Category Archives: Ads Developer Blog

The official blog for information about the AdWords, AdSense, DoubleClick and AdMob APIs and SDKs

Revised Schedule for the Auto-migration of Feeds

We previously announced schedules for migrating feeds to assets. If you’re still using legacy feeds, your API calls will start to fail after the auto-migration is complete.

Please migrate to assets as soon as possible.

The following table indicates the current status of each feed sub-type. After the auto-migration is complete, you will no longer be able to mutate or remove your feeds.
Legacy Type Subtype Status Auto Migration Starts
Extensions Promotion, Callout, Sitelink, Structured Snippet AUTO MIGRATION IN PROGRESS 10 January 2021
Extensions App, Call, Hotel Callout, Price Developers can start migrating on 25 January 2022 8 April 2022
Dynamic Search Ads & Dynamic Remarketing Page Feed, Education Feed Developers started migrating on 3 November 2021 27 April 2022
Dynamic Remarketing Custom, Flight, Hotel, Real Estate, Travel, Job, Local Deals Developers can start migrating on 27 April 2022 5 October 2022
Extensions Image Developers can start migrating in Q3 2022 ETA January 2023
Extensions Location Developers can start migrating in Q3 2022 ETA January 2023

What do I need to do?
You need to support the new asset types as soon as possible.

If you would like to keep a record of feed IDs to asset IDs, then you need to migrate these manually and save that ID mapping locally. The auto-migration does not keep a mapping of feed IDs to asset IDs.

See the following migration guides for details: What happens after the auto-migration?
Accounts that have been migrated will reject mutate calls for feed-based entities. Reporting metrics will be removed for the legacy feed-based entities in 2023. Equivalent reporting data will be available for assets, as described in the preceding migration guides.

Can I opt-out of the auto-migration?
No. We offered an opt-out for the first batch of auto-migration, but this isn’t available for future migrations.

If you have any questions, please reach out to us on the forum.
Bob Hancock, Google Ads API Team

Google Ads scripts now supports asset-based video ads

Starting today, Google Ads scripts supports the new asset-based video ads. This replaces the previous media-based video ads. If you have a script that creates new video ads, you must migrate your code by February 28, 2022, or else your script will begin to fail with errors after that date. Media-based video ads will no longer be supported.

This follows the same change in Google Ads API v9. Working with assets gives you greater flexibility and ease of use as they are building blocks for various ad types across networks.

If you don’t create new video ads, you aren’t affected.

For instructions on how to create an asset, view our documentation on the YouTubeVideoAssetBuilder. Once you've created an asset, you can use it when creating video ads of various types.

If you have any questions, please leave a post on our forum.
- Mike Cloonan, Google Ads Scripts Team

Upcoming changes to Simulations in the Google Ads API and Bid Landscapes in the AdWords API

We are changing the way ad group simulations with SimulationModificationMethod = DEFAULT are calculated in the Google Ads API and the AdWords API.

What’s changing?

For an ad group with keyword bid overrides, we provide estimated traffic for different values of the ad group’s default bid. Currently, all keywords with bid overrides are excluded from this estimate. This results in a lower-than-expected traffic estimate.

Starting the week of January 17, 2022, we will modify our estimation to include both keywords using the default bid and keywords with bid overrides when calculating ad group simulations. We will further assume that only the ad group default bid would change in the simulation, and all keyword bid overrides will remain the same. This may affect the simulations returned by the GetAdGroupSimulation method of the AdGroupSimulationService service in the Google Ads API and the getAdGroupBidLandscape and queryAdGroupBidLandscape methods of the DataService service in the AdWords API.

What should you do?

If you use this feature, we recommend that you ensure that your code continues to work with the modified results returned by these methods.

If you have any questions, please contact us via the Google Ads API forum.

Reminder: Share your feedback about the Google Ads (AdWords) API. Take the 2021 AdWords API and Google Ads API Annual Survey.

