Category Archives: Ads Developer Blog

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

Use the Content API for Shopping to serve Shopping ads and free listings in multiple countries

What's changed for Shopping ads

In August 2020, we simplified how you use product data across countries. In the past, you needed to submit duplicate products with separate targetCountry values for each country in which you wanted to serve Shopping ads. Now you can simply configure additional countries of sale for each primary feed in Google Merchant Center to serve ads for the same product in multiple countries. You can also add additional countries on a per-product basis by using the shipping field.

What's changed for free product listings

In October 2020, we announced that free listings will soon be available across the world. We also removed the ability to use account-level shipping settings to allow ads and free listings to be served in multiple countries. For more information, see the Merchant Center announcement: Use additional countries to determine your reach.

What you should do

As a result of these recent enhancements, we recommend that you do the following when serving ads and listing your products in multiple countries:

  • Stop submitting duplicate products with separate targetCountry values for each country you want to advertise in.
  • If you want all of the products in your primary feed to be eligible for ads and free listings in multiple countries, add the additional countries to the feed in Merchant Center.
  • If you only want specific products to be eligible for ads and free listings in multiple countries, add the additional countries on the shipping field of each product.

Check out our Content API guide, Targeting Shopping ads and free listings in multiple countries, for examples and additional details.

If you have any questions or need assistance, please reach out to us on the forum.

 Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Target Spend Migration for Maximize Clicks Bid Strategies

Starting January 18, 2021, we will start migrating Maximize Clicks bid strategies that still utilize the deprecated target_spend setting to use campaign daily budget pacing instead. This follows last year’s sunset of the target_spend field for Maximize Clicks. After that sunset went into effect, Google Ads has prevented users from creating any new Maximize Clicks strategies that have a target_spend setting.

What’s changing

As part of this migration, any Maximize Clicks bid strategies that still use the target_spend setting may have their maximum CPC bid limit lowered to minimize the performance impact that may result from this change. This would affect the following API fields:

Fields whose values may be lowered as part of the January 18, 2021, migration:
AdWords API Google Ads API
TargetSpendBiddingScheme.bidCeiling TargetSpend.cpc_bid_ceiling_micros

What you can do

You can avoid the above changes by removing the target spend setting on your campaigns’ bidding strategies before January 18, 2021. To do so, unset the following field (set its value to 0) on any existing Maximize Clicks bid strategies:

Fields to unset (set to 0) to avoid the migration:
AdWords API Google Ads API
TargetSpendBiddingScheme.spendTarget TargetSpend.spend_target_micros

If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us via the forum or at [email protected].

 Adam Ohren, Google Ads API Team

Google Ads and AdWords APIs upgrading authorization scope to "sensitive"

As of October 1, 2020, any Google Cloud app used to obtain credentials for the Google Ads API or AdWords API scope (https://www.googleapis.com/auth/adwords) in its projects (i.e. any new AdWords API or Google Ads API developers) will need to undergo a Google OAuth verification to avoid an unverified app screen for its users. An app, in this context, is defined as a unique OAuth 2.0 Client ID in Google Cloud. This verification is independent and in addition to any reviews conducted as part of the developer token approval process.

There is no cost for the Google verification, which typically completes in 3 to 5 business days. Information on how this process fits in the larger task of authorizing requests can be found in our guide. The verification status of a given app can be viewed at the OAuth consent screen of a Google Cloud Project.

Apps already using the Google Ads API or AdWords API scope prior to October 1, 2020 are not currently affected by this policy. However, this policy will be applied to all apps at a later date in 2021, and it is recommended that all apps undergo the Google OAuth verification process at their earliest convenience to avoid any business interruptions.

