Tag Archives: bid_modifiers

Sunsetting support for Top content bid adjustments in Google Ads API

We recently announced that Top content bid adjustments are no longer available for any campaigns. To align with this change, Google Ads API will make the following changes starting November 1, 2022.

  1. Attempting to set an AdGroupBidModifier with its preferred_content field set will fail with an ContextError.OPERATION_NOT_PERMITTED_FOR_CONTEXT error.
  2. Attempting to retrieve an AdGroupBidModifier with its preferred_content field set will return a zero value for the bid_modifier field.
If you need to retrieve the existing values for these fields for future reference, we recommend that you download these values before November 1, 2022.

If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us using any of the following support options: - Anash P. Oommen, 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

Expanded Support for Device Bid Modifiers in AdWords Scripts

Along with the AdWords UI and API, AdWords scripts will be rolling out support for desktop and tablet bid modifiers (in addition to mobile) to accounts over the coming weeks. This functionality will be available for ad groups in the new AdGroupDevices class. For campaigns, you will be able to use the new tablet() and desktop() methods in the PlatformSelector class. See our code examples for ad groups and campaigns to learn more about using these methods.

Note: During the rollout, if the feature is not yet enabled in your account, attempts to set tablet and desktop bid modifiers will fail.

With this launch, the getMobileBidModifier() and setMobileBidModifier() methods of the AdGroup and ShoppingAdGroup classes will be deprecated. Updating existing scripts to use the new ad group interface is straightforward. For example, adGroup.getMobileBidModifier() becomes adGroup.devices().getMobileBidModifier().

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

Jason Goodman, AdWords Scripts Team