Author Archives: Google Ads Developer Advisor

Additional Google Ads scripts workshop event

We had a great turnout at our round of Google Ads scripts workshops over the past few months. We're pleased to announce that due to high demand, we will host one more event in London on December 7, 2018. Please join us for some informative talks and interactive codelabs.

The additional London session will present the same advanced track from the previous set of workshops, which caters to experienced Google Ads scripts users who want to explore advanced scenarios and keep up with the latest developments.

Please visit the event site for full details and to register for this additional session.

We hope to see you there!
- Mike Cloonan, Google Ads Scripts Team

Update to Customer Match Requirements

We announced an update to Customer Match requirements in October 2018 that affects member uploads and the usage of Customer Match for campaigns on Search, YouTube, and Gmail.
  • Creating a CrmBasedUserList through AdWordsUserListService now requires whitelisting. If the account is not whitelisted, your request returns an ADVERTISER_NOT_WHITELISTED_FOR_USING_UPLOADED_DATA error.
  • Uploading members to a CrmBasedUserList results in a CAN_NOT_MUTATE_SENSITIVE_USERLIST error if the account is not whitelisted.
  • Targeting CrmBasedUserLists in accounts that are not whitelisted using CampaignCriterionService or AdGroupCriterionService results in an INVALID_ID error.
  • Serving campaigns can be affected if they are using Customer Match and the account is not whitelisted. If a campaign is only targeting Customer Match, then the campaign stops serving. If the campaign has other audiences, then the campaign continues to serve with the other audiences.
Please see the requirements for whitelist eligibility. To apply for the whitelist, reach out to your account manager. Once whitelisted, Customer Match no longer results in errors and serves normally without any further changes needed.

If you have questions, please reach out to us on the AdWords API forum.

Nadine Sundquist, AdWords API Team

Announcing v201811 of the Google Ad Manager API

We're happy to announce that v201811 of the Google Ad Manager API is available starting today. This version brings support for date range targeting which affords the same functionality as blackout periods in the UI. It also removes the deprecated ContentMetadataKeyHierarchyService. For video targeting, use ContentBundles or key-values mapped from content metadata.

For a full list of API changes in v201811, see the release notes.

For questions about this or any other API changes, reach out to us on the Ad Manager API forum.
 - , Ad Manager API Team

Top metrics, absolute top metrics, and average position in the AdWords API and Google Ads scripts

What's new
Starting November 12, 2018, the fields below will be available in AdWords API and Google Ads scripts reports.

Absolute top metrics:
  • AbsoluteTopImpressionPercentage
  • SearchAbsoluteTopImpressionShare
  • SearchBudgetLostAbsoluteTopImpressionShare
  • SearchRankLostAbsoluteTopImpressionShare
Top metrics:
  • TopImpressionPercentage
  • SearchTopImpressionShare
  • SearchBudgetLostTopImpressionShare
  • SearchRankLostTopImpressionShare
AbsoluteTopImpressionPercentage and TopImpressionPercentage are specific indicators of page location. You can use these metrics to determine when and where your impressions are showing above the organic search results.

SearchAbsoluteTopImpressionShare and SearchTopImpressionShare are your share of the eligible top impressions. They are the best indicators of the headroom available to show your ads in more prominent positions. If your goal is to bid on page location, you should use these metrics. Bidding by average position is not recommended since:
  • Average position doesn't actually describe position on the page but position in the auction.
  • Sometimes, average position may decrease as bids increase. This happens as higher bids sometimes allow you to enter more competitive auctions lower on the page.
See our post on the New features & announcements page for more details.

What you should do
Whenever you are using AveragePosition as a proxy to bid to a page location, switch to using the new SearchAbsoluteTopImpressionShare or SearchTopImpressionShare metrics in your bidding logic.

If you have any questions or need help, please contact us via the forum.
- Josh Radcliff, AdWords API Team

DCM/DFA Reporting and Trafficking API v3.0 sunset reminder

DCM/DFA Reporting and Trafficking API v3.0 will be sunset on November 30th, 2018. From this date onwards, all requests made against v3.0 of this API will fail. If you're still actively working with this version, we strongly encourage you to begin migrating to the most current release to avoid an interruption in service.

For most, migrating will be as easy as adopting the latest version of your preferred client library. However, all users are advised to review the release notes to learn about important version differences you may need to be aware of.

