Tag Archives: adwords_api

Changes to the URL Performance Report for YouTube video placements

What's changing?
The URL_PERFORMANCE_REPORT in the AdWords API will exclude information for YouTube video placements starting October 30, 2018, in keeping with our data retention policies. As a result, placements where the Url field has a domain of www.youtube.com will no longer appear in the report. New and improved placement reports will be available in one of the upcoming releases of the new Google Ads API.

What you should do
Review your application and workflows and make the necessary changes to ensure that the exclusion of video placements in this report will not cause problems. Watch this blog for updates regarding new placement reports in the Google Ads API.

If you have any questions or need help, please contact us via the forum.

- Josh Radcliff, AdWords API Team

Announcing v0_4 of the Google Ads API

Today we’re announcing the beta release of Google Ads API v0_4. With minor versions like this one, you’ll continue to point to v0 as your endpoint, but you will need to update your client libraries to use the new features. Here are the highlights:

  • Whitelist Removed. The whitelist has been removed for the Beta. All API users with an existing developer token in the AdWords API are now able to use the Google Ads API.
  • Billing. BillingSetupService and AccountBudgetProposalService introduce the ability to set up billing. Please note, this does not provide the ability to fully set up account budgets yet. See the release notes for details.
  • Campaigns. 
  • Change History.
    • We’ve introduced ChangeStatus, allowing you to find the current status of changed resources in your account.
    • The six supported resources are:
      • AD_GROUP
      • AD_GROUP_AD
      • AD_GROUP_CRITERION
      • CAMPAIGN
      • CAMPAIGN_CRITERION
    • Search for changed resources using GoogleAdsService.Search.
  • Conversion tracking. Conversion tracking lets you measure the performance of your advertising against your business goals. The API allows you to set up and edit your conversion tracking setup. With ConversionActions, you can set up and edit the settings associated with your conversion actions supporting:
    • AD_CALL
    • CLICK_TO_CALL
    • GOOGLE_PLAY_DOWNLOAD
    • GOOGLE_PLAY_IN_APP_PURCHASE
    • UPLOAD_CALLS
    • UPLOAD_CLICKS
    • WEBPAGE
    • WEBSITE_CALL
  • Shopping. Shopping campaigns help you promote your online and local inventory, boost traffic to your website or local store, and find better qualified leads.
    • This release supports the creation of standard Shopping campaigns with Shopping Product Ads. Portfolio and campaign-local bidding strategies are supported types MANUAL_CPC, ENHANCED_CPC, TARGET_SPEND, TARGET_ROAS. Product offers can be subdivided into groups using the ListingGroupInfo criterion (equivalent to Product Groups in the Google Ads user interface), which currently supports the following dimension types: Product Condition, Product Type, Listing Brand, Listing Custom Attribute (L0-4), Product Channel, Product Channel Exclusivity, Product Offer Id.
  • Video. 
    • Retrieve information about your video campaigns from GoogleAdsService.Search, which includes video-specific metrics including video views, video view rate, video quartiles, and view-through conversions.
  • Ruby client library. When upgrading your client library, please look at the ChangeLog as the require path and namespace have changed in this version.
To get started with the API, our team has put together these 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

Try AdWords & Google Ads API Web Navi

Have you ever wanted to see the AdWords API and Google Ads API services or reference pages relevant to the new Google Ads experience web page you’re browsing? Now you can easily do so by using our new Chrome extension, the AdWords & Google Ads API Web Navi!

How does it work?
The tool shows the AdWords API and Google Ads API resources (e.g., guides, service reference pages, report references) related to the web page of the new Google Ads experience you are visiting. Just choose the tab for the API of interest to view the relevant resources.

For example, in the animation below, a user has clicked on the extension’s icon while browsing the Ad groups page of the new Google Ads experience. The extension then shows some relevant resources for the AdWords API, e.g., Objects, Methods, and Services, AdGroupService, and Adgroup Performance Report. When the user clicks on the Google Ads API (Beta) tab, its resources are shown instead.

Below are the screenshots of both tabs:
The AdWords API Resources The Google Ads API Resources


Resources in each tab are divided into sections — Guides, Services, and Reports for the AdWords API, and Guides, Services, and Fields for the Google Ads API.

In each AdWords API and Google Ads API release, we will update the tool to reflect the addition, update, and deletion of resources. Note that for services, the tool always shows the latest version of the API.

