Google Ads Developer Blog: August 2024

Announcing v202408 of the Google Ad Manager API

Wednesday, August 21, 2024

We're pleased to announce that v202408 of the Google Ad Manager API is available starting today, August 21, 2024. This release brings support for setting contextual targeting with ContentLabelTargeting and VerticalTargeting. It also adds AdsTxtService for reading MCM supply chain diagnostics. In reporting, the VIDEO_PLACEMENT_NAME dimension has been replaced by the VIDEO_PLCMT_NAME dimension which reflects the updated IAB definition. For the full list of changes, check the release notes. Contact us on the Ad Manager API forum with any API-related questions.

- Chris Seeley, Ad Manager API Team

Authorized Buyers OpenRTB migration reminder, and updates to blocked categories

Monday, August 19, 2024

The Google Real-time Bidding protocol is deprecated and will sunset on February 15th, 2025. As previously announced, Google plans to no longer send bid requests to endpoints configured to use that protocol after it is sunset. Additionally, starting September 1st, the protocol will enter maintenance mode, and stop receiving non-critical feature and quality of service updates. If your real-time bidding integration uses the deprecated Authorized Buyers RTB protocol, Google strongly recommends that you start migrating to either our JSON or Protobuf OpenRTB implementations in order to continue accessing the latest real-time bidding features, and avoid interruptions on the sunset date. You can use the OpenRTB migration guide as a reference while you work on your migrations. The OpenRTB protocol uses IAB Content 1.0 taxonomy rather than Google’s product and sensitive category IDs when describing categories blocked by publishers with BidRequest.bcat. You can use the new detectedCategories field in Real-time Bidding API’s creatives resource to find the detected categories for a given creative in IAB’s taxonomy. Google recommends that you use this to reduce bid filtering by only placing bids with creatives having detected categories that aren’t blocked by the publisher. Learn more about changes related to categories. If you have questions or feedback about how we can ease your migration, please contact us using the Authorized Buyers support forum, or adxbuyerapi-support@google.com.

- Mark Saniscalchi, Authorized Buyers Developer Relations

Google Ads API v15 sunset reminder

Thursday, August 15, 2024

sunsetAfter this date, all v15 API requests will begin to fail.newer version

Upgrade to the newest version

Release notes

Google Cloud Console

Open the Dashboard page (found under APIs & Services) in the Google Cloud Console.

Click Google Ads API in the table.

On the METRICS subtab, you should see your recent requests plotted on each graph. At the bottom of the page, the Methods table shows which methods you’ve sent requests to. The method name includes a Google Ads API version, a service, and a method name, such as google.ads.googleads.v15.services.GoogleAdsService.Mutate. In this way, you can see all versions that you’ve used recently.

(Optional) Click the time frame at the top right of the page if you need to change it.

forumgoogleadsapi-support@google.com

- Thanet Knack Praneenararat, Google Ads API Team

Improvements to conversion adjustment uploads

Monday, August 12, 2024

Starting on September 9, 2024, Google Ads API users will no longer need to wait 24 hours before uploading conversion adjustments - they can be uploaded immediately after the original conversion has been uploaded or recorded by Google tags. This means that you will no longer need to keep track of the 24-hour window before uploading conversion adjustments, and can stop checking for certain error codes and retrying those upload requests. Specifically, the following changes will take effect:

The following error codes will no longer be returned in responses from the UploadConversionAdjustments method, and will no longer be visible in diagnostic reports:

Conversion adjustments that would previously be rejected with these error codes will count towards the pending_count in diagnostics until they’re processed, at which point they’ll be counted towards either the successful_count or failed_count fields. This might take up to 24 hours.

Here is how these changes will affect older Google Ads API versions v15 and v16:

The following error codes will no longer be returned in responses from the UploadConversionAdjustments method, and will no longer be visible in diagnostic reports:

Any conversion that would have triggered these codes will, in diagnostic reports, count towards the total_event_count metric while being processed. Once processing is completed they will be counted towards either the successful_count or failed_count. This might take up to 24 hours.

What do I need to do?

Remove any logic from your application that waits before uploading adjustments, and begin uploading conversion adjustments at any time after the original conversion has been uploaded.

Modify your application logic and business processes so that you are not tracking the two conversion adjustment errors that are being removed.

