Support for additional audiences in AdWords Search and Shopping campaigns

What's changing
Historically, some types of audiences have only been available for targeting and bidding in Display campaigns, as indicated by UserList.isEligibleForSearch = false in the AdWords API.

Starting at the end of September, 2016, both AdWords and the AdWords API will allow you to target additional audiences in Search and Shopping campaigns.

What you should do
  • Make sure that your application does not make assumptions about which user lists are available for Search and Shopping campaigns. Instead, your application should check the value of the isEligibleForSearch attribute of each UserList.
  • You can discover the audiences in your AdWords account and their eligibility for Search, Shopping, or Display campaigns by issuing an AdwordsUserListService get or query request that includes the IsEligibleForSearch and IsEligibleForDisplay selector fields. On an ongoing basis, you should periodically check for user lists where eligibility has changed due to improvements in AdWords.
  • If you'd like to add additional audience targeting to your Search or Shopping ad groups, add a BiddableAdGroupCriterion with a criterion set to an instance of the appropriate type of UserList. Make sure that your application can handle an OperationAccessDenied.OPERATION_NOT_PERMITTED_FOR_CAMPAIGN_TYPE error, which will occur if the particular UserList in your request is not currently available for Search and Shopping campaigns.
Further reading
For an overview of remarketing and audience targeting in the AdWords API, check out the Remarketing and audience targeting guide.

If you have any questions, please post on the forum or the Ads Developers Plus Page.
- Josh Radcliff, AdWords API Team