If you have questions about this or anything else DCM API related, feel free to reach out to us on our support forum.
 - , DCM API Team

Announcing v0_5 of the Google Ads API

Today we’re announcing the beta release of Google Ads API v0_5. With this version, you’ll continue pointing to v0 as your endpoint, however, you'll need to update your client libraries. Here are the highlights:
  • Billing. Multiple services are available for managing billing.
    • BillingSetupService
      • Create a new billing setup
      • Cancel an approved billing setup that is scheduled to start in the future
      • Cancel a pending billing setup that is not yet approved
    • AccountBudgetService
      • View all approved account-level budgets, including budget adjustments
      • View currently pending account-level budget proposals (if any)
    • AccountBudgetProposalService
      • Create account-level budget proposal to update a budget or create a new budget
      • View all account-level budget proposals. All approved values and proposed budget values are visible. Approved values will be exposed as fields prefixed with approved_.
  • Conversion tracking. Conversion tracking lets you measure the performance of your advertising against your business goals.
    • Conversion actions - Set up and edit the settings associated with your conversion actions, including website tracking and call-conversion tracking
  • Shopping. The ProductGroupView resource provides Shopping campaign statistics aggregated at the product group level (also called listing group in the Google Ads API). Results always reflect the current set of product groups. An impression for a product will be attributed to all product groups that contain the product. ProductGroupView provides features equivalent to the Product Partition Report of AdWords API.
  • Location and Demographics. You can now create criteria with CriterionType AGE_RANGE, GENDER, INCOME_RANGE, PARENTAL_STATUS, PLACEMENT, PROXIMITY, TOPIC, YOUTUBE_CHANNEL, and YOUTUBE_VIDEO. The GeoTargetConstantService lets you input locations and receive suggested geos.
  • Account Management. CustomerService.ListAccessibleCustomers provides the capability to manage Google Ads accounts.
To get started with the API, review these helpful resources:
The updated client libraries and code examples will be published within the next 48 hours. If you have any questions or need help, please contact us via the forum.
Nadine Sundquist, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

Share your feedback about the AdWords API and Google Ads API

Since the early days of the AdWords API, we've continually evolved the platform to help you more efficiently and creatively manage large or complex Google Ads accounts and campaigns. This year, we’ve also announced the Google Ads API Beta, which was rebuilt to stay on the edge with advancements in our advertising platform.

To learn more about what's working well, and what could be improved, we're running our annual developer feedback survey on both the AdWords API and Google Ads API. Your answers will be completely anonymous, so we hope you'll take the opportunity to leave feedback on how we can make managing campaigns even easier.

SHARE YOUR FEEDBACK


The survey should take about 15 minutes to complete, and will close on November 15, 2018. Thank you in advance for helping us continue to improve developer experience for everyone.
Cory Liseno, Google Ads API Team

Changes to the URL Performance Report for YouTube video placements

What's changing?
The URL_PERFORMANCE_REPORT in the AdWords API will exclude information for YouTube video placements starting October 30, 2018, in keeping with our data retention policies. As a result, placements where the Url field has a domain of www.youtube.com will no longer appear in the report. New and improved placement reports will be available in one of the upcoming releases of the new Google Ads API.

What you should do
Review your application and workflows and make the necessary changes to ensure that the exclusion of video placements in this report will not cause problems. Watch this blog for updates regarding new placement reports in the Google Ads API.

If you have any questions or need help, please contact us via the forum.

- Josh Radcliff, AdWords API Team

Announcing the 2018 Ad Manager API Workshop

We’re excited to announce our Ad Manager API Workshop on October 31, 2018. It may be Halloween, but there are no tricks, some treats, and a lot of information on how you can get more out of the Ad Manager API.

What is it?

A half-day event featuring technical talks by Google engineers and office hours with Google's Developer Relations team. Agenda with description for each of the talks is available on the registration site.

Who is the target audience?

The event is targeted toward developers who use or are interested in using the Ad Manager API. The talks will be technical, thus technical background is recommended for all attendees. This event is an opportunity for you to learn more about the API's capabilities and its newest features. This is also an opportunity for you to share feedback and influence direction by talking directly with Googlers who work on the API.

Where is it?

Google’s Chelsea Market Office
75 Ninth Avenue,
New York, NY 10011

How do I sign up?

To register, please visit registration site. Seating is limited, and after you register, we will reach back out to you to confirm your spot at the workshop.
 - , Ad Manager API Team

Sunset of the Ad Manager API v201711

On Friday, November 30, 2018, in accordance with the deprecation schedule, v201711 of the Ad Manager API will be sunset. At that time, any requests made to this version will return errors.

If you’re still using this version, now is the time to upgrade to the latest release and take advantage of new functionality with Preferred Deals, forecasting, and reporting.

To upgrade, check the release notes to identify any breaking changes, grab the latest version of your client library, and update your code.

Significant changes include:

This is not an exhaustive list, so be sure to check the release notes for a list of all changes. As always, don't hesitate to reach out to us with any questions.

To be notified of future deprecations and sunsets, join the Ad Manager API Sunset Announcements group and adjust your notification settings. If you are an administrator on your network, you can now also receive notifications when an application is making requests to your network using a deprecated version, as explained in this post.
 - , Ad Manager API Team