Tag Archives: adwords_api

Configure Account-level Call Reporting

In October 2018, we introduced the ability to configure account-level call reporting in the Google Ads UI. If a user has set account-level call reporting in their Google Ads account: If your values are being ignored in the API, then your user may have decided to go to the Google Ads UI to enable account-level call reporting.

If you have questions, please reach out to us on the forum.
Nadine Sundquist, AdWords API Team

Recap of the latest Google Ads API webinar

A huge thank you to the 300+ viewers from 44 different countries who joined recent Google Ads API: Roadmap and migration webinar on Tuesday, Dec 11. Also, a special mention to the great YouTube chat group in the second webinar who helped us sort out some technical issues at the start of the live stream!

We had tons of good questions to answer in the Q&A and hope the event proved helpful to everyone.

For those who couldn’t attend the live stream and anyone wanting a copy of the presentation, we’ve provided links to both the slide deck and YouTube recording of the 9am (GMT+8) webinar: Please visit the Google Ads API developer site for technical docs, migration guides, or to give feedback.

And, as always, don’t hesitate to contact us via the forum if you have any questions.
Adam Ohren, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

AdWords API v201802 sunset reminder

AdWords API v201802 will be sunset on January 30, 2019. After this date, all v201802 API requests will begin to fail. We recommend that you skip v201806 and migrate directly to v201809. Please migrate prior to January 30, 2019 to ensure your API access is unaffected.

We've prepared various resources to help you with the migration: If you have questions while you’re upgrading, please reach out to us on the forum.
Nadine Sundquist, Google Ads API Team

Connected TV Device Targeting, Reporting, & Management

Starting on Jan 8, 2019 you will be able to target and generate reports for a new device category via the AdWords API - connected TV. The connected TV platform, (or “TV screens,” as it’s referred to in the new Google Ads experience), is a new Platform type similar to desktop, tablet, and mobile. It targets devices such as smart TVs, gaming consoles and standalone connected devices including Chromecast, Roku, and AppleTV.

Since connected TV shares the same functionality as the three existing platforms, you can target or exclude it using bid modifiers for Display/Video ad campaigns; the new criterion will have a platformName of “ConnectedTv” and an ID of 30004. You can also isolate it in reports using a Device segment named CONNECTED_TV. Note that even though bidding will only be supported for Display and Video ads, some residual traffic may appear in other kinds of reports so you should still pull the new segment for non Display/Video ad reports.

The new connected TV device segment will be available anywhere Device-level or Device-segmented reporting is available. Currently any reporting data related to this platform is consolidated under the Desktop platform.

For more background on device targeting see the Help Center.

If you have questions, please reach out to us on the AdWords API forum.
Ben Karl, AdWords API Team

Announcing v0_6 of the Google Ads API

Today we’re announcing the beta release of Google Ads API v0_6. This release brings you the features listed in Required Minimum Functionality (RMF). Now that the core functionality of this new API is available, you should get started planning, designing, and coding against it. With this version, you’ll continue pointing to v0 as your endpoint, however, you'll need to update your client libraries. Here are the highlights:
  • Manager account authentication: If you’re authenticating as a manager account, the manager account you want for authorization must be in the header as login-customer-id. You then set the customer you want to interact with in the request as usual. This tells the API the level of manager account hierarchy you want to authenticate with.
  • Mix mutate operations: Pass in multiple kinds of operations with GoogleAdsService.Mutate.
  • Hotel Ads: We extended the GoogleAdsService to enable users to query hotel performance metrics that were previously available in the Travel Partner API with the HotelPerformanceView. Supported performance metrics are cost, clicks, impressions, and average lead values. Some derived metrics are also precomputed: average position, average cost per click, average cost per thousand impressions, and click-through rate. These metrics can be segmented by:
    • Itinerary segments: check-in date, check-in day of week, booking window days, and date selection type
    • Hotel segments: hotel center ID, hotel ID, class, city, state, and country
    • Date segments: hour, date, day of week, week, month, quarter, and year
    • Others: campaign, ad group, ad network, and device
  • Feeds: Manage and retrieve feeds with AdGroupFeedService, CustomerFeedService, FeedService, CampaignFeedService, and FeedMappingService.
  • Account management:
    • We introduced CustomerClient, which provides the ability to get an expanded hierarchy of customer clients (both direct and indirect) for a given manager customer.
    • This release also supports the creation of new customer clients under a manager using the CustomerService.CreateCustomerClient method.
    • CustomerService now supports mutates.
  • Recommendations: Added the DismissRecommendation method to the RecommendationService, making it possible to dismiss the recommendations listed in our guide.
  • Ad formats: Gmail ads and image ads are now supported.
  • Search query reporting: The SearchTermView resource is now available, providing metrics aggregated at the search term level. SearchTermView provides functionality similar to the Search Query Performance Report of the AdWords API.
  • Audiences: Create audiences using UserListService.
  • Criteria types: You can now create criteria with CriterionType LANGUAGE, CARRIER, USER_LIST, USER_INTEREST and IP_BLOCK.
To get started with the API, review these helpful resources: The updated client libraries and code examples will be published within the next 2 business days. If you have any questions or need help, please contact us via the forum.
Nadine Sundquist, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

Smart Shopping campaigns are publicly available today

Smart Shopping campaigns were released in AdWords API v201802 to whitelisted advertisers. Today, we’re releasing them to all developers in both the AdWords API and Google Ads API.

Smart Shopping campaigns combine automation and machine learning to maximize your conversion value across networks based on your budget. For end-to-end instructions in creating Smart Shopping campaigns, ad groups, and ads, visit our docs: AdWords API guide or Google Ads API guide.

