Author Archives: Google Ads Developer Advisor

Sunset of the Ad Manager API v201802

On Thursday, February 28, 2019, in accordance with the deprecation schedule, v201802 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 like new reporting Dimensions, enhanced options for Targeting, and improved Forecast breakdowns.

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 also receive notifications when an application is making requests to your network using a deprecated version, as explained in this post.
 - Donovan McMurray, Ad Manager API Team

Configure Account-level Call Reporting

In October 2018, we introduced the ability to configure account-level call reporting in the Google Ads UI. If a user has set account-level call reporting in their Google Ads account: If your values are being ignored in the API, then your user may have decided to go to the Google Ads UI to enable account-level call reporting.

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

2018 Ad Manager API Workshop Slides

Thanks to everyone who was able to make it to the recent Ad Manager API Workshop in New York. As always, it was great to connect with the developers who use our API. If you are interested in the content that we covered, you can now access the combined slide deck from the workshop talks.




We’ve already begun planning for our 2019 workshops, so be sure to check this blog for more updates. If you have general API questions or comments, please reach out to us on the Ad Manager API forums.
 - Donovan McMurray, Ad Manager API Team

Recap of the latest Google Ads API webinar

A huge thank you to the 300+ viewers from 44 different countries who joined recent Google Ads API: Roadmap and migration webinar on Tuesday, Dec 11. Also, a special mention to the great YouTube chat group in the second webinar who helped us sort out some technical issues at the start of the live stream!

We had tons of good questions to answer in the Q&A and hope the event proved helpful to everyone.

For those who couldn’t attend the live stream and anyone wanting a copy of the presentation, we’ve provided links to both the slide deck and YouTube recording of the 9am (GMT+8) webinar: Please visit the Google Ads API developer site for technical docs, migration guides, or to give feedback.

And, as always, don’t hesitate to contact us via the forum if you have any questions.
Adam Ohren, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

AdWords API v201802 sunset reminder

AdWords API v201802 will be sunset on January 30, 2019. After this date, all v201802 API requests will begin to fail. We recommend that you skip v201806 and migrate directly to v201809. Please migrate prior to January 30, 2019 to ensure your API access is unaffected.

We've prepared various resources to help you with the migration: If you have questions while you’re upgrading, please reach out to us on the forum.
Nadine Sundquist, Google Ads API Team

Connected TV Device Targeting, Reporting, & Management

Starting on Jan 8, 2019 you will be able to target and generate reports for a new device category via the AdWords API - connected TV. The connected TV platform, (or “TV screens,” as it’s referred to in the new Google Ads experience), is a new Platform type similar to desktop, tablet, and mobile. It targets devices such as smart TVs, gaming consoles and standalone connected devices including Chromecast, Roku, and AppleTV.

Since connected TV shares the same functionality as the three existing platforms, you can target or exclude it using bid modifiers for Display/Video ad campaigns; the new criterion will have a platformName of “ConnectedTv” and an ID of 30004. You can also isolate it in reports using a Device segment named CONNECTED_TV. Note that even though bidding will only be supported for Display and Video ads, some residual traffic may appear in other kinds of reports so you should still pull the new segment for non Display/Video ad reports.

The new connected TV device segment will be available anywhere Device-level or Device-segmented reporting is available. Currently any reporting data related to this platform is consolidated under the Desktop platform.

For more background on device targeting see the Help Center.

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

Upcoming webinar for v0_6 Google Ads API release

Last week we announced the v0_6 beta release of Google Ads API, a major milestone for the beta program that makes many core Required Minimum Functionality (RMF) features available in the new API. To complement this release, we’re holding a live stream webinar on the following dates and times. The presentation will cover the following topics:
  • Recap of the Key Advantages of the Google Ads API
  • Latest beta program updates
  • Future roadmap of both the Google Ads API and the AdWords API
  • Tour of key new features
  • Migration strategies
You can submit any questions ahead of time so that we can answer them during the webinar. We want to make sure we answer all of your questions!