If you have any questions or comments, please post on our forum or add your comments directly in the Reviews tab of the extension page.
 - , Google Ads API Team

Announcing v201809 of the AdWords API

Today we’re announcing the release of AdWords API v201809. Here are the highlights:

  • More available text in ads. Several ad types now have additional fields, and an increased character count of 90 characters for descriptions. Check out the release notes for more details.
  • Traffic split in trials. The new trafficSplitType gives you greater control over how traffic is split in your trials.
  • Conversion reporting. The new ConversionAttributionEventType field in the CAMPAIGN_PERFORMANCE_REPORT allows you to segment AllConversions and related metrics by event type (impression or interaction). In addition, the new ConversionAdjustment and ConversionAdjustmentLagBucket fields allow you to determine if conversion adjustments were applied and segment metrics by the number of days between the impression and either conversions or adjustments.

If you’re using v201802 of the AdWords API, please note that it will be sunset on January 30, 2019. We encourage you to skip v201806 and migrate straight to v201809. If you're using v201806, be aware it's now marked deprecated and will be sunset on March 26, 2019.

As with every new version of the AdWords API, please carefully review all changes in the release notes and the v201809 migration guide. The updated client libraries and code examples will be published within the next 48 hours.

If you have any questions or need help with migration, please contact us via the forum. 

- Josh Radcliff on behalf of the AdWords API Team.

Announcing v0_3 of the Google Ads API

Today we’re announcing the beta release of Google Ads API v0_3. With minor versions like this one, you’ll continue to point to v0 as your endpoint, but you will need to update your client libraries to use the new features. Here are the highlights:

  • Campaigns. We’re expanding beyond Search campaigns with keyword targeting to include:
    • Display campaigns
    • Campaign groups
    • Ad schedules
    • Campaign shared sets
    • Shared sets for keyword criteria
    • Campaign bid modifiers for interaction types.
    • Ad group bid modifiers.
  • Queries. GoogleAdsService.search provides the ability to filter by resource name.
  • Creatives. For ad disapproval error handling, PolicyFindingDetails replaces PolicyViolationDetails for expanded text ads.
  • Hotel Ads. Hotel ads, first introduced in v0_1, is a whitelisted feature with an ad type that is created automatically by the system based on your provided hotel listings and prices. To learn more about the hotel ads migration and what’s next, check out our recent webinar:
  • Recommendations. Recommendations provide customized suggestions to help increase your campaigns' performance. In the v0_3 release, we’ve added new recommendation types to the API and a new “dismissed” field.
    • Five new recommendation types are available in the API:
      • Bidding with Maximize conversions
      • Bidding with Enhanced CPC
      • Bidding with Maximize clicks
      • Expand your reach with Google Search partners
      • Use optimized ad rotation
    • Added “Dismissed” field to search, retrieve, or apply dismissed recommendations.
  • Shopping. Smart Shopping Campaigns combine standard Shopping and Display remarketing campaigns, and use automated bidding and ad placement to promote your products and business across networks.
  • This release of Google Ads API supports the creation of Smart Shopping Campaigns, which can be used with Maximize Conversion Value bidding strategies. Product offers can be subdivided into groups using the ListingGroupInfo criterion, which currently supports the following dimension types: Product Condition, Product Type, Listing Brand, Custom Attribute (L0-4).
  • Access to Smart Shopping campaigns is currently only available to whitelisted developers.
  • Python client library. We’ve now also released a Python client library. In the v0 and v0_2 releases, we released Java, C#, Ruby, and PHP client libraries. 
To get started with the API, our team has put together these resources:

If you have any questions or need help, please contact us via the forum.

Nadine Sundquist, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

Upcoming changes to mobile placement targets and exclusions

What's changing
Starting September 18, 2018, AdWords API requests that attempt to target or exclude a Placement criterion where the url is exactly adsenseformobileapps.com will fail and result in a CriterionError with reason INVALID_PLACEMENT_URL. You can read more about this change in the Google Ads help center.

What you should do
Modify your application so that it does not add the above Placement criterion via the AdWords API, and review and modify your mobile targeting to achieve your campaign goals. You will no longer be able to exclude all mobile apps from targeting using this Placement criterion, but you can refine your mobile app targeting and exclusions using any of the following criteria: For more details, check out the criteria usage grid that indicates which criterion types can be targeted and excluded at the campaign or ad group level. If you have any questions or need help, please contact us via the forum.
- Josh Radcliff, AdWords API Team

Deprecation of assisted-conversions reporting fields

Starting September 10, 2018, AdWords API and AdWords scripts reports will start returning no values (two dashes) for the following assisted-conversions fields for all API versions: Why are we deprecating these reporting fields?
Often, the last click before a conversion gets all the credit. But along the way, other clicks and impressions might have guided your customers toward that conversion. Previously, assisted-conversions reporting fields were created to give conversions to the clicks and impressions that assisted in such a scenario. However, it’s still not easy to compare those conversion values between campaigns, ad groups, and keywords, as conversion metrics are double-counted and not normalized.

