Today we’re announcing the deprecation of Structured Data Files (SDF) v6. This version will sunset on April 30, 2025.

Migrate to SDF v7 or higher before the sunset date to avoid any interruption of service. Instructions on how to migrate from v6 to v7 can be found in our migration guide.

Today we’re announcing the deprecation of Structured Data Files (SDF) v6. This version will sunset on April 30, 2025.

Migrate to SDF v7 or higher before the sunset date to avoid any interruption of service. Instructions on how to migrate from v6 to v7 can be found in our migration guide.

After April 30, 2025, the following changes will apply to all users:

  • The default version of partners and advertisers using those versions will be updated to v7.
  • sdfdownloadtasks.create requests using SDF_VERSION_6 in the request body will return a 400 error.

If you run into issues or need help with your migration, please contact us using our new Display & Video 360 API Technical support contact form.

- Trevor Mulchay, Display & Video 360 API Team
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As previously announced, Ads Developer Relations hosted a workshop on July 17: Performance Max and the Google Ads API. We are grateful to all the Google Ads API and Performance Max enthusiasts who tuned in for the live workshop.

As previously announced, Ads Developer Relations hosted a workshop on July 17: Performance Max and the Google Ads API. We are grateful to all the Google Ads API and Performance Max enthusiasts who tuned in for the live workshop.

If you didn't get a chance to watch the workshop live, or you want to review content you previously watched, you can still view sessions on demand at the event site.

We hope you will take advantage of this awesome resource to learn more about the power of Performance Max campaigns, and hear from Google Ads API experts on how to build, manage, and report on Performance Max campaigns using the API.

 - Laura Chevalier, Google Ads API Team
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As announced in February 2024, Display & Video 360 API v2 will sunset on September 3, 2024. Please migrate to Display & Video 360 API v3 before the sunset date to avoid an interruption of service.

As announced in February 2024, Display & Video 360 API v2 will sunset on September 3, 2024. Please migrate to Display & Video 360 API v3 before the sunset date to avoid an interruption of service.

You can read our release notes for more information about v3. Follow the steps in our v3 migration guide to help you migrate from v2 to v3.

If you run into issues or need help with your migration, please contact us using our new Display & Video 360 API Technical support contact form.

- Trevor Mulchay, Display & Video 360 API Team
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Note: Based on popular feedback, we are extending the sunset date for this change. This feature will continue working in older API versions until v16 sunsets. Sunset Schedule can be found here.

Note: Based on popular feedback, we are extending the sunset date for this change. This feature will continue working in older API versions until v16 sunsets. Sunset Schedule can be found here.

Starting the week of August 19, 2024, we will roll out a change that removes the ability to set the page_size field when making GoogleAdsService.Search requests. All requests will assume a fixed page size of 10,000 rows instead. Developers will receive the following errors if the page_size field is set:

This change was previously introduced as a versioned change in version v17 of the API. The current change introduces the change to the older API versions, making the API consistent across all API versions.

What do I need to change?

If you use version v17 of the API, no changes are required. If you use an older version of the API and set the page_size field in your GoogleAdsService.Search requests, then you should update your application code to stop setting this field.

How to get help

If you have any questions or need help, check out the Google Ads API support page for options.

 - , Google Ads API Team

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On October 31, 2024, Display & Video 360 Entity Read Files (ERFs) will sunset. After this date, new private and public ERFs will not be generated. ERFs were deprecated in June 2021 and the October sunset date was first announced in January 2024.

On October 31, 2024, Display & Video 360 Entity Read Files (ERFs) will sunset. After this date, new private and public ERFs will not be generated. ERFs were deprecated in June 2021 and the October sunset date was first announced in January 2024.

If you are currently using ERFs to programmatically retrieve Display & Video 360 resource configurations, migrate to the Display & Video 360 API. You can either integrate directly with the Display & Video 360 API using REST requests or automatically import Display & Video 360 resource configurations into BigQuery using the Display & Video 360 API BigQuery Connector.

See our migration guide for more information on migrating to the Display & Video 360 API and the two integration options.

If you have questions or concerns about this migration, please contact us using our new Display & Video 360 API Technical support contact form.

- Trevor Mulchay, Display & Video 360 API Team
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We heard your feedback via Play Console crash reports regarding Application Not Responding (ANRs) errors related to the Google Mobile Ads SDK. After analyzing these reports, we updated our SDK implementation best practices to reduce ANR rates. The recommended best practices are as follows:

We heard your feedback via Play Console crash reports regarding Application Not Responding (ANRs) errors related to the Google Mobile Ads SDK. After analyzing these reports, we updated our SDK implementation best practices to reduce ANR rates. The recommended best practices are as follows:

  1. Initialize the Mobile Ads SDK on a background thread
  2. Enable optimization flag for ad loading

1. Initialize the Mobile Ads SDK on a background thread

Our previous best practice was to specify the OPTIMIZE_INITIALIZATION manifest flag. However, some work on the calling thread is still required to prepare MobileAds to handle other method calls synchronously.

We now recommend calling MobileAds.initialize() on a background thread, enabling the work required on the calling thread to happen in the background. 

import com.google.android.gms.ads.MobileAds
import kotlinx.coroutines.CoroutineScope
import kotlinx.coroutines.Dispatchers
import kotlinx.coroutines.launch

class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() {
  override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main)

    CoroutineScope(Dispatchers.IO).launch {
      // Initialize the Google Mobile Ads SDK on a background thread.
      MobileAds.initialize(this@MainActivity) {}
      runOnUiThread {
        // Load an ad on the main thread.
        loadAd()
      }
    }
  }
}

Note: When calling MobileAds.initialize() on a background thread, the OPTIMIZE_INITIALIZATION manifest flag is no longer required.

