sunset" link relation points to a page describing the retirement policy. The Deprecation header, defined in RFC 9745, carries the date on which a resource was or will be deprecated. That specification adds one hard rule: the Sunset date "MUST NOT be earlier than" the Deprecation date. Both headers are hints; neither enforces anything.

Origin and evolution

Sunset dates in advertising predate the standard. Google's Ad Manager SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) API, the sell-side interface inherited from DoubleClick for Publishers, has long run on a date-stamped deprecation schedule. A January 2020 post on the Google Ads Developer Blog, for example, said that version v201902 would be retired "in accordance with the deprecation schedule" on February 28, 2020, about a year after its release, and that requests to it would then "return errors".

On the buy side, the largest single sunset was the AdWords API. Google began testing its replacement, the Google Ads API, in 2018, and in 2019 moved the new API back to beta because of slow response times. In July 2021 Google published a planning calendar of projected release and sunset dates to give developers more lead time. The AdWords API was switched off on April 27, 2022.

The IETF formalised the signal in May 2019, when Erik Wilde published RFC 8594. It was issued as an informational document, not a standards-track specification. The Deprecation header followed in March 2025 as RFC 9745, written by Sanjay Dalal and Wilde, this time on the standards track.

Release cadence has since accelerated. LinkedIn moved its Marketing APIs to monthly versions in June 2022. Google announced on September 4, 2025 that the Google Ads API would move to monthly releases from January 2026, with four major versions a year. Minor versions are additive only and share the sunset date of their parent major version, so the number of shutdown dates developers track did not multiply with the number of releases.

Why sunsets matter to marketers

Few marketers call an API directly, but most depend on one. Bid management tools, reporting dashboards, feed managers, customer relationship management (CRM) connectors and agency scripts all sit on platform APIs. When a version is sunset and a vendor has not migrated, reports go blank or uploads stop without any visible change in the advertising interface.

Sunsets increasingly carry product decisions with them. Meta's Marketing API version 24.0, released on October 8, 2025, blocked the creation of Advantage Shopping and Advantage App campaigns through the legacy APIs, steering integrations to the unified Advantage+ structure. Google required Customer Match uploads to use the Data Manager API from April 1, 2026, and in a separate change stopped accepting new offline conversion imports through the Google Ads API from June 15. The Content API for Shopping, which fed product data into Merchant Center, was shut down permanently on August 18, 2026 in favour of the Merchant API.

The best-known example in measurement is Universal Analytics (UA). Google said in March 2022 that standard UA properties would stop processing new hits on July 1, 2023. The paid version, UA 360, ran on a longer schedule, with features removed in stages from January 2024, until all properties, interface access, API access and stored data ended on July 1, 2024. For historical reporting, that sunset was also a deletion.

Limitations and disputes

The main complaint is notice. Google's reminder for Google Ads API v15, published on August 15, 2024, gave developers about six weeks before the September 25, 2024 sunset, although the date followed the published lifecycle. DV360's SDF v7 deprecation allowed roughly six weeks, against about nine months for v6. Changes inside a supported version can be abrupter still: Google Ads API v25, released on July 22, 2026, removed two lifecycle goal resources with no transition window.

A sunset does not always come with a successor. Meta's Graph API v26.0, effective July 29, 2026, blocked 47 Commerce Order Management endpoints tied to the discontinued Shops checkout, and offered no replacement API.

The costs fall unevenly. Large platforms and well-staffed vendors absorb a migration every few months; small agencies and in-house teams running scripts may not learn of a sunset until the errors begin. Faster cadences leave each version's one-year lifespan intact but multiply the changelogs to read.

Standards adoption is patchy. The Sunset and Deprecation headers were designed so that client software could detect retirement automatically, yet the advertising platforms covered here communicate dates mainly through blogs, changelogs and their own headers, as Meta's version warning shows. RFC 8594 itself describes the header as a hint, not a guarantee.

Not the same as

Deprecation. Deprecation is the warning; sunset is the switch-off. A deprecated version still works. RFC 9745 says that deprecation "does not change any behavior" of a resource, while a sunset ends its availability.

End of life. End of life usually refers to a whole product or service, and often to the end of support rather than the end of function. When Google retired Universal Analytics, the product reached end of life; the UA reporting API sunset was one part of it. Advertising platforms often use "sunset" for features too, which widens the term beyond APIs.

Breaking change. A breaking change is any modification that forces client code to change, such as a renamed field or a removed resource. New major versions bundle breaking changes; sunsets force integrations onto those versions. The two coincide often, but a breaking change can ship without any version being retired.

