Update: All new location extensions created on or after October 16th, 2014 can only be created as new account-level feed-based location extensions.
On
July 14th, 2014, AdWords announced
upgraded location extensions, a more efficient way to manage and use business locations in ads by linking
Google My Business and AdWords accounts.
The upgrade is taking place
in phases for AdWords accounts throughout the coming months. The next phase of account upgrades is scheduled to start on
August 25, 2014. All AdWords accounts will to be upgraded by
November, 2014.
The upgrade has direct impact to AdWords API client applications. If you are using the
CampaignAdExtensionService to manage
LocationExtensions or
LocationSyncExtensions, then you’re using the legacy location extensions that are being phased out. After an account is upgraded, you’ll need to use the new account-level
feed-based location extensions.
How will existing location extensions be upgraded by Google?
Please review the
AdWords Help Center article for all upgrade scenarios. For AdWords API developers, most accounts will fall into one of these scenarios:
- Accounts that don’t have any existing legacy location extensions.
- Accounts that have existing legacy location extensions not sourced from a Google My Business account (i.e., using
LocationExtensions
only).
- Accounts that have existing legacy location extensions sourced from a Google My Business account (i.e., using
LocationSyncExtensions
).
If you programmatically create AdWords accounts that are not associated with any user, please get in touch with your Google representative for migration support.
Accounts that don’t have any existing legacy location extensions
For accounts that aren’t using any
LocationExtensions
or
LocationSyncExtensions
but will begin using location extensions, you should use feed-based location extensions instead.
Accounts that have existing legacy location extensions not sourced from a Google My Business account
If you’re using
LocationExtension
entities to manage individual locations, the automatic upgrade process will perform the following:
- A Google My Business account will be created and linked with the AdWords account. All administrators of that AdWords account will have access to locations in the linked Google My Business account.
- A CustomerFeed with the Location placeholder type will be created.
- Existing locations in
LocationExtension
entities will be copied into the Google My Business account. Existing LocationExtension
entities will then be removed.
- Ads in all campaigns will be served with locations from the linked Google My Business account (you can create a CampaignFeed to further filter or disable location extensions served for a given campaign).
Accounts that have existing legacy location extensions sourced from a Google My Business account
If you’re using
LocationSyncExtension
to link campaigns to a Google My Business account, then the automatic upgrade process will perform the following:
- The campaign-level links to the Google My Business account will be switched to a single link at the account level.
- A
CustomerFeed
with the Location placeholder type will be created for the account.
- Any existing
LocationExtension
entities will be removed, so make sure they’re copied to the linked Google My Business account before the upgrade.
- Ads in all campaigns will be served with locations from the linked Google My Business account (you can create a
CampaignFeed
to further filter or disable location extensions served for a given campaign).
If an AdWords account is already linked to Google My Business at the account level using
CustomerFeed
, any existing legacy location extensions will be removed during the upgrade process.
How do I know if an account has been upgraded?
An account is considered upgraded if either condition is true:
- It has a CustomerFeed for the Location placeholder type. You can query CustomerFeedService to check:
select FeedId, PlaceholderTypes where PlaceholderTypes = 7
- It has neither a
CustomerFeed
nor legacy LocationExtension or LocationSyncExtension entities.
In an upgraded account, any attempts to create legacy location extensions using the
CampaignAdExtensionsService
will return the
AdExtensionError.INVALID_ADEXTENSION_TYPE
error.
How do I continue to manage locations?
There’s currently no API support for Google My Business. Locations are managed via the
Google My Business Locations interface, which supports
bulk management.
Can I start using upgraded location extensions before an account is upgraded?
Since the upgrade process is complicated for many accounts, the simplest approach is to allow accounts using legacy location extensions to be
automatically upgraded (account owners will be notified 30 days before the upgrade).
What about reporting?
For upgraded accounts, you’ll need to use the
Placeholder Feed Item Report rather than the
Ad Extensions Performance Report to download statistics for each location.
We are here to help
If you have any questions about this upcoming change or anything else related to the AdWords API, please contact us on the
AdWords API forum or via the
Google Ads Developers Google+ page.
- Ray Tsang, AdWords API Team