Tag Archives: mcc

Hiding AdWords accounts now possible via the AdWords API

Starting with v201506 of the AdWords API, you can: With these new features, you can hide old or inactive accounts to reduce clutter in your managed account's dashboard, as well as detect and exclude hidden accounts using the AdWords API.

As with the AdWords user interface, you can only hide or unhide AdWords accounts. Any attempt to hide a manager account will result in a ManagedCustomerServiceError.CANNOT_HIDE_OR_UNHIDE_MANAGER_ACCOUNTS error.

Don't worry -- hiding an account doesn’t affect serving:
  • You can always unhide an account by setting the isHidden attribute of its ManagedCustomerLink back to false.
  • You can retrieve all of your accounts by setting ExcludeHiddenAccounts to false in your selector, or by not specifying a predicate on ExcludeHiddenAccounts.
  • Ads in hidden accounts will continue to serve.
More manager account resources Still have questions? Feel free to visit us on the AdWords API Forum or our Google+ page.

New features in AdWords scripts

We have made the following changes to AdWords scripts.

Support for passing arguments into parallel functions

You can now use a string argument to pass account-specific information into a parallel function when using the MccApp.executeInParallel() method. The code snippet below shows how to use this feature:

function main() {
// Select the accounts you want to process.
var accountSelector = MccApp.accounts().withIds([1234567890, 3456787890]);

// Construct a config object that contains account-specific information.
var accountFlags = {
'1234567890': {
'label': 'Brand 1 campaigns',
},
'3456787890': {
'label': 'Brand 2 campaigns',
}
};

// Convert the config object into a string.
var optionalInput = JSON.stringify(accountFlags);

// Process accounts in parallel.
accountSelector.executeInParallel("processClientAccount",
"afterProcessAllClientAccounts", optionalInput);
}

function processClientAccount(args) {
// Convert the account flags from string to config object.
var accountFlags = JSON.parse(args);
var accountConfig =
accountFlags[AdwordsApp.currentAccount().getCustomerId()];

// Process your client account here.
var label = accountConfig['label'];
...
}

function afterProcessAllClientAccounts(results) {
...
}
Learn more about working on accounts in parallel.

Support for clearing ad group bid modifiers

You can now use the clearMobileBidModifier() method of AdGroup to clear bid modifiers at the ad group level and default to the campaign-level bid modifier.

Support for Upgraded URLs in app extensions

We have added support for Upgraded URLs in app extensions. The setLinkUrl() method in MobileApp, AccountMobileApp, CampaignMobileApp and AdGroupMobileApp classes and withLinkUrl() method of MobileAppBuilder class have been marked deprecated and will start throwing user errors on July 1, 2015. If you use any of these methods in your script, make sure you update them to use the setFinalUrl() / withFinalUrl() methods instead.

Deprecated CallOnly field in phone extensions

We have deprecated the call-only field in phone extensions. The following methods have been marked as deprecated and will start throwing user errors on June 14, 2015: If your ad extensions use the call-only feature, migrate your campaigns to call-only campaigns by following the instructions here.

Transition to viewable cost-per-thousand impression (CPM)

We’d like to remind you that later this year, all cost-per-thousand impression (CPM) bids will transition to a new type of bid called viewable CPM (vCPM), and CPM bidding will no longer be available. You can learn more about vCPM on our help center.

AdWords scripts already use the correct CPM version, based on campaign settings, so no code changes are required from your end for this transition. Our updated documentation now refers to CPM as the generic cost-per-thousand impression bidding instead of a specific flavor (e.g., maxCPM or vCPM).

If you have any questions about these changes or AdWords scripts in general, you can post them on our developer forum.

Change to MccApp.accounts() behavior in AdWords Scripts

In response to your feedback, we are enhancing the MccApp.accounts() method. Starting December 3, 2014, the MccApp.accounts() method will return all accounts (e.g. Express, Video, etc.) that you see when logging in to your MCC account through the AdWords UI instead of just the ordinary AdWords accounts.

Note that once this change is live, your MCC scripts may start getting more accounts when calling the MccApp.accounts() method. You should check your MCC scripts to ensure they can handle the possible extra accounts. You can restrict the accounts that AdWords scripts return by applying an appropriate filter condition in your account selector.

Note that this change doesn’t affect the way other selectors work. For example, you cannot retrieve an AdWords Express campaign by calling AdWordsApp.campaigns() on an AdWords Express account.

If you have questions or feedback about this change, let us know on our developer forum or our Google+ page.

Change to the default conversion optimizer mode for new AdWords Accounts

As announced in February, flexible conversion counting in AdWords now lets you decide how you want to count conversions for each of your accounts. As a follow up to this new feature, when new AdWords accounts are created through the UI or the API after October 1st, 2014, the default conversionOptimizerMode will be MANY_PER_CLICK instead of ONE_PER_CLICK. In addition, we'll change the conversionOptimizerMode to MANY_PER_CLICK on any existing account that is not using bidding strategies impacted by conversions.

Action required
Since the new default of MANY_PER_CLICK lets your conversion-based bidding strategies take full advantage of flexible conversion counting, we recommend keeping the default setting on new accounts. However, if you still want to use ONE_PER_CLICK for new accounts created via ManagedCustomerService, then add a second step in your account creation process that issues a CustomerService.mutate call that sets the conversionOptimizerMode on the Customer.

In addition, if you decide to utilize one of the conversion-based bidding strategies, you'll want to make sure that the conversionOptimizerMode is set to the value you'd prefer. The conversion-based bidding strategies affected by conversionOptimizerMode are: Additional information
If you'd like to learn more about conversion tracking in AdWords, check out the Help Center article on counting conversions. In addition, the remarketing examples folder in each client library contains an AddConversionTracker example that shows how to create an AdWordsConversionTracker via the API.

Still have questions? Feel free to visit us on the AdWords API Forum or our Google+ page.