Tag Archives: ad_extensions

Feed-based Extensions Migration Reminder and Opt Out Instructions

As previously announced, all ad extensions are migrating to the new Asset-based extension paradigm. You must update extensions support in your implementation and migrate existing Feed-based extensions to Asset-based extensions. See the migration schedule for all the important migration and sunset dates.

The first automatic migration will start on October 20, 2021 and will take several weeks to complete. You have a choice to migrate your own extensions, allow the automatic migration to proceed, or to opt client accounts out of it. During the migration, Feed-based Callout, Promotion, Sitelink, and Structured Snippet extensions within client accounts will be copied into new Asset-based extensions. The new Asset-based extensions will then serve instead of the Feed-based extensions.


What will be the impact of the automatic migration?

After an account has been migrated, there will be a new Asset instance for each Feed-based Callout, Promotion, Sitelink, and Structured Snippet extension. The new Assets will be linked to the same ad groups, campaigns, and customers as the Feed-based extensions from which they were copied. The new Assets will have new IDs, and there will be no connection between Assets created during the automatic migration and the original Feeds, including historic metrics. All subsequent extension-related metrics will only be accessible from the asset_field_type_view report. Additionally, you will no longer be able to issue CREATE or MUTATE requests that affect Callout, Promotion, Sitelink or Structured Snippet extensions in the account through the following services:

Service API Reference
ExtensionFeedItemService Google Ads API
AdGroupExtensionSettingService AdWords API Google Ads API
CampaignExtensionSettingService AdWords API Google Ads API
CustomerExtensionSettingService AdWords API Google Ads API
FeedService AdWords API AdWords API
FeedItemService AdWords API Google Ads API
FeedMappingService AdWords API Google Ads API
AdGroupFeedService AdWords API Google Ads API
CampaignFeedService AdWords API Google Ads API
CustomerFeedService AdWords API Google Ads API
GoogleAdsService Google Ads API
BatchJobService AdWords API Google Ads API


If you choose to allow the automatic migration to proceed, you will know that an account has been migrated when any MUTATE or CREATE request to the above listed services affecting Callout, Promotion, Sitelink, or Structured Snippet extensions returns an error.


What will be the impact of opting out?

You can opt out individual customer accounts from the October automatic migration. Opting out will only defer the automatic migration until the second automatic migration begins on February 15, 2022. If you choose to opt out, no resources will be created or modified in opted out accounts during the October automatic migration, and only the opted out accounts will be able to continue to issue CREATE and MUTATE requests after the October automatic migration.

You cannot opt out of the February 15, 2022 automatic migration. All remaining Feed-based extensions will be automatically migrated starting February 15, 2022 as described in the migration schedule. After this second automatic migration, all CREATE and MUTATE requests affecting Feed-based extensions will return errors.

What do I need to do?

We strongly recommend that you migrate your extensions yourself if feasible. Please follow our extension migration documentation for guidance on migrating your own extensions. Be sure to remove the Feed-based extension once you have successfully copied an extension to an Asset to avoid duplication during the automatic migration.

If you choose to allow the automatic migration to proceed, you need to only update your implementations to detect when an account has been migrated and to thereafter switch over to managing Assets instead of Feeds.


If you choose to opt out, the automatic migration will make no changes to the opted out accounts. Your existing API implementations will continue to work until the second automatic migration begins on February 15, 2022. To opt out, you must complete this form with the following:
  • A contact email at which you can be reached should any issues arise during the opt out process.
  • The developer token that you use to manage the accounts.
  • Acknowledgements of the effects of opting out.
  • An uploaded text file containing the customer IDs that you wish to opt out, one per line. If you need to generate a list of customer IDs, we recommend utilizing the GetAccountHierarchy example in each client library’s AccountManagement directory. This example will return the resource names of all accounts reachable from a given manager account.
The form will open for submissions on August 30, 2021. Note that the developer token must have been used to issue requests on the customer account after July 16, 2021. The form will close on October 13, 2021.


If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us via the forum or at [email protected].
- Andrew Burke, Google Ads API Team

Asset-based Extensions: Updated Availability and new ValueTrack Parameter

As previously announced, all ad extensions are migrating to the new Asset-based extension paradigm. You must update extensions support in your implementation and migrate existing Feed-based extensions to Asset-based extensions. See the migration schedule for important sunset dates.

What has changed

The following Asset-based extension types are now available to all accounts:
Though originally scheduled for release later this year, Asset-based Image extensions will not be available in the Google Ads API until 2022. When available, we will publish an updated sunset timeline for Feed-based Image extensions to this blog and in our extension migration documentation.

Lastly, the new {extensionid} ValueTrack parameter will be available beginning June 24, 2021. You can use this parameter to track clicks on your Asset-based extensions. The {extensionid} parameter for Asset-based extensions mirrors the behavior of the existing {feeditemid} parameter for Feed-based extensions.

