Tag Archives: Developer

New features and guides in AdWords scripts

Shopping Content API
AdWords scripts now support Google Shopping Content API which gives Google Merchant Center users the ability to upload and manage their product listings and manage their Merchant Center accounts. The Shopping Content API can be enabled through the Advanced APIs dialog. See our guide and code snippets to learn more about this feature.

Account level extensions
AdWords scripts now support account-level extensions: AccountCallout, AccountMobileApp, and AccountReview. You can access these extensions using the extensions() method of the Account object. Appropriate creation and deletion methods are also available for these extensions on the Account object. See our guide for more details and usage examples.

Resolve geo names in reports
The AdWordsApp.report() method now supports an option named resolveGeoNames, which controls whether or not to convert Geo Criteria IDs (e.g., CountryCriteriaId or CityCriteriaId) into names ('United States', 'San Francisco', etc.). Set this option to true to get names, false to get numerical IDs. This option defaults to true.

Updated best practices guide
We have updated the best practices guide to cover a lot of common performance issues that your scripts may run into, and how to improve them.

New weather-based management script
The new weather-based management script improves upon the the popular bid-by-weather script by providing a framework where you can add your own campaign management logic.

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

Anash P. Oommen, AdWords scripts Team

Reminder: AdWords Destination URLs will become read-only on July 1, 2015

We would like to remind you that as previously announced, destination URL fields in AdWords will become read-only on July 1, 2015. Starting on that date, we will also begin upgrading your URLs (if eligible) to the new Upgraded URLs structure.

Once this change goes live, you will get the following errors from the AdWords API: In AdWords scripts, all methods that set the destination URL of various entities have been marked deprecated, and will generate a user error after July 1, 2015.

Before then, be sure to update your AdWords API and scripts code. Use the Upgraded URL fields instead of the destination URL field when creating entities such as ads, keywords, or sitelinks. You can refer to our migration guide to learn how to upgrade your URLs, or our feature guide to learn more about Upgraded URLs. All our client libraries fully support upgraded URLs, and provide code examples that show you how to use this feature and upgrade your URLs.

If you have any further questions about this change, let us know via our API or scripts forum, or Google+ page.

Anash P. Oommen, AdWords API Team

Supermetrics: Bringing more of your cost data into Google Analytics

The following is a guest post from Supermetrics, a Google Analytics Technology Partner.

Google Analytics has some great tools to help you keep track of how well your ad campaigns bring new users to your website, including Goals, Multi-Channel Funnels, and Enhanced Ecommerce. But acquisition or conversion data alone don’t give you the full picture of ad performance. To understand how well your campaigns are doing, you need to contextualize conversion rates with cost data. 

Set up automatic cost data uploads 
AdWords linking lets you see your AdWords data imported to your Google Analytics account, though getting data from other sources can take longer and be a more manual process. You can make the process easier and go faster with a tool like Supermetrics Uploader add-on. 

Built using the Google Analytics Data Import feature, Supermetrics Uploader lets you set up automatic daily uploads from your Facebook Ads and Bing Ads with just a few clicks. You can also use Supermetrics Uploader to to import historical advertising data going back several years, and use it to manually upload CSV formatted data from any source. If your ad destination URLs are tagged with utm parameters, the imported cost data will be mapped to Google Analytics session data, and you’ll immediately see your return on ad spend (ROAS) and revenue per click (RPC) metrics for each campaign.

Watch this one-minute video to get an overview of Supermetrics Uploader.


See all of your cost data in your reports
Supermetrics Uploader can help get you a clear picture of how all your campaign spend compares with the results without having to switch between different reporting systems.

Within twenty-four hours after scheduling your first upload with Supermetrics Uploader, your data will start appearing in your Google Analytics Cost Analysis report, and in any of your Custom Reports that include ad cost, impressions, or clicks. All of your imported data will also be available in any 3rd party tools that connect to the to Google Analytics Reporting API.