- Anash P. Oommen, Google Ads API Team

Upcoming changes to Simulations in the Google Ads API and Bid Landscapes in the AdWords API

We are changing the way ad group simulations with SimulationModificationMethod = DEFAULT are calculated in the Google Ads API and the AdWords API.

What’s changing?

For an ad group with keyword bid overrides, we provide estimated traffic for different values of the ad group’s default bid. Currently, all keywords with bid overrides are excluded from this estimate. This results in a lower-than-expected traffic estimate.

Starting the week of January 17, 2022, we will modify our estimation to include both keywords using the default bid and keywords with bid overrides when calculating ad group simulations. We will further assume that only the ad group default bid would change in the simulation, and all keyword bid overrides will remain the same. This may affect the simulations returned by the GetAdGroupSimulation method of the AdGroupSimulationService service in the Google Ads API and the getAdGroupBidLandscape and queryAdGroupBidLandscape methods of the DataService service in the AdWords API.

What should you do?

If you use this feature, we recommend that you ensure that your code continues to work with the modified results returned by these methods.

If you have any questions, please contact us via the Google Ads API forum.

Reminder: Share your feedback about the Google Ads (AdWords) API. Take the 2021 AdWords API and Google Ads API Annual Survey.

- Anash P. Oommen, Google Ads API Team

Google Ads API and Google Ads scripts issues on Dec 17

Between 8:30 am EST and 12:50 pm EST on December 17, there was an outage that may have prevented some users from accessing the Google Ads API & Google Ads scripts. If you were using the Google Ads API or running Google Ads scripts using the beta AdsApp.search feature or the Google Ads scripts beta, then you may have experienced slowness, errors, or timeouts. This issue has been resolved, but please check for any failed requests from these tools during the outage and consider re-running the impacted operations.

If you have any questions, please contact us via the Google Ads API forum or the Google Ads scripts forum.

Josh Radcliff, Google Ads API Team

Shared budget for Smart Shopping Campaigns

Starting February 15, 2022, all existing and future Smart Shopping Campaigns (SSC) will use a shared budget type. Although shared, the assigned budget will only be used by the SSC and will behave like a standard, non-shared campaign budget. New campaigns cannot be added to the shared budget. This change will not have any impact on campaign performance. In reports and queries, existing and future SSC budgets will be returned as explicitly_shared = true (isExplicitlyShared in AdWords API).

Note: the AdWords API will sunset on April 27, 2022. Developers must migrate to the Google Ads API before then.

If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us via the forum.
, Google Ads API Team

Set asset names by February 9, 2022

Starting in the upcoming Google Ads API v10 release, you’ll have to use unique asset names within your Google Ads account. This affects asset names for image and media bundle asset types. The reason we’re making this change is to make it easier to identify assets with human readable names as your collection of assets grows.

Starting on February 9, 2022 a default asset name will be assigned during creates and updates for all existing Google Ads API and AdWords API versions. If you wish to set the asset name yourself, then update your code to set the asset name before this date.

If you have questions while you’re updating your code, please reach out to us on the forum or at [email protected].
Nadine Wang, Google Ads API Team

Updates to Chromecast integrations with Interactive Media Ads



CAF DAI SDK Released

The Interactive Media Ads team is excited to announce that we’ve teamed up with the Cast Application Framework team to bring you the CAF DAI SDK, a fully supported solution for casting DAI video streams to Chromecast devices. This project is a complete rewrite of our original IMA SDK for Cast, significantly reducing the amount of code publishers need to write and streamlining the integration between the two SDKs.

The CAF DAI SDK provides a deep integration with Chromecast Application Framework's native Ad Breaks, meaning that adding around 30 lines of code to an existing CAF receiver can enable:
  • DAI support for both Live and VOD streams
  • Media queue management
  • Sender and receiver UI, including ad break markers
  • Bidirectional communications between sender and receiver
  • Skippable ad support on VOD streams

With the previous SDK, all of these functions required manual implementation.