What you need to do

Migrate Callout, Promotion, Sitelink, and Structured Snippet extensions in your accounts to Asset-based extensions using the Google Ads API. We encourage you to do so as soon as possible so as to continue to be able to modify your extensions; Callout, Promotion, Sitelink, and Structured Snippet Feed-based extensions will automatically migrate to Asset-based extensions on October 20, 2021. You will soon be able to opt individual Google Ads client accounts out of this auto migration; the opt out process will be announced on this blog when available. Please see our extension migration guide for the most up-to-date and relevant information. Note that Asset-based extensions are not supported in the AdWords API.

You can now use the {extensionid} ValueTrack parameter to track clicks on any Asset-based extensions that you have created. The {feeditemid} parameter does not apply to any clicks on Asset-based extensions, and {extensionid} does not apply to clicks on Feed-based extensions. To continue attributing clicks correctly, you should update any URLs that currently use the {feeditemid} ValueTrack parameter to also include the new {extensionid} ValueTrack parameter. You should therefore set both {feeditemid} and {extensionid} in the same URL, though only one will be populated depending on the source of the click.


If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us via the forum or at [email protected].
- Andrew Burke, Google Ads API Team

Google Ads scripts now supports price extensions

We’re excited to announce support for price extensions in Google Ads scripts starting today.

Price extensions allow you to add details about your business’s offerings and prices to a text ad, and are supported at the account, ad group, and campaign level.

You can see how to implement price extensions in our AdsApp.Extensions documentation, or check out some example code using these extension types.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us via our Google Ads Scripts forum.

-Tina Nguyen, Google Ads scripts Team

More AdWords structured snippet header translations!

We’ve enhanced structured snippets to now have even more header translations, increasing from 12 to all AdWords languages. Structured snippets are extensions that highlight products and services in your ads. Existing structured snippets will not change, so no AdWords API code changes are necessary, but consider adding structured snippets to any campaigns targeting the newly available languages.
Here are some resources to get you started with structured snippets:

As always, if you have any questions, please contact us via the forum.

Nadine Sundquist, AdWords API Team

Support for new extension types in AdWords scripts

We're excited to announce support for additional extension types in AdWords scripts starting today. The newly supported extension types are:
  • Message extensions, supported at the campaign and ad group level. These allow mobile users to send a text to your business directly from the ad.
  • Structured snippet extensions, supported at the campaign and ad group level. These allow you to highlight specific aspects of your products.
In addition, we're adding support for account level sitelink extensions, which were already supported at the campaign and ad group levels.

You can see all the technical details for how to implement these over on our AdWordsApp.Extensions documentation, or you can check out some example code using these extension types on our examples page.

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

Automatic removal of invalid location extension filters

AdWords offers several different strategies for configuring filters for your Google My Business locations. However, users sometimes choose filters that do not match any locations, which results in no location extensions appearing with ads.

What's changing?
Starting on February 14, 2017, AdWords will perform a daily check to determine if the following location extension feed item filters are not matching any Google My Business locations: If any such invalid filters are found, they will be automatically cleared as outlined in the updated Location Extensions guide.

Please keep the following details in mind:
  • The periodic check will only clear matchingFunction filters on a CampaignFeed or AdGroupFeed for location extensions (placeholderType = 7). It will not clear filters on those objects for location targeting (criterionType = 77).
  • The periodic check will not clear matching functions of the form IDENTITY(false), since these indicate that you want to disable location extensions for a campaign or ad group.
What you should do
  1. To minimize the impact of the periodic check, regularly review your application's location feed setup and ensure that you are choosing filtering options on your PlacesLocationFeedData and matching functions that actually match locations in your Google My Business account.
  2. Make sure that your application will be able to handle the filter changes made by the periodic check.
If you have any questions, please post on the AdWords API Forum.
- Josh Radcliff, AdWords API Team

Support for account-level sitelinks in AdWords API

Sitelinks in ads let you show additional links to specific pages on your website and are an effective way to drive traffic to your business. Account level sitelinks started rolling out recently in the AdWords user interface.

The AdWords API already supports sitelinks at the account level across all versions without any changes. You can use the CustomerExtensionSettingService to read and mutate the existing extension type SitelinkFeedItem, or associate sitelinks via Feed services.

If you have any questions, please let us know on the forum.
 - , AdWords API Team.

AdWords API – Upgrading to account-level location extensions

On July 14th, 2014, AdWords announced upgraded location extensions, a more efficient way to manage and use business locations in ads by linking Google My Business and AdWords accounts.

The upgrade is taking place in phases for AdWords accounts throughout the coming months. The next phase of account upgrades is scheduled to start on August 25, 2014. All AdWords accounts will to be upgraded by November, 2014.

The upgrade has direct impact to AdWords API client applications. If you are using the CampaignAdExtensionService to manage LocationExtensions or LocationSyncExtensions, then you’re using the legacy location extensions that are being phased out. After an account is upgraded, you’ll need to use the new account-level feed-based location extensions.