- The Google Analytics Developer Relations team

AdWords API 2015 Workshop slides and videos now available

Did you miss our recent series of workshops? Did you attend a workshop, but can't seem to remember what was on slide 32 of the upgraded URLs presentation?

If so, then you're in luck! The videos and slides are now available at adwordsapiworkshops.com for your enjoyment. The Resources section has links to individual presentation videos and slides, or you can just grab a coffee, find a comfortable chair, and watch the complete list of videos.

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

- Josh Radcliff, AdWords API Team

Upgrade former AdWords interest category campaigns

In December 2014, we announced that “Other interests” has been superseded by affinity and in-market audiences. As a part of this transition, the associated criteria are no longer supported in AdWords API v201502.

To finalize this sunset, we’ll be auto-upgrading existing deprecated criteria of this type to supported ones. The auto-upgrade will happen gradually over several weeks starting May 15, 2015.

Campaigns that target "Other interests" will be automatically upgraded to one or more of the following options:
  • Affinity audiences for driving brand awareness and engagement from a defined list of categories;
  • In-market audiences for reaching customers actively researching and intending to make a purchase;
  • Topic targeting to target websites about specific topics.
Campaigns with "Other interests" exclusions will be converted to Topic exclusions during this upgrade. Campaigns that don’t target "Other interests" will not be affected by this upgrade. If you'd like to keep full control of your campaign targeting, make sure to upgrade your campaigns before May 15.

If you have any questions or need help with the upgrade, please post on the forum or the Ads Developers Plus Page.
 - , AdWords API Team.

Change to default filters within AdWords API Reporting

Starting this week AdWords API reports will by default return all objects regardless of their status. API users will need to specify a custom predicate in order to filter out removed entries.

With AdWords API v201502 we made the handling of removed items consistent across services by changing the default filter of all services to exclude all removed entries.

We also included a few reports in this change, but based on your feedback, we’re reverting back to the old behavior. The new filters proved to be confusing and caused discrepancies between reports on different levels. In practice, most API users like to see historical stats of all objects regardless of their current status, so we are making it the default.

As of this week, we’ll start returning all entries in AdWords API Reports regardless of their status by default. This fully matches the old v201409 behavior. You can still filter out removed entries by specifying a custom predicate. Note that non-reporting services will still filter out removed entries by default in v201502 and later, as they do now.

If you have any questions or need help with the migration, please post on the forum or the Ads Developers Plus Page.

 - , AdWords API Team.

Sunset of MobileAd and MobileImageAd Ad Types

Starting June 2015, AdWords will no longer support WAP mobile ads for devices without a full-featured browser, including feature phones. At that time, the AdWords API will no longer support creation of new MobileAds or MobileImageAds. Any remaining ads with these types will stop serving and be converted into DeprecatedAds with status REMOVED. These changes will be visible in all supported versions of the API, though the DeprecatedAd.type field may be UNKNOWN until it can be added to the WSDL in a subsequent API release.

Historical performance metrics for any removed ads will still be available for download via the API’s AD_PERFORMANCE_REPORT.

Next steps
To reach the broadest set of mobile users with your campaigns, we recommend that you: Still have questions? Feel free to visit us on the AdWords API Forum or our Google+ page.

- Adam Ohren, AdWords API Team

AwReporting: Upgraded to use AdWords API v201502

We’ve upgraded the AwReporting tool to use the latest AdWords API version, v201502. The code changes were made according to the migration guide.

Note that besides code changes, the database tables’ column names have also been updated to reflect the new report field names. Since these changes are scattered around many tables, you can run this version of AwReporting on a new database schema, then use the schema generation command to generate both database schemas and compare them. You can also create SQL scripts to import data from old database tables to new ones with updated column names.

We’ve put the code changes in the v201502_upgrade branch. Please feel free to pull this branch and give it a try. Remember to update the properties file to use the new report field names. This upgrade branch will be merged into the master branch at the end of May.

