Tag Archives: ad_customizers

Customize AdWords ads with ad customizer default values or text ad IF functions

Over the next month, AdWords is rolling out to all accounts two new ways to customize your ads.
  • Default values in Ad Customizers give you an option of providing a default value when referencing a custom value from a feed. This means that you will no longer be required to provide a static ad in your ad group when using ad customizers. Woohoo!
  • IF functions let you insert a customized message in your ad based on who’s searching and what device they’re searching on, all without using a feed.
Default values in Ad Customizers
  • What’s changing? The existing syntax for inserting a custom value from a feed is {=FeedName.AttributeName}. The new syntax allows for an optional default value {=FeedName.AttributeName:default value}, but you can still use the existing syntax if you don’t want to specify a default value. Check out the Customizing text ads guide to learn more about setting up an ad with ad customizers.
  • How does this affect me? If you have colons in your Feed.name or in your FeedAttribute.name, then add a backslash before the colon to escape the colon. Having a colon without a backslash causes anything after it to be interpreted as a default value when used in an ad customizer. If you no longer want to have a static ad in your ad group, then start adding default values to your ad customizers and delete the static ad.
IF functions
  • What’s changing? The new IF function allows text to be specified in a text ad based on device or audience, with the default text being optional. If default text is not specified, then a static ad is required in the ad group. The syntax is:
    • {=IF(device=mobile,text to insert):optional default text}
    • {=IF(audience IN(<userlist1>,<userlist2>),text to insert):optional default text}
  • How does this affect me? If you want to add customized text to your ad based on device or audience, start adding the IF functions to your text ads. For examples, check out the Customizing text ads guide.
Questions? Visit us on the AdWords API Forum or our Google+ page.
Nadine Sundquist, AdWords API Team

New features in AdWords scripts

We have added the following new features in AdWords scripts.

Ad customizers
AdWords scripts now support ad customizers, a more advanced version of ad params. Ad customizers adapt your text ads to the full context of a search or the webpage someone's viewing, by inserting a customized parameter within the ad. Ad customizers let you customize your ads for each query without having to create a separate ad for each variation.

AdWords scripts allow you to create ad customizer sources, add or update items in the sources, and create parameterized ads. You can also target an ad customizer item to a specific campaign, ad group or keyword, and track the performance of ad customizers using the PLACEHOLDER_FEED_ITEM_REPORT.

To learn more about ad customizers, refer to our code snippets and guide. Also, check out the brand new ad customizers solution that shows how to use this new feature in your account.

v201409 reports
We now support AdWords API v201409 reports in AdWords scripts. See blog post for more details.

Product ads
You can now retrieve your product ads using the ads() method of the ShoppingAdGroup. You can create new product ads using the newAdBuilder() method of ShoppingAdGroup.

We hope you enjoy these new features. If you have any questions about these features or AdWords scripts in general, you can post them on the developer forum.

Anash P. Oommen, AdWords Scripts Team

Introducing Ad Customizers in AdWords API

Today, we are introducing ad customizers, a new way to insert dynamic information into your ads. Ad customizers work similarly to ad parameters. They allow you to set up a feed with dynamic data, targeted at specific campaigns, ad groups or keywords. Your ads then reference the information in those feeds so that the values are inserted when the ad is served. You can also create ads that dynamically count down to an event, by inserting {=COUNTDOWN(...)} in your ad. Learn more about this new feature here.

Ad customizers are currently supported in AdWords API test accounts. Production accounts need to be whitelisted before you can use this feature. You can sign up for this feature here. Once your account is whitelisted, you will receive a confirmation email and can start using ad customizers in the whitelisted account. We whitelist accounts in batches, so expect some delay between signing up for the feature and getting your account whitelisted.

If you have any questions about this feature or the AdWords API in general, you can post them on our developer forum. You can also follow our Google+ page for updates about the AdWords API.

Anash P. Oommen, AdWords API Team