If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us via the forum or at [email protected].
- Devin Chasanoff, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

October update to Display & Video 360 API v1

Today we’re releasing an incremental update to the Display & Video 360 API v1 which includes the following features:


Today’s update also includes changes to how quota is handled in the Display & Video 360 API. The following usage limits are now in effect:

  • A default daily limit of 86,400 total requests made to the API per project. This limit can be increased on a case-by-case basis to customers who have demonstrated need for a higher limit.
  • A rate limit of 600 total requests per minute.
  • A rate limit of 300 write requests per minute, which are calls to methods (such as create, patch, delete, and bulkEdit) that modify resources.

More detailed information about this update can be found in the Display & Video 360 API release notes.

Before using these new features, make sure to update your client library to the latest version.

If you run into issues or need help with these new features, please contact us using our support contact form.
- Trevor Mulchay, Display & Video 360 API Team

Content API upgrading authorization scope to "sensitive"

Beginning October 1, 2020, any new Google Cloud app with a unique OAuth 2.0 Client ID used to obtain credentials for the Google Content API scope (https://www.googleapis.com/auth/content) in its projects will need to undergo a Google OAuth verification to avoid an unverified app screen for its users. Users of unverified apps that access the Content API will see warnings and the apps will have limited functionality.

There is no cost for app verification and the process typically takes 3 to 5 business days. For more information about how app verification fits into the broader process of authorizing requests, see our Using OAuth guide.

Apps already using the Content API scope prior to October 1, 2020 are not currently affected by this policy. However, this policy will be applied to all apps at a later date in 2021, and we recommend that all apps undergo the Google OAuth verification process at their earliest convenience to avoid any business interruptions.

For more information about app verification, see OAuth API verification FAQs. If you have any questions or need additional help, please reach out to us on the forum.
Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Introducing Ad Placements for the Google Mobile Ads Unity plugin

We’re excited to announce a new feature for app developers who use Unity: Ad Placements. It is now available in Open Beta.

What are Ad Placements?

Ad Placements provide a cleaner and more intuitive way to place ad units from Google AdMob in your games. Ad Placements allow developers to add ad units with a Unity Editor interface, making the specification of ad units for your game centralized, re-usable, and decoupled from your scripts.

You can then create Ad GameObjects that reference these Ad Placements entirely from the Unity Editor, which means no need for additional scripts!

Developers don’t need to write code to manage the ad unit. Callback functions and ad unit creation are all managed directly in the Unity UI.

Why use Ad Placements?

We’ve developed Ad Placements to help address the feedback that many of you have shared, which is integrating the Google Mobile Ads Unity plugin APIs requires too much scripting. Now with Ad Placements and their associated Ad GameObjects, implementing Google Mobile Ads into your Unity games should be a lot easier and more intuitive. You can add placements, load ads and show them all from easy-to-use Unity Editor integrations. With this new UI-driven approach, we can help you insert ad placements into your game with almost no additional code.

How do I get started?

See the Ad Placement documentation for a download link to the early access build and instructions to help you get started.

As always, please reach out on our developer forum if you have any questions.

 - Samuel Stow, Mobile Ads Developer Relations

DoubleClick Bid Manager API upgrading authorization scope to "sensitive"

On October 1, 2020, we are upgrading the classification of the authorization scope used for the DoubleClick Bid Manager API ( https://www.googleapis.com/auth/doubleclickbidmanager ) to “sensitive”. This upgrade is taking place to better secure the DBM API and the data retrieved from it.

Starting on October 1st, all unverified apps that are using the DBM API for the first time will encounter an “unverified app screen” upon attempted authentication. This screen can be removed by submitting your app to our verification process. This process usually takes about 3 to 5 business days. Information on how this process fits in the larger task of authorizing requests can be found in our guide.

Existing apps that began using the DBM API scope before October 1st will not see the “unverified app screen” and will not immediately need to go through the verification process. However, all apps accessing sensitive scopes will require explicit verification before the end of 2021. In anticipation of this requirement, it is recommended that existing apps complete the verification process at their earliest convenience.

If you run into issues or need help with this process, please contact us using our support contact form.
- Trevor Mulchay, Display & Video 360 API Team

Announcing the Google Ads API is out of beta

We are excited to announce that the Google Ads API is now generally available. This means you can use the Google Ads API for your production applications with confidence that prior performance issues have all been addressed. Batch processing is now available to everyone.

