Thursday, December 6, 2012

Upgrading AdWords campaigns to Flexible reach

With the AdWords API v201206 launch we announced support for the Flexible reach targeting setting. This targeting enables advertisers to fine tune where ads are shown by choosing settings at the ad group level instead of the campaign level.

The new setting is already applied to all campaigns created since the release. As API versions prior to v201206 have been sunsetted now, we are working to upgrade all outstanding campaigns to use Flexible targeting. This change will be introduced gradually on the server side to all legacy campaigns. Please ensure your client applications are fully compatible with API version v201206 and later, and work properly with Flexible reach targeted campaigns.

You can easily determine if a campaign is still using legacy targeting by checking the value of the useAdGroup property in TargetRestrictSetting. To manually switch such a campaign to the new targeting:

  • Send a CampaignService mutate request with SET operation updating the setting to true.
  • Run an AdGroupService mutate request to specify the targeting type you want.

The targetAll value determines if the targeting is broad (true) or specific (false) for the given CriterionTypeGroup. Note that this upgrade is a one-way operation—once enabled Flexible targeting can't be disabled.

As always, please feel free to ask any questions regarding the client libraries or the AdWords API on our forum or during scheduled office hours. You can also follow the Google Ads Developer page for all Ads-related updates.