Tag Archives: text_ads

Upgrade to expanded text ads and responsive ads before January 31st

Last year, we announced that you have until January 31st, 2017 to upgrade your standard text ads to expanded text ads or responsive ads. After this date, you’ll no longer be able to create new standard text ads. Existing standard text ads will continue serving alongside expanded text ads and responsive ads.

To prevent any errors when creating ads, it’s important to immediately upgrade to expanded text ads or responsive ads before January 31st, 2017. To help you get started, we’ve put together a few resources: If you have questions while you’re upgrading, please reach out to us on the AdWords API forum.
Nadine Sundquist, AdWords API Team

Save time creating expanded text ads with the ETA Transition Helper

Since we introduced expanded text ads (ETA) earlier this year, we’ve recommended that advertisers create and test multiple ETAs to determine what messages perform best for their business. To help you do this at scale, we’ve created the ETA Transition Helper, a powerful tool that allows you to easily create ETAs in bulk using AdWords Scripts and Google Sheets.

This tool helps you save time by using your existing standard text ads (STAs) as a blueprint for your new ETAs. The ETA Transition Helper ensures your expanded text ads are formatted according to the new character limits and that their display URLs use the final URL's domain. After creating the new ETA, the tool displays your current STA and the new ETA side-by-side in a Google Sheet so you can easily compare the two ads. Please note that the tool's interface is only offered in English at this time, but it supports exporting STAs and creating ETAs in all languages.

As a reminder, starting January 31st, 2017, you will no longer be able to create or edit STAs, though existing STAs will continue to serve alongside ETAs.

Get started by checking out the user guide. You can also contribute to the ETA Transition Helper project on GitHub today. If you have any questions or would like to provide feedback, feel free to contact us on the AdWords Scripts Forum.
Herlen Zoljargal, AdWords API Team

Need help upgrading to expanded text ads?

In an earlier blog post, we announced that you have until January 31, 2017 to upgrade from standard text ads to expanded text ads. You will no longer be able to create new standard text ads starting on January 31st even though those ads will continue to serve.

Many of you have already taken advantage of the new ad format, but there are some developers who are still creating new standard text ads. If you need help upgrading to expanded text ads or if you have any questions, please add to this forum post or start a new forum post. Let us help you get these ads upgraded!
Nadine Sundquist, AdWords API Team

More time for upgrading your standard text ads

In a previous blog post, we announced that you would need to upgrade your standard text ads by October 26, 2016 to expanded text ads. To make sure you have ample time to test and iterate your expanded text ads for the holidays, we are giving advertisers more time to upgrade your creatives. You now have until January 31, 2017 to make the transition to expanded text ads (instead of the original date of October 26, 2016).

Starting on January 31, 2017: Please take advantage of this additional time to upgrade your standard text ads. For more details and tips, check out this blog post.

Questions? Visit us on the AdWords API Forum or our Google+ page.
Nadine Sundquist, AdWords API Team

Begin upgrading your standard text ads before October 26th

What’s changing?

As announced yesterday, expanded text ads are now fully available to all AdWords accounts. Expanded text ads feature two headlines and a single long description line, and are optimized for the screen sizes of the most popular smartphones.

Starting October 26, 2016, expanded text ads will become the primary Search network ad type, and creation of standard TextAds will no longer be supported in AdWords. To make changes to text ads after October 26th, you will need to create a new ExpandedTextAd or ResponsiveDisplayAd as announced in the v201605 release. Expanded text ads are the next generation of standard text ads, and responsive ads for Display are the preferred upgrade option for text ads on the Google Display Network. Responsive ads are currently being rolled out to all accounts.

To get started with expanded text ads, check out these upgrade tips. To get started with responsive ads, check out these upgrade tips. The expanded text ads guide and responsive ads for Display guide provide details and code samples in multiple programming languages.

Where can I learn more?
Questions? Visit us on the AdWords API Forum or our Google+ page.

Nadine Sundquist, AdWords API Team

Support for Expanded Text Ads in AdWords Scripts

The expanded text ad format is now fully supported in Scripts. Expanded text ads are the next generation of the standard AdWords text ad and are optimized for smartphone screen sizes. The new format features two headlines, each up to 30 characters, and one 80-character description line. See our guide on ad types and related code snippets to learn more about using expanded text ads in Scripts.

Along with the AdWords user interface, AdWords scripts will stop supporting the creation of standard text ads on October 26, 2016. If you use the AdGroup.newTextAdBuilder() method to create standard text ads, be sure to update your scripts to use the new ExpandedTextAdBuilder class. Existing standard text ads will continue to serve beyond this date and scripts will still be able to retrieve them.

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