How will existing location extensions be upgraded by Google?

Please review the AdWords Help Center article for all upgrade scenarios. For AdWords API developers, most accounts will fall into one of these scenarios:
  • Accounts that don’t have any existing legacy location extensions.
  • Accounts that have existing legacy location extensions not sourced from a Google My Business account (i.e., using LocationExtensions only).
  • Accounts that have existing legacy location extensions sourced from a Google My Business account (i.e., using LocationSyncExtensions).
If you programmatically create AdWords accounts that are not associated with any user, please get in touch with your Google representative for migration support.

Accounts that don’t have any existing legacy location extensions

For accounts that aren’t using any LocationExtensions or LocationSyncExtensions but will begin using location extensions, you should use feed-based location extensions instead.

Accounts that have existing legacy location extensions not sourced from a Google My Business account

If you’re using LocationExtension entities to manage individual locations, the automatic upgrade process will perform the following:
  1. A Google My Business account will be created and linked with the AdWords account. All administrators of that AdWords account will have access to locations in the linked Google My Business account.
  2. A CustomerFeed with the Location placeholder type will be created.
  3. Existing locations in LocationExtension entities will be copied into the Google My Business account. Existing LocationExtension entities will then be removed.
  4. Ads in all campaigns will be served with locations from the linked Google My Business account (you can create a CampaignFeed to further filter or disable location extensions served for a given campaign).
Accounts that have existing legacy location extensions sourced from a Google My Business account

If you’re using LocationSyncExtension to link campaigns to a Google My Business account, then the automatic upgrade process will perform the following:
  1. The campaign-level links to the Google My Business account will be switched to a single link at the account level.
    • A CustomerFeed with the Location placeholder type will be created for the account.
  2. Any existing LocationExtension entities will be removed, so make sure they’re copied to the linked Google My Business account before the upgrade.
  3. Ads in all campaigns will be served with locations from the linked Google My Business account (you can create a CampaignFeed to further filter or disable location extensions served for a given campaign).
If an AdWords account is already linked to Google My Business at the account level using CustomerFeed, any existing legacy location extensions will be removed during the upgrade process.

How do I know if an account has been upgraded?

An account is considered upgraded if either condition is true:
  1. It has a CustomerFeed for the Location placeholder type. You can query CustomerFeedService to check: 

    select FeedId, PlaceholderTypes where PlaceholderTypes = 7
  2. It has neither a CustomerFeed nor legacy LocationExtension or LocationSyncExtension entities.
In an upgraded account, any attempts to create legacy location extensions using the CampaignAdExtensionsService will return the AdExtensionError.INVALID_ADEXTENSION_TYPE error.

How do I continue to manage locations?

There’s currently no API support for Google My Business. Locations are managed via the Google My Business Locations interface, which supports bulk management.

Can I start using upgraded location extensions before an account is upgraded?

Since the upgrade process is complicated for many accounts, the simplest approach is to allow accounts using legacy location extensions to be automatically upgraded (account owners will be notified 30 days before the upgrade).

What about reporting?

For upgraded accounts, you’ll need to use the Placeholder Feed Item Report rather than the Ad Extensions Performance Report to download statistics for each location.

We are here to help

If you have any questions about this upcoming change or anything else related to the AdWords API, please contact us on the AdWords API forum or via the Google Ads Developers Google+ page.

- , AdWords API Team

New feed-based location extensions in v201402 of AdWords API

As previously announced, AdWords API v201402 lets you manage your upgraded, feed-based location extensions in addition to your campaign location extensions. Upgraded location extensions are linked to your Google Places for Business account and offer significant benefits over manually entered location extensions. Most importantly, once you configure your upgraded location extensions you don't have to worry about keeping them up to date with changes in your Google Places for Business account -- AdWords does it for you!

As mentioned in our detailed guide to upgraded location extensions, you can use the AdWords API to set up your extensions in a few easy steps: There are a few key differences between feeds with systemFeedGenerationData ("location feeds") and other feeds you may have created for sitelinks, app or call extensions.

Type or Attribute
Location Feeds
Other Feeds
Required

Defines the link between your AdWords and Places for Business accounts.
Not applicable
Not applicable

AdWords maintains the feed item attribute -> placeholder field relationship for you.
Required

You maintain the feed item attribute -> placeholder field relationship.
Automatically managed by AdWords.
Maintained by you via the FeedItemService
Required
Not applicable
Optional

Only needed if you want more control over which businesses from your Places account are used for location extensions on a particular Campaign.
Required
Optional
Optional
Only needed if you want more control over which businesses from your Places account are used for location extensions on a particular AdGroup.

Just as for other feed types, you can get stats for a location feed's extensions from the PLACEHOLDER_FEED_ITEM report.

This is just a quick overview of the AdWords API support for upgraded location extensions. For more information, check out our feed services guide for location extensions and the accompanying code sample in each client library (Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, .NET).

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

- Josh Radcliff, AdWords API Team