Versioning. Versioning is the numbering scheme - Google's v19 to v26, LinkedIn's YYYYMM, Meta's v20.0 to v26.0 - that lets old and new interfaces run side by side. Sunsets are what limit how long that coexistence lasts.

Recent developments

The autumn of 2026 brought a cluster of shutdowns. Google Ads API v22 was one of the versions scheduled to retire in October 2026, and a September 2, 2026 reminder on the Google Ads Developer Blog, signed by Ben Karl for the Google Ads API Team, set the date at October 7, 2026. Meta retired Graph API v20.0 on September 24, 2026, with v21.0 due to follow on January 21, 2027.

Microsoft announced on April 1, 2026 that its SOAP API would receive no new features from October 1, 2026 and be fully deprecated on January 31, 2027, in favour of the REST API it introduced in 2024. Apple released its Ads Platform API 1.0 in August 2026 and set January 26, 2027 for the shutdown of Campaign Management API version 5.

Google's Ad Manager is moving more slowly. The REST-based Ad Manager API was still in beta as of April 2026. Google's migration guide calls the SOAP API "a legacy API" but says its versions "are supported for their typical lifecycle". As of October 2026, no final date for the SOAP interface as a whole had been published.

Timeline

  • 2018: Google begins testing the Google Ads API as the AdWords API's successor
  • 2019: Google moves the Google Ads API back to beta over response times
  • May 2019: IETF publishes RFC 8594, the Sunset HTTP header (informational)
  • February 28, 2020: Ad Manager API v201902 retired under Google's SOAP deprecation schedule
  • July 21, 2021: Google publishes a release and sunset planning calendar for the Google Ads API
  • March 2022: Google announces the Universal Analytics sunset
  • March 2022: Google releases Bid Manager API version 2
  • April 27, 2022: AdWords API sunset
  • June 2022: LinkedIn releases its first versioned Marketing API
  • February 1, 2023: Google Ads API v10 sunset
  • February 28, 2023: Bid Manager API v1.1 sunset
  • July 1, 2023: Standard Universal Analytics properties stop processing data
  • May 2024: Meta begins automatic upgrades for deprecated Marketing API versions
  • July 1, 2024: Universal Analytics 360 properties, API access and data end
  • September 25, 2024: Google Ads API v15 sunset
  • March 2025: IETF publishes RFC 9745, the Deprecation HTTP header (standards track)
  • September 4, 2025: Google announces monthly Google Ads API releases from January 2026
  • October 8, 2025: Meta Marketing API v24.0 blocks legacy ASC and AAC campaign creation
  • February 11, 2026: Google Ads API v19 sunset
  • April 1, 2026: Microsoft Advertising announces SOAP API retirement
  • August 18, 2026: Content API for Shopping shut down
  • September 24, 2026: Meta Graph API v20.0 removed
  • October 1, 2026: Microsoft Advertising new features ship only through REST
  • October 7, 2026: Google Ads API v22 sunset
  • January 21, 2027: Meta Graph API v21.0 scheduled for removal
  • January 26, 2027: Apple Ads Campaign Management API v5 scheduled to shut down
  • January 28, 2027: DV360 SDF v9, v9.1 and v9.2 scheduled to sunset
  • January 31, 2027: Microsoft Advertising SOAP API scheduled for full deprecation

Summary

Who. Platforms that expose advertising APIs set sunset dates: Google, Meta, Microsoft, LinkedIn and Apple among them. Developers, ad tech vendors, agencies and in-house teams whose tools depend on those APIs must migrate. The IETF publishes the HTTP headers designed to signal deprecation and sunset.

What. The scheduled, permanent switch-off of an API version or endpoint, after which requests fail. It follows a deprecation period during which the old version still works, and it is usually announced with a fixed date and a migration path, though not always a replacement.

When. Date-stamped API retirement was established practice in advertising by the 2010s. The Sunset header was published in May 2019 and the Deprecation header in March 2025. Release cycles have since shortened, with LinkedIn moving to monthly versions in 2022 and Google following in January 2026.

Where. In the buying, reporting, audience, conversion and product feed interfaces of search, social, retail and programmatic platforms, on both the buy side and the sell side, and in the client libraries and third-party tools built on them.

Why. Platforms use sunsets to retire old code and push integrations onto new data models without breaking every client overnight. For marketers, a missed sunset means silent failures in reporting, bidding or data uploads, and sometimes, as with Universal Analytics, the loss of the data itself.