A fully-featured CAF DAI integration



IMA SDK for Cast deprecated

As of December 13, 2021, both the client-side and DAI versions of the IMA SDK for cast are now deprecated. Publishers who are currently using the IMA SDK for cast to implement client-side advertisements are encouraged to migrate to using CAF native ad breaks. Publishers who are currently using the IMA SDK for cast to implement DAI advertisements are encouraged to migrate to the new CAF DAI SDK. These new implementation options offer publishers significantly simpler integrations with better stability and tighter integration with the entire cast ecosystem.
Advertisement Type Deprecated Solution Recommended Solution
Client Side IMA SDK for Cast CAF native ad breaks
DAI IMA SDK for Cast CAF DAI SDK

The Client side and DAI versions of the IMA SDK for Cast will continue to function for the foreseeable future but support and new development will be focused on the CAF DAI SDK moving forward. The IMA SDK team will continue to offer best attempt support for the deprecated SDKs through December of 2022, however, some limitations of the older platform may only be resolved by migrating to the new workflows described above.


We highly recommend that publishers who are currently using the older IMA SDK for Cast begin migrating to these new workflows for improved stability, simplified integration, and a much more polished developer experience.


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For more information about these changes, check out the developer documentation. If you have any issues migrating your integration from the IMA SDK for Cast to the CAF DAI SDK, feel free to reach out via our developer forums.

Warning: deprecation and sunset of Feeds

We previously announced that we’re migrating Feeds to Assets. We’ve started auto-migrating accounts. If you’re still using legacy Feeds, your API calls will start to fail. Please migrate to Assets as soon as possible.

The following table shows the current status and key dates for the automatic migration.
Feed Type Subtype Status Auto Migration Date
Extensions Promotion AUTO MIGRATION IN PROGRESS October 20, 2021*
Extensions Callout Sitelink Structured Snippet AUTO MIGRATION IN PROGRESS October 20, 2021*
Extensions App Call Hotel Callout Price DEPRECATED February 15, 2022
Extensions Image Not ready to migrate until mid 2022 September 2022
Dynamic Search Ads Page feed DEPRECATED 27 April 2022
Dynamic Remarketing Education DEPRECATED 27 April 2022
Dynamic Remarketing Custom Flight Hotel Real estate Travel Location Job Deprecation planned for April 2022 5 October 2022
* Delayed until January 10 2022.

I thought Image extensions were migrating in February 2022?
That was the original plan, however we have delayed the Image extensions migration until September 2022.

What do I need to do?
You need to support the new Asset types as soon as possible.

To trace migration between Feed IDs and Asset IDs you need to migrate these manually. There is no way to get this relationship through the auto-migration.

See the following migration guides for more detail: What happens after the automated migration?
Accounts that have been migrated will reject mutate calls for Feed-based entities. Reporting stats will be removed for the legacy Feed-based entities in the near future. Equivalent reporting data will be available for assets, as described in the preceding migration guides.

Can I opt-out of the auto-migration?
No. We offered an opt-out for the first batch of auto-migration, but this isn’t available for future migrations.

If you have any questions, please reach out to us on the forum.
Nick Birine, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

Apache Log4j vulnerability

If you are using an Ads API Client Library and Apache Log4j, please see below.

NIST has announced a recent vulnerability (CVE-2021-44228) in the Apache Log4j library.

The Apache Log4j utility is a commonly used component for logging requests. On December 9, 2021, a vulnerability was reported that could allow a system running Apache Log4j version 2.14.1 or below to be compromised and allow arbitrary code to be executed.

What do you need to do?
If you are using an Ads API Client Library and Apache Log4j versions 2.0 to 2.14.1, please upgrade to the patched version 2.15.0 released by Apache as indicated in the Apache Log4j Security Vulnerabilities website.

If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us through this forum.
--Stan Grinberg, Ads Developer Relations