As always, please contact us via the forum if you have any questions or need help.
- Adam Ohren, Google Ads API team

Announcing v0_6 of the Google Ads API

Today we’re announcing the beta release of Google Ads API v0_6. This release brings you the features listed in Required Minimum Functionality (RMF). Now that the core functionality of this new API is available, you should get started planning, designing, and coding against it. 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:
  • Manager account authentication: If you’re authenticating as a manager account, the manager account you want for authorization must be in the header as login-customer-id. You then set the customer you want to interact with in the request as usual. This tells the API the level of manager account hierarchy you want to authenticate with.
  • Mix mutate operations: Pass in multiple kinds of operations with GoogleAdsService.Mutate.
  • Hotel Ads: We extended the GoogleAdsService to enable users to query hotel performance metrics that were previously available in the Travel Partner API with the HotelPerformanceView. Supported performance metrics are cost, clicks, impressions, and average lead values. Some derived metrics are also precomputed: average position, average cost per click, average cost per thousand impressions, and click-through rate. These metrics can be segmented by:
    • Itinerary segments: check-in date, check-in day of week, booking window days, and date selection type
    • Hotel segments: hotel center ID, hotel ID, class, city, state, and country
    • Date segments: hour, date, day of week, week, month, quarter, and year
    • Others: campaign, ad group, ad network, and device
  • Feeds: Manage and retrieve feeds with AdGroupFeedService, CustomerFeedService, FeedService, CampaignFeedService, and FeedMappingService.
  • Account management:
    • We introduced CustomerClient, which provides the ability to get an expanded hierarchy of customer clients (both direct and indirect) for a given manager customer.
    • This release also supports the creation of new customer clients under a manager using the CustomerService.CreateCustomerClient method.
    • CustomerService now supports mutates.
  • Recommendations: Added the DismissRecommendation method to the RecommendationService, making it possible to dismiss the recommendations listed in our guide.
  • Ad formats: Gmail ads and image ads are now supported.
  • Search query reporting: The SearchTermView resource is now available, providing metrics aggregated at the search term level. SearchTermView provides functionality similar to the Search Query Performance Report of the AdWords API.
  • Audiences: Create audiences using UserListService.
  • Criteria types: You can now create criteria with CriterionType LANGUAGE, CARRIER, USER_LIST, USER_INTEREST and IP_BLOCK.
To get started with the API, review these helpful resources: The updated client libraries and code examples will be published within the next 2 business days. If you have any questions or need help, please contact us via the forum.
Nadine Sundquist, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

AdWords scripts is now Google Ads scripts

With the recent rebrand of AdWords to Google Ads, AdWords scripts has also been renamed to Google Ads scripts. As a result of this change, we have renamed AdWordsApp and MccApp within the scripts themselves to reflect the new naming. Your existing scripts are not affected and will continue to run as they always have.

Going forward, you should use AdsApp instead of AdWordsApp. Similarly, you should use AdsManagerApp instead of MccApp. We are updating all of our documentation, samples, and solutions to reflect these new names.

If you have any questions about this change or any other API feature, please contact us via the forum.
- Mike Cloonan, Google Ads scripts Team

Smart Shopping campaigns are publicly available today

Smart Shopping campaigns were released in AdWords API v201802 to whitelisted advertisers. Today, we’re releasing them to all developers in both the AdWords API and Google Ads API.

Smart Shopping campaigns combine automation and machine learning to maximize your conversion value across networks based on your budget. For end-to-end instructions in creating Smart Shopping campaigns, ad groups, and ads, visit our docs: AdWords API guide or Google Ads API guide.

For optimal performance, we recommend you have at least 20 conversions over the last 45 days across existing Shopping campaigns before creating a Smart Shopping campaign.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please post them on our forum.
 - Thanet Praneenararat, Google Ads API Team