For optimal performance, we recommend you have at least 20 conversions over the last 45 days across existing Shopping campaigns before creating a Smart Shopping campaign.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please post them on our forum.
 - Thanet Praneenararat, Google Ads API Team

Update to Customer Match Requirements

We announced an update to Customer Match requirements in October 2018 that affects member uploads and the usage of Customer Match for campaigns on Search, YouTube, and Gmail.
  • Creating a CrmBasedUserList through AdWordsUserListService now requires whitelisting. If the account is not whitelisted, your request returns an ADVERTISER_NOT_WHITELISTED_FOR_USING_UPLOADED_DATA error.
  • Uploading members to a CrmBasedUserList results in a CAN_NOT_MUTATE_SENSITIVE_USERLIST error if the account is not whitelisted.
  • Targeting CrmBasedUserLists in accounts that are not whitelisted using CampaignCriterionService or AdGroupCriterionService results in an INVALID_ID error.
  • Serving campaigns can be affected if they are using Customer Match and the account is not whitelisted. If a campaign is only targeting Customer Match, then the campaign stops serving. If the campaign has other audiences, then the campaign continues to serve with the other audiences.
Please see the requirements for whitelist eligibility. To apply for the whitelist, reach out to your account manager. Once whitelisted, Customer Match no longer results in errors and serves normally without any further changes needed.

If you have questions, please reach out to us on the AdWords API forum.

Nadine Sundquist, AdWords API Team

Top metrics, absolute top metrics, and average position in the AdWords API and Google Ads scripts

What's new
Starting November 12, 2018, the fields below will be available in AdWords API and Google Ads scripts reports.

Absolute top metrics:
  • AbsoluteTopImpressionPercentage
  • SearchAbsoluteTopImpressionShare
  • SearchBudgetLostAbsoluteTopImpressionShare
  • SearchRankLostAbsoluteTopImpressionShare
Top metrics:
  • TopImpressionPercentage
  • SearchTopImpressionShare
  • SearchBudgetLostTopImpressionShare
  • SearchRankLostTopImpressionShare
AbsoluteTopImpressionPercentage and TopImpressionPercentage are specific indicators of page location. You can use these metrics to determine when and where your impressions are showing above the organic search results.

SearchAbsoluteTopImpressionShare and SearchTopImpressionShare are your share of the eligible top impressions. They are the best indicators of the headroom available to show your ads in more prominent positions. If your goal is to bid on page location, you should use these metrics. Bidding by average position is not recommended since:
  • Average position doesn't actually describe position on the page but position in the auction.
  • Sometimes, average position may decrease as bids increase. This happens as higher bids sometimes allow you to enter more competitive auctions lower on the page.
See our post on the New features & announcements page for more details.

What you should do
Whenever you are using AveragePosition as a proxy to bid to a page location, switch to using the new SearchAbsoluteTopImpressionShare or SearchTopImpressionShare metrics in your bidding logic.

If you have any questions or need help, please contact us via the forum.
- Josh Radcliff, AdWords API Team

Announcing v0_5 of the Google Ads API

Today we’re announcing the beta release of Google Ads API v0_5. With this version, you’ll continue pointing to v0 as your endpoint, however, you'll need to update your client libraries. Here are the highlights:
  • Billing. Multiple services are available for managing billing.
    • BillingSetupService
      • Create a new billing setup
      • Cancel an approved billing setup that is scheduled to start in the future
      • Cancel a pending billing setup that is not yet approved
    • AccountBudgetService
      • View all approved account-level budgets, including budget adjustments
      • View currently pending account-level budget proposals (if any)
    • AccountBudgetProposalService
      • Create account-level budget proposal to update a budget or create a new budget
      • View all account-level budget proposals. All approved values and proposed budget values are visible. Approved values will be exposed as fields prefixed with approved_.
  • Conversion tracking. Conversion tracking lets you measure the performance of your advertising against your business goals.
    • Conversion actions - Set up and edit the settings associated with your conversion actions, including website tracking and call-conversion tracking
  • Shopping. The ProductGroupView resource provides Shopping campaign statistics aggregated at the product group level (also called listing group in the Google Ads API). Results always reflect the current set of product groups. An impression for a product will be attributed to all product groups that contain the product. ProductGroupView provides features equivalent to the Product Partition Report of AdWords API.
  • Location and Demographics. You can now create criteria with CriterionType AGE_RANGE, GENDER, INCOME_RANGE, PARENTAL_STATUS, PLACEMENT, PROXIMITY, TOPIC, YOUTUBE_CHANNEL, and YOUTUBE_VIDEO. The GeoTargetConstantService lets you input locations and receive suggested geos.
  • Account Management. CustomerService.ListAccessibleCustomers provides the capability to manage Google Ads accounts.
To get started with the API, review these helpful resources:
The updated client libraries and code examples will be published within the next 48 hours. If you have any questions or need help, please contact us via the forum.
Nadine Sundquist, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

Share your feedback about the AdWords API and Google Ads API

Since the early days of the AdWords API, we've continually evolved the platform to help you more efficiently and creatively manage large or complex Google Ads accounts and campaigns. This year, we’ve also announced the Google Ads API Beta, which was rebuilt to stay on the edge with advancements in our advertising platform.

To learn more about what's working well, and what could be improved, we're running our annual developer feedback survey on both the AdWords API and Google Ads API. Your answers will be completely anonymous, so we hope you'll take the opportunity to leave feedback on how we can make managing campaigns even easier.

SHARE YOUR FEEDBACK


The survey should take about 15 minutes to complete, and will close on November 15, 2018. Thank you in advance for helping us continue to improve developer experience for everyone.
Cory Liseno, Google Ads API Team