If you rely on the successful or failed event count metrics, revisit your application logic with the understanding that some uploaded events may, at times, when using v17, be represented as pending.

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

- Ben Karl, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

Promotion of Structured Data Files QA format to general availability

Thursday, August 8, 2024

Today we’re announcing the promotion of the Structured Data Files (SDF) QA format to general availability. The SDF QA Format was initially released in open beta on May 30, 2024. The QA format allows you to download SDFs for Line Item and YouTube Ad Group resources that use human-readable values, such as display names, in place of numeric IDs to make it easier to review resource settings in bulk. These QA format files are read-only and can’t be uploaded to modify or create Display & Video 360 resources. The two new file types using this format are Line Item - QA and YouTube Ad Group - QA and are available in SDF v6 and later. These files can be downloaded in the Display & Video 360 interface or by using Display & Video 360 API v3, by either:

Using the FILE_TYPE_AD_GROUP_QA or FILE_TYPE_LINE_ITEM_QA FileType values in a ParentEntityFilter

Providing relevant IDs to new lineItemQaIds and adGroupQaIds fields in an IdFilter

To help you decide whether the SDF QA format is right for you and your integration, we’ve added information and recommendations to the existing Bulk Tools guide. If you run into issues, please contact us using our new Display & Video 360 API Technical support contact form.

- Trevor Mulchay, Display & Video 360 API Team

Announcing v17_1 of the Google Ads API

Wednesday, August 7, 2024

Google Ads APIclient libraries

ShareablePreviewService.GenerateShareablePreviews() generates the URLs for shareable ad previews for enabled and paused asset groups. The URLs are available for a limited amount of time and the expiration date is returned in the response.

AdGroupAdService.RemoveAutomaticallyCreatedAssets() allows you to remove specified automatically created assets linked to Responsive Search Ads.

Support for returning ASSET_GROUP as a new Change Status resource type.

New report for retrieving offline conversion diagnostics, offline_conversion_upload_conversion_action_summary. This supports returning information about the overall health of your conversion upload and adjustment processes at the conversion action level.

Added metrics to the offline diagnostics reports to convey the number of uploaded conversions that are still being processed. See Monitor offline data diagnostics for updated information.

Added segments.sk_ad_network_version which represents the version of the SKAdNetwork API, such as 3.0, 4.0.

Support for segmenting per_store_view based on segments.date.

Support for retrieving information related to standard bidding strategies for video campaigns (Fixed CPM (cost per thousand impression) and Target CPV (cost per view)) using reports.

Added segments.ad_format_type to segment some compatible reports (such as ad_group and campaign based on the video ad format type.

Where can I learn more?

Release Notes

Guides

Reference

forum

- Thanet Knack Praneenararat, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

Upcoming Changes in Python Version Support for the Google Ads API Client Library for Python

Monday, August 5, 2024

In October, 2024, Python 3.8 will reach end-of-life and will no longer be supported by the Python Software Foundation. Once Python 3.8 officially reaches end-of-life status, it will also no longer be supported by the Google Ads client library for Python. That means we will not make updates to the library, or address any issues related to compatibility with Python 3.8, outside of critical security updates. In Q1 2025 we will release a new major version of the library that is incompatible with Python 3.8. This new version will include support for Python 3.13. Users of deprecated, or soon-to-be deprecated versions of Python, are at risk of losing access to the Google Ads API. Please note the below timelines:

Python 3.7 users will lose access to the API when v15 is sunset on September 25, 2024

Python 3.8 users will lose access to the API when v18 is sunset in Q3 or Q4 2025.

Any library users currently relying on Python 3.7 or 3.8 should upgrade their systems to Python 3.9 or higher as soon as possible. If you have any questions about this change, please file an issue on the client library repository.

- Ben Karl, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

Google Ads shopping report outage starting August 1, 2024

Thursday, August 1, 2024

Update (August 2, 2024 13:30 PST): Follow our Google Ads dashboard at ads.google.com/status for updates. See this Google Ads entry for details on this outage. We are actively looking into an issue with Google Ads. As of August 1 at about 2 PM EDT, the following reports are down and are returning internal API errors:

shopping_performance_view

product_group_view

asset_group_product_group_view

Thank you for your patience as we resolve this issue.

Nadine Wang, Google Ads API Team

Ads Developer Blog