With the advent of attribution models that allow you to assign fractional credits to multiple clicks that contribute to conversions, you can now distribute credits among many clicks in a way that they can be summed up to 1.00. Conversion reporting fields, such as Conversions, AllConversions, and CrossDeviceConversions, are now returned based on the fractional-credit model, so please migrate to those reporting fields instead.

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

Multi-factor authentication policy for Google Ads accounts

Today, we are rolling out a feature that allows the administrative users of Google Ads accounts to set a required multi-factor authentication policy, including 2-Step Verification. When this new authentication policy is enabled on a particular Google Ads account, all users who want to access that account must have their Google accounts enrolled in 2-Step Verification.

Note: The Google account users can alternately fulfill this requirement by enrolling their accounts in Advanced Protection.

What will happen to your API access?
If 2-Step Verification is required for a particular Google Ads account, then 2-Step Verification also needs to be set up for the Google account used to generate the OAuth2 refresh token accessing the Google Ads account. Follow this link to opt in to 2-Step Verification. Failing to do so will result in the AuthorizationError.TWO_STEP_VERIFICATION_NOT_ENROLLED error when you try to access the Google Ads account.

Access to the Google Ads account will be restored once you opt in to the 2-Step Verification. The multi-factor authentication policy does not affect the way you access the AdWords API or the Google Ads API Beta in any other aspects--you can still use an OAuth2 refresh token and a developer token to access the AdWords API and the Google Ads API Beta as usual.

2-Step Verification ensures only strongly verified users have access to your Google accounts. Opt in now to avoid hitting the AuthorizationError.TWO_STEP_VERIFICATION_NOT_ENROLLED error in advance.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please post on our forum.
 - , AdWords API Team

Upcoming changes to HTML5 template ads in AdWords API & Scripts

Starting August 27, 2018, creating TemplateAds with IDs 419 (HTML5 Ads) may result in an error in AdWords API and Scripts. AdWords API users will see the error AdError.Reason.USER_DOES_NOT_HAVE_ACCESS_TO_TEMPLATE when creating HTML5 ads using various services.AdWords Scripts users may see an error that the ad cannot be saved when using the HTML5AdBuilder class to create a new HTML5 ad.

Existing accounts that have used or are currently using HTML5 ads will be whitelisted, and will continue to be able to upload HTML5 ads. Existing HTML5 ads will also continue to serve after this date.

If your account is new, or has never used HTML5 ads before, you may be affected by this change. We recommend one of the following options to fix this error:
  • You may apply for HTML5 access in your account by filling in the whitelist request form
  • You can use an AMPHTML instead of a regular HTML file in your HTML5 bundle. AMPHTML ads won’t trigger the above error.
  • You will automatically be approved for HTML5 access once you have spent more than $9000 USD on AdWords and your account is more than 90 days old
If you have questions about this change, please reach out to us on the AdWords API forum or AdWords Scripts forum.
- Anash Oommen, AdWords API Team

Upgrade to Gmail ads from Gmail template ads

On August 15, 2018, creating TemplateAds with IDs 464 (Gmail single promotion template), 466 (Gmail multi-product template), and 497 (Gmail multi-call-to-action template) will result in the error: AdError.Reason.USER_DOES_NOT_HAVE_ACCESS_TO_TEMPLATE. These template ads are now considered deprecated, but existing template ads with these IDs will continue to serve after this date.

If you would like to create a Gmail ad, use the new GmailAd introduced in v201802. Use this new entity instead of the deprecated Gmail template ads going forward.

Here are some tips to ease the transition:
  • Create new GmailAds in a paused campaign with the AdvertisingChannelType as DISPLAY and the AdvertisingChannelSubType as DISPLAY_GMAIL_AD.
  • Use MediaService to upload images or retrieve existing media IDs.
  • Enable the new campaign when the ads are ready, letting it run in parallel with the Gmail template ad campaign.
  • Pause and remove the Gmail template ad campaign when you’re comfortable with the new Gmail campaign.
For an implementation example, see the Add a Gmail ad to an ad group sample in any of our supported client libraries: Java, PHP, Python, Ruby, Perl, C#, and VB.NET.

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