2. Enable optimization flag for ad loading

By enabling the OPTIMIZE_AD_LOADING manifest flag, you can offload most ad loading tasks to a background thread. We recommend enabling this flag in your app's AndroidManifest.xml file to reduce the occurrence of ad loading causing ANRs. 

<manifest>
  ...
  <application>
      ...
      <meta-data
          android:name="com.google.android.gms.ads.flag.OPTIMIZE_AD_LOADING"
          android:value="true"/>
  </application>
</manifest>

We’ve updated all of our Android example apps to implement these best practices. For more details on initialization and optimization flags, see Get started and Optimize initialization and ad loading. Contact us if you have any questions or need additional help.

 - Joshua Hui, Mobile Ads Developer Relations
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As previously announced, the Performance Max and the Google Ads API workshop is only one week away, on July 17, 2024. Register today to reserve your spot.

As a reminder, this developer-focused, virtual workshop will provide you with knowledge, resources, and support to build, manage, and report on Performance Max campaigns in the Google Ads API. We’re offering this live workshop in three regions. Follow the links below to view the full agenda in your region.

As previously announced, the Performance Max and the Google Ads API workshop is only one week away, on July 17, 2024. Register today to reserve your spot.

As a reminder, this developer-focused, virtual workshop will provide you with knowledge, resources, and support to build, manage, and report on Performance Max campaigns in the Google Ads API. We’re offering this live workshop in three regions. Follow the links below to view the full agenda in your region.

Regional Workshop Times & Agendas

We look forward to seeing you!

 - Laura Chevalier, Google Ads API Team
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What changed?
On 24 July 2023, we announced the auto-migration of location extensions to assets. For the majority of accounts, location extensions were automatically migrated to assets. This change was made to expand the variety of ways in which your location extensions can serve. Accounts with no activity (no impressions, no clicks, and no spend) from July 1, 2023 to January 1, 2024 were not migrated.
What changed?
On 24 July 2023, we announced the auto-migration of location extensions to assets. For the majority of accounts, location extensions were automatically migrated to assets. This change was made to expand the variety of ways in which your location extensions can serve. Accounts with no activity (no impressions, no clicks, and no spend) from July 1, 2023 to January 1, 2024 were not migrated.

How do I know if an account was migrated?
To find the status of an account, use the following fields of the customer resource:
  • bool location_asset_auto_migration_done
  • string location_asset_auto_migration_done_date_time
You will also see an alert in the Google Ads UI if your account has been migrated, and assets will appear under your account.

What do I need to do?
If your location extensions were not migrated, and you want to use location assets, you need to create the location assets via the UI or the API.

For questions about the API, please contact us on the forum.

For questions about the UI, please contact us here.
Bob Hancock, Google Ads API Team
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Today we're announcing the release of the Merchant API Beta. This is the newest version of the Content API for Shopping which comes with exciting new features. The Merchant API is a ...
Today we're announcing the release of the Merchant API Beta. This is the newest version of the Content API for Shopping which comes with exciting new features. The Merchant API is a redesign of the Content API for Shopping which can help you showcase your products with new features, modular design with isolated sub-API updates, and improved alignment with Google's API improvement proposals. We invite you to try out the Merchant API Beta to provide early feedback so we can improve the Merchant API for you.

For more information, we highly recommend reviewing the launch status for Merchant API Beta expectations and see the following sections.

Highlights:
You can find a complete list of features in the release notes in the GRPC/REST reference sections and accompanying compatibility guides, but here are the highlights:
  • Sub APIs with new features at launch: We are excited to announce an initial set of sub apis which comes with new features:
    • Data Sources: Allows multiple API feed creation and management, improved management of supplemental feeds via creation with linking to primary feeds, and support for other shopping feeds such as promotions.
    • Notifications: Receive push notifications for changes to a given account and product data.
    • Products: Unifying Product & ProductStatuses resources to streamline your workflow, new functionality to support inserting products into non API data sources.
    • Inventory: Improved management with the ability to remove in-store or regional inventories for your products.
    • Accounts: New terms of signing (ToS) functionality via the API and accessing account issues with multi-language support.
    • Local Feeds Partnership: For Point-of-sale data providers, more granular inventory management with availability status submissions and feed labels for inventory.
    • Promotions: Simplified promotion statuses with improved details and support for custom promotion attributes for faster iterations on new features.
    • Quota: Additional fields such as version, sub-api, and adjustments visible through the API to manage your quotas more efficiently.
    • Reports: A new NonProductPerformanceView table which provides insights into non-product performance data such as data on links leading to merchants’ homepage.
  • Merchant API is the future. Going forward, we will start launching new features primarily for the Merchant API which will have the newest Merchant Center features. We recommend you start using the Merchant API and would love to hear your feedback to help shape the future.
  • More features are on the way! Today's release contains many new improvements. Currently, there isn’t feature completeness between the Content API and Merchant API. We will have more features upcoming which are based on establishing parity, your feedback, and completely new features such as creation of file feeds with the Data source Merchant API.
Learn more and check out the following resources:
Benji Rothman, on behalf of the Content API for Shopping Team
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