Google Ads Developer Blog: ads

Change to the Google Ads API and the AdWords API Showcase Ads Clicks Reporting

Thursday, February 21, 2019

Update (Feb 21, 2019): clarified wording of the Clicks impact.
On February 27, 2019, the data returned in the Clicks metric for Showcase ads will change in order to more accurately show you the interactions with products via Showcase ads in reporting.

In the AdWords API and the Google Ads API, the Clicks metric (clicks for Google Ads API) will change for the Shopping Performance Report and the Product Partition Report (product_group_view for Google Ads API) as follows:

Current reporting: Clicks only include charged clicks.
New reporting: Clicks will report all clicks, including free clicks. As a result, you may see a change in the number of reported clicks.

If you have questions, please reach out to us on the forum.

Nadine Sundquist, Google Ads API Team

Upgrade Dynamic Search Ads in AdWords API and Google Ads API by March 6, 2019

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Upgrade your AdWords API and Google Ads API ads to use ExpandedDynamicSearchAd (EXPANDED_DYNAMIC_SEARCH_AD) instead of DynamicSearchAd (DYNAMIC_SEARCH_AD) by March 6, 2019. After March 6th, creating these ads through the APIs will fail with an AdGroupAdError.CANNOT_CREATE_DEPRECATED_ADS error, while updating them will result in an AdError.CANNOT_MODIFY_AD error. Existing DynamicSearchAds will continue to serve.

For AdWords API, upgrade DynamicSearchAd to ExpandedDynamicSearchAd.
For Google Ads API, upgrade DynamicSearchAdInfo to ExpandedDynamicSearchAdInfo.

An ExpandedDynamicSearchAd goes beyond automating just headlines and adds the advantage of automating display URLs, so that the subdomain of your ad matches the subdomain of your landing page. In addition, Google Ads will add a path when it expects the path to outperform a plain URL. In order to increase the performance for all our advertisers, Google Ads is moving everyone to the newer format.

If you have any questions while upgrading, please reach out to us on our forum.

Nadine Sundquist, Google Ads API Team

Upgrade to Gmail ads from Gmail template ads

Monday, July 16, 2018

On August 15, 2018, creating TemplateAds with IDs 464 (Gmail single promotion template), 466 (Gmail multi-product template), and 497 (Gmail multi-call-to-action template) will result in the error: AdError.Reason.USER_DOES_NOT_HAVE_ACCESS_TO_TEMPLATE. These template ads are now considered deprecated, but existing template ads with these IDs will continue to serve after this date.

If you would like to create a Gmail ad, use the new GmailAd introduced in v201802. Use this new entity instead of the deprecated Gmail template ads going forward.

Here are some tips to ease the transition:

Create new GmailAds in a paused campaign with the AdvertisingChannelType as DISPLAY and the AdvertisingChannelSubType as DISPLAY_GMAIL_AD.
Use MediaService to upload images or retrieve existing media IDs.
Enable the new campaign when the ads are ready, letting it run in parallel with the Gmail template ad campaign.
Pause and remove the Gmail template ad campaign when you’re comfortable with the new Gmail campaign.

For an implementation example, see the Add a Gmail ad to an ad group sample in any of our supported client libraries: Java, PHP, Python, Ruby, Perl, C#, and VB.NET.

If you have questions while you’re upgrading, please reach out to us on the AdWords API forum.

Nadine Sundquist, AdWords API Team

Customize AdWords ads with ad customizer default values or text ad IF functions

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Update December 9, 2016: The previous version of this announcement indicated that this would be rolled out within the next month. This is now going to be rolled out over the next few months. If you would like to check to see if your account has this feature enabled, try editing one of your ads and adding a {. A drop-down should appear. If the option IF function is available, then the feature has been enabled for the account.

Over the next month, AdWords is rolling out to all accounts two new ways to customize your ads.

Default values in Ad Customizers give you an option of providing a default value when referencing a custom value from a feed. This means that you will no longer be required to provide a static ad in your ad group when using ad customizers. Woohoo!
IF functions let you insert a customized message in your ad based on who’s searching and what device they’re searching on, all without using a feed.

Default values in Ad Customizers

IF functions

What’s changing? The new IF function allows text to be specified in a text ad based on device or audience, with the default text being optional. If default text is not specified, then a static ad is required in the ad group. The syntax is:
- {=IF(device=mobile,text to insert):optional default text}
- {=IF(audience IN(<userlist1>,<userlist2>),text to insert):optional default text}
How does this affect me? If you want to add customized text to your ad based on device or audience, start adding the IF functions to your text ads. For examples, check out the Customizing text ads guide.

Questions? Visit us on the AdWords API Forum or our Google+ page.

Nadine Sundquist, AdWords API Team

Ads Take a Step Towards “HTTPS Everywhere”

Friday, April 17, 2015

Since 2008 we’ve been working to make sure all of our services use strong HTTPS encryption by default. That means people using products like Search, Gmail, YouTube, and Drive will automatically have an encrypted connection to Google. In addition to providing a secure connection on our own products, we’ve been big proponents of the idea of “HTTPS Everywhere,” encouraging webmasters to prevent and fix security breaches on their sites, and using HTTPS as a signal in our search ranking algorithm.