The AdWords API will continue to be supported. We will announce a deprecation schedule at a later date. We will continue to add more features in upcoming releases to reach full parity with the AdWords API.

Where can I learn more?
Get started with the following resources: If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us via the forum or at [email protected].
Nadine Wang, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

Changes to pause behavior in the Interactive Media Ads (IMA) SDK

The IMA SDK is preparing to release changes to pause behavior when user clicks cause navigation away from the page or app. When this happens, the ad will be paused automatically by the SDK. These changes are targeted for October 13th, 2020.

The IMA client-side SDKs already pause ad playback for ad click-throughs, but these changes add automatic pausing to many other user actions. The IMA DAI SDKs currently do not pause for any click events. For either implementation, if your code does not already provide a way for users to resume ad playback when ads are paused, we recommend adding a way to resume ad playback following ad pause events.

When the SDK automatically pauses the ad, the PAUSED event will be fired. We recommend that publishers listen for this event, and update the UI to allow the viewer to resume the ad. If this UI is not shown, the player may be permanently paused on the ad without a way for the user to resume ad or content playback.

Client-side changes

  • On Desktop web, the SDK will automatically pause when the user clicks on an ad which results in navigation away from the page.
    • This behavior already exists for mobile web and mobile apps.
  • On all platforms, the SDK will attempt to automatically pause if the user clicks on the:
    • Learn more button
    • Ad click (desktop)
    • Non-linear ad
    • Icon click
    • AdChoices icon

Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) changes

  • On all platforms for DAI, the SDK will attempt to automatically pause if the user clicks on the:
    • Learn more button
    • Ad click (desktop)
    • Icon click
    • AdChoices icon

Pause events

The table below shows which API is called when a pause event occurs:

IMA platform SDK version Pause event for client-side SDK Pause event for DAI SDK
HTML5 The current evergreen version. google.ima.AdEvent.Type.PAUSED The video player’s pause event.
Android V3.20.0 and later. videoAdPlayer.pauseAd() videoStreamPlayer.pause()
iOS/tvOS All versions kIMAAdEvent_PAUSE kIMAAdEvent_PAUSE

Note: For Android, the onPause event is only available on v3.20.0 and later. For previous versions the IMA SDK will not automatically pause ads, and developers will not have to implement these changes.

Please see the following code snippet as an example of setting up a listener for the PAUSED event for a client-side HTML5 IMA SDK implementation: 

adsManager.addEventListener(google.ima.AdEvent.Type.PAUSED, function() {
    showAdResumeUI();
});

function showAdResumeUI() {
  // TODO: Add a play button that resumes playback.
}

Please review your IMA SDK integrations and make any necessary adjustments to handle the pause event so that you’re prepared for when the changes go live on October 13th. Please look for announcements about pause behavior changes in the IMA HTML5 SDK release notes. If you have questions about making these changes for your own IMA SDK integrations, feel free to reach out to us on the IMA SDK forum.

 - Jackson Sui, Interactive Media Ads Developer Relations

Google Ads Scripts updating default search version to v5

Starting September 29, 2020, the default version for all search queries and report queries that use Google Ads Query Language (GAQL) will be updated from v4 to v5. If you're manually specifying a version for your queries, nothing will change. If you haven't already migrated to the new beta search feature, then this doesn't affect you.

Support for v5 is available if you want to opt in sooner. You can modify your code to set an explicit version using: 

var report = AdsApp.search(query, {
  apiVersion: 'v5'
});
See the Google Ads API release notes for a complete list of changes in v5. Some highlights for reporting include:
  • Fetching stats for entity types not explicitly supported by the API, such as Discovery campaigns
  • Improved policy summary fields for ads with more selectable options
If you have any questions, concerns, or feedback, please contact us via our forum.
- Mike Cloonan, Google Ads Scripts Team