If you have any questions or feedback regarding this upgrade, let us know via the project’s issue tracker.

Zhuo Chen, AdWords API Team

Upcoming changes to mobile app install ads on the Search Network

As part of our ongoing effort to improve app promotion features in AdWords, we are making some changes to mobile app install ads (also known as click-to-download ads) on the Search Network. Starting July 1, 2015, we will support the creation of app install ads for the Search Network only in the Search Network only - Mobile app installs campaign type. In addition, app install ads created for the Search Network outside of this campaign type will stop running in July 2015. This includes any app install ads running together with website text ads in a Search Network only - All features campaign.

If you are a developer who manages app install ads for the Search Network using the AdWords API, you need to perform the following changes on your end:
  • When creating new app install ads for the Search Network, make sure you create them only within Search Network only - Mobile app installs campaigns. These campaigns have their advertisingChannelType set to SEARCH and advertisingChannelSubType property set to SEARCH_MOBILE_APP.
  • If you have app install ads in your regular search campaigns, you need to move them to a Search Network only - Mobile app installs campaign. This may be done as follows:
    • Retrieve your Search campaigns containing app install ads.
    • For each campaign, create a new campaign with similar settings (such as location targeting, device targeting, ad delivery, etc.) with the advertisingChannelSubType changed to SEARCH_MOBILE_APP.
    • Mirror over your ad groups in the old campaign to the new campaign.
    • Mirror over your app install ads from the first campaign to the second campaign, in the corresponding ad groups.
    • Run an ad performance report to see how much you’ve spent on app install ads during the last month. Update your campaign budgets as follows:
      • new_campaign_daily_budget = app_install_cost / 30
      • old_campaign_daily_budget = old_campaign_daily_budget - new_campaign_daily_budget
  • [Optional] Delete or pause app install ads in the old campaign.
See our Help Center guide for more details.

To ensure uninterrupted serving of app install ads on the Search Network, make sure you move them to a Search Network only - Mobile App installs campaign before July 1, 2015.

If you have any further questions about this change, let us know via our forum or Google+ page.

Anash P. Oommen, AdWords API Team

IMA SDK for iOS Beta 13 Released

Today we’re announcing the release of beta version 13 of the IMA SDK for iOS. This release includes two new major features:

  1. The SDK can be included as a framework in your project.
  2. The SDK now supports ad playing in the background.

Importing the SDK as a Framework

Prior to today’s release, importing the SDK involved manually adding every header file to your project, importing every header file individually in your source, and manually including the required frameworks. With the new framework model, you can add a single .framework file to your app and replace all of your header import source lines with a single import statement.

For CocoaPods Users

If you use CocoaPods, your build will fail after you update to beta 13. But fear not, you can fix this in a matter of seconds with the following steps:

  1. Locate and remove each instance of an imported IMA header file in your source (these will look like #import “IMA<something>.h”).
  2. Add the following line to the first header or implementation file to access an IMA object: 
    @import GoogleInteractiveMediaAds;

For Manual Importers

If you don’t use Cocoapods, your path to upgrade is slightly different. You can update using the following steps:

  1. Remove all of the IMA header files and the IMA library file from your project.
  2. Under "Build Phases” > “Link Binary With Libraries”, click the plus sign, select “Add Other...”, and navigate to the downloaded and extracted SDK files. Select GoogleInteractiveMediaAds.framework from whichever folder applies to your implementation (with or without AdMob) and click “Open”.
  3. Follow the two steps above for CocoaPods users.

Background Ad Playback

Since our launch, one of the most requested features has been background ad playback. Suppose, for example, you author a music streaming app, and you want to be able to request and play ads in the background. With today’s release, however, we now support requesting and playing ads in a background service. For more info and implementation instructions, see our Background Ad Playback guide.

As always, if you have any questions feel free to contact us via the support forum.

 - , IMA SDK Team