This year, we’re working to bring this “HTTPS Everywhere” mission to our ads products as well, to support all of our advertiser and publisher partners. Here are some of the specific initiatives we’re working on:

We’ve moved all YouTube ads to HTTPS as of the end of 2014.
Search on Google.com is already encrypted for a vast majority of users and we are working towards encrypting search ads across our systems.
By June 30, 2015, the vast majority of mobile, video, and desktop display ads served to the Google Display Network, AdMob, and DoubleClick publishers will be encrypted.
Also by June 30, 2015, advertisers using any of our buying platforms, including AdWords and DoubleClick, will be able to serve HTTPS-encrypted display ads to all HTTPS-enabled inventory.

Of course we’re not alone in this goal. By encrypting ads, the advertising industry can help make the internet a little safer for all users. Recently, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) published a call to action to adopt HTTPS ads, and many industry players are also working to meet HTTPS requirements. We’re big supporters of these industry-wide efforts to make HTTPS everywhere a reality.

Our HTTPS Everywhere ads initiatives will join some of our other efforts to provide a great ads experience online for our users, like “Why this Ad?”, “Mute This Ad” and TrueView skippable ads. With these security changes to our ads systems, we’re one step closer to ensuring users everywhere are safe and secure every time they choose to watch a video, map out a trip in a new city, or open their favorite app.

Neal Mohan, VP Product Management, Display and Video Ads
Jerry Dischler, VP Product Management, AdWords

Introducing Ad Customizers in AdWords API

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Today, we are introducing ad customizers, a new way to insert dynamic information into your ads. Ad customizers work similarly to ad parameters. They allow you to set up a feed with dynamic data, targeted at specific campaigns, ad groups or keywords. Your ads then reference the information in those feeds so that the values are inserted when the ad is served. You can also create ads that dynamically count down to an event, by inserting {=COUNTDOWN(...)} in your ad. Learn more about this new feature here.

Ad customizers are currently supported in AdWords API test accounts. Production accounts need to be whitelisted before you can use this feature. You can sign up for this feature here. Once your account is whitelisted, you will receive a confirmation email and can start using ad customizers in the whitelisted account. We whitelist accounts in batches, so expect some delay between signing up for the feature and getting your account whitelisted.

If you have any questions about this feature or the AdWords API in general, you can post them on our developer forum. You can also follow our Google+ page for updates about the AdWords API.

Anash P. Oommen, AdWords API Team

Recorded Ads sessions from Google I/O

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Last week at Google I/O, we had a Google Ads Track where we provided updates on our Google Ads products. We also made some product announcements, including the launch of a new AdMob to help you build your app business and Open Bidder to help you create real-time bidding applications.If you weren’t able to attend these sessions in person or watch the live stream, we have recorded them for your convenience:

Build a Great App Business with AdMob

Dynamically Configure Mobile Applications: Google Tag Manager for Mobile Apps

Optimize Web and Mobile Apps, Across Devices, Using Google Analytics

Introducing Open Bidder: Leverage Google’s Cloud Platform to Reinvent Display Advertising

Google Analytics and AdSense Data Analysis in BigQuery

Share your thoughts on our Google+ page and tell us which session was your favorite!

- Eric Leichtenschlag, AdMob Team

We’re going live from Google I/O

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Editor's note: repost from Developers Blog, --Stan Grinberg

At Google I/O 2013, we will share the future of our platforms with you. Developers from all over the world are the key innovators of powerful, breakthrough technologies, and that’s why we challenged ourselves to make the Google I/O experience available to every developer, everywhere.

Watch Google I/O live
From the comfort of your own home, office, secret lair, or anywhere you have a reliable Internet connection, you can stream Google I/O May 15-16 live. Brought to you by Google Developers Live (GDL), the Google I/O homepage will become the GDL at I/O live streaming hub starting on May 15th at 9:00 AM PT (16:00 UTC). From this page, you can:

Stream 4 channels of technical content on your computer, tablet, or phone. You’ll feel like you’re right there in the keynote and session rooms, listening to product announcements straight from the source. Live streaming will run on developers.google.com/io from 9 AM PT (16:00 UTC) to 7 PM PT (2:00 UTC) on May 15 and 16.
Watch exclusive interviews with the Googlers behind the latest product announcements. This year, GDL will be on site, broadcasting one-on-one product deep dives, executive interviews, and Sandbox walkthroughs from the GDL stage.
Get the latest news in real-time. We’ll be posting official announcements during I/O. You’ll be able to see the feed on the Google I/O homepage, in the I/O mobile app (coming soon), and on +Google Developers.
Never miss a session. All Google I/O technical sessions will be recorded and posted toGDL and the Google Developers YouTube channel. Subscribe to our YouTube channel for archived session updates.

Live blog the keynote
Grab our live blogging gadget to add the keynote live stream to your own site or blog. Customize the gadget with your site or blog name, live blog alongside real-time Google announcements, and share a dynamic Google I/O experience with your readers. Have questions? For more info, check out our live blogging gadget FAQ.

Get together locally
Experience Google I/O with your local developer community by hosting or attending an I/O Extended event. If you’re hosting, register here and learn how to hold a totally epic event with our handy Organizer Guide. Otherwise, with over 400 sites in 90+ countries, chances are good that there is an I/O Extended event near you. Find an event now!

And before I/O, tune in to Google Developers Live programming to connect with Google engineers, prep for this year’s event, and browse our archived content. For official conference updates, add +Google Developers to your Circles, follow #io13 for big announcements, join the Google I/O community, and keep an eye on the Google I/O site.

--Mike Winton, Director of Developer Relations

Ads Developer Blog