Google Ads Developer Blog: shopping

Announcing the Merchant API Beta, the new version of the Content API for Shopping

יום שלישי, 2 ביולי 2024

redesignContent API for ShoppingGoogle's API improvement proposalslaunch statusHighlightsGRPCRESTcompatibility guides

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:

Access our Merchant API developer website to discover the Merchant API.

Review our Quickstart guide and Compatibility guides: to ramp up your understanding with how to start your integration with the Merchant API.

Learn more with our Merchant API release notes in the GRPC/REST reference sections to view our launched and future new features.

Check out our new Client Libraries and Samples to help speed up your implementations.

Contact our API support team for any issues or questions.

Help shape the future by providing feedback: Submit any feedback or suggestions.

Benji Rothman, on behalf of the Content API for Shopping Team

Changes to how you contact “Content API for Shopping” Support

יום שני, 10 ביוני 2024

What's Happening? As we continue to improve our support experience, we are making changes to how you contact the Content API for Shopping support team. What's Changing? How you contact “Content API for Shopping” Support:

Shutting down current support path: Effective June 10, 2024, the support email address (shopping-api-support) and the Developer Forum will no longer accept support questions.

New support paths:

To reach our “Content API for Shopping” support team, please use our new Contact Us Form: link here
To reach our "Comparison Shopping Services API" support team, please use this Contact Us Form: link here
Going forward, these will be the only support paths available.

This change will help us better understand user needs and provide quicker solutions. We appreciate your partnership. In the meantime, please reference the following sites for integration/API information:

Content API for Shopping

Google Ads API

Comparison Shopping Services API

Your Content API for Shopping Team

Content API for Shopping: Automatic Quota

יום שלישי, 2 באפריל 2024

The Content API for Shopping now automatically increases your products and accounts quotas as your account grows. Because your API quota now changes dynamically, we have removed the static chart from our published limits guide. To check your current daily quota and usage, and current per minute quota, you can call the quotas.list service. The following errors are not API quota errors and can’t be resolved by automatic quota increases. They require you to request a quota increase.

too_many_items: Merchant quota exceeded

too_many_subaccounts: Maximum number of subaccounts reached

Automatic quota only applies to the products and accounts services. If you need an increased API quota for any other service, or if you’re hitting your daily API quota for the products or accounts services or need a temporary increase for the accounts or products services, contact us with the following information:

Your Merchant Center ID

Which methods you’ve reached your quota limits on

An estimation of how many calls per day you need for those methods

The reason why you need an increased quota

Note that our general quota policy is you should not update your products more than twice per day, and that you should check your accounts and account statuses not more than once per day. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us via the forum.

Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Updates: Errors when linking Merchant Center accounts with Google Ads API

יום שישי, 23 בפברואר 2024

What happened? For developers linking Merchant Center accounts to Google Ads using Google Ads API v14, there was an issue from 04:00 PST Monday, Feb 19 to 08:00 PST Tuesday, Feb 20 that caused some requests to the MutateMerchantCenterLink method of MerchantCenterLinkService to return MutateError.RESOURCE_NOT_FOUND. Also calls to ListMerchantCenterLinks may not have returned some MerchantCenterLinks with link status PENDING. What should I do? If you use Google Ads API v14 to link Merchant Center accounts to Google Ads accounts using MerchantCenterLinkService, you should check to see if you have accounts that have pending link requests during the period of time described above. This issue has now been resolved and you may retry the failed calls to complete the linking of Merchant Center accounts. Also check ListMerchantCenterLinks for accounts with link status PENDING. Some of these link requests may not have previously been returned during that time period. How to get help If you have any questions or need help, check out the Google Ads API support page for options.

Ian Ballantyne, Google Ads API Team

Deprecating Content API Easy Onboarding In Merchant Center

יום רביעי, 13 בדצמבר 2023

The Content API for Shopping easy onboarding authentication method and tab, which create a service account for you, will not be available in Merchant Center Next. Easy onboarding is still available in Merchant Center Classic. You can still use existing service accounts that you created using Merchant Center Classic. To set up a service account without using easy onboarding in Merchant Center Classic, follow these steps:

Ensure you have an existing cloud project or create a new one in the Google Cloud Console.

Generate or access your service account credentials.

Download the JSON private key from Google API Console. This JSON private key can be used in the same way as the one downloaded from Merchant Center previously.

Add the new service account as a user to your Merchant Center account. If you’re a third-party developer (and don’t have access to the Merchant Center UI for the account), your client will need to complete this step for you.

For more details, see the API documentation. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us via the forum.

Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Buy on Google For Search and Shopping Deprecation

יום רביעי, 20 בספטמבר 2023

Buy on Google for Search and Shopping will no longer be available starting September 26, 2023. All Merchant and Consumer support will end for Buy on Google on Search on November 25, 2023. The only exception is that the orders.get and orders.list methods will remain available for Search and Shopping until October 30, 2024, so that merchants can download their historical order data. See below for the specific timeline of when Buy on Google methods will no longer be available for the Search and Shopping program. June 28, 2023 onwards:

buyongoogleprograms.requestreview

buyongoogleprograms.onboard

buyongoogleprograms.activate

buyongoogleprograms.pause

September 30, 2023:

buyongoogleprograms.get

buyongoogleprograms.patch

October 31, 2023: All the orders related resources (orders, orderinvoices, orderreports, orderreturns, ordertrackingsignals) and all their underlying methods. The only exception is that the orders.get and orders.list methods will remain available for Search and Shopping until October 30, 2024, so that merchants can download their historical order data. If you are currently using the Buy on Google endpoints for Search and Shopping via the Content API, you will need to stop using these services for Search and Shopping before the dates listed above, as your requests will start to fail after that date. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us via the forum.

Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Planned Content API maintenance from 15:00 UTC to 17:00 UTC on September 28, 2023

יום חמישי, 14 בספטמבר 2023

The Content API for Shopping will undergo planned maintenance on September 28, 2023, from 15:00 to 17:00 UTC.forum

Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Launching the Merchant Support Service

יום חמישי, 24 באוגוסט 2023

Content API for ShoppingMerchantSupportdeveloper guide

Render account issues: provides UI elements with text in the language you select to display account issues to your merchants and redirect link to Merchant Center for merchants to request a re-review or perform other actions

Render product issues: provides UI elements with text in the language you select to display product issues to your merchants and redirect link to Merchant Center for merchants to request a re-review or perform other actions

MerchantSupportMerchantSupportMerchantSupportforum

Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Upcoming permission changes to MerchantLinkService in the Google Ads API

יום שני, 7 באוגוסט 2023

What’s Changing Starting the week of September 4, 2023, MerchantLinkService.MutateMerchantCenterLink method will fail with an AuthorizationError.ACTION_NOT_PERMITTED error for authorized users without Admin access levels. Required Actions If your application mutates Merchant Center links using the MutateMerchantCenterLink method, review the account permissions of the users authorizing API calls and update their permissions appropriately to ensure they have the required access levels. Refer to the help center guide for instructions. Change Rationale This change will align the Google Ads API behavior with other products such as the Google Ads UI and Google Ads Editor, which only allow Administrator users to mutate Merchant Center links. Currently, the Google Ads API allows users with Standard Access levels but without Admin access level permissions to mutate Merchant Center links using the MerchantLinkService. If you have any questions, please reach out to us on the forum.

- Anash P. Oommen, Google Ads API Team

New Merchant IDs are now 64-bit in Content API for Shopping

יום שני, 24 באפריל 2023

Content API for Shoppinginformed you last JuneforumBenji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Issues from all destinations to be included in Productstatuses Service by default in the Content API for Shopping

יום רביעי, 19 באפריל 2023

April 24, 2023productstatuses.listproductstatuses.getproductstatuses.listproductstatuses.getNo action is needed from youContent API for Shoppingproductstatuses.listproductstatuses.getdestinations[]productstatuses methodsProduct statuses documentationforumBenji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Changes to location targeting in Google Ads Search, Shopping, Display, and Performance Max campaigns

יום שני, 27 בפברואר 2023

April 14, 2023location targeting settingsGoogle Ads API

Campaign.geo_target_type_setting fields

positive_geo_target_type can no longer be set to SEARCH_INTEREST for Search, Shopping, and Display campaigns. The default value is PRESENCE_OR_INTEREST.

negative_geo_target_type can no longer be set to PRESENCE_OR_INTEREST for Performance Max, Search, Shopping, and Display campaigns. The default value is PRESENCE.

SettingError.SETTING_VALUE_NOT_COMPATIBLE_WITH_CAMPAIGNApril 24, 2023SELECT campaign.id, campaign.geo_target_type_setting.positive_geo_target_type, campaign.advertising_channel_type FROM campaign WHERE campaign.advertising_channel_type IN ('DISPLAY', 'SEARCH', 'SHOPPING') AND campaign.geo_target_type_setting.positive_geo_target_type = 'SEARCH_INTEREST' LIMIT 1SELECT campaign.id, campaign.advertising_channel_type, campaign.geo_target_type_setting.negative_geo_target_type FROM campaign WHERE campaign.geo_target_type_setting.negative_geo_target_type = 'PRESENCE_OR_INTEREST' AND campaign.advertising_channel_type IN ('DISPLAY', 'PERFORMANCE_MAX', 'SEARCH', 'SHOPPING') LIMIT 1Where can I get support?forumgoogleadsapi-support@google.com

Nadine Wang, Google Ads API Team

Request Account Reviews with the Content API

יום רביעי, 7 בדצמבר 2022

In the Content API for Shopping, your Merchant Center account and the products in it might be disapproved for various reasons. Historically, you have been able to see the status of your merchant center account for free listings and Shopping ads with the accountstatuses service. In Q1 2022 we introduced the freelistingsprogram and shoppingadsprogram services to provide more granular detail. You can now use the requestreview method on the freelistingsprogram and shoppingadsprogram services to request your account to be re-reviewed after making changes to fix your product and account data. For an in-depth explanation of how to use the freelistingsprogram and shoppingadsprogram services, please refer to the Free listings and Shopping ads guides. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us via the forum.

Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Feed label support added to datafeeds service in Content API for Shopping

יום חמישי, 10 בנובמבר 2022

changes to country targeting for shopping productsfeedLabelfeedLabel

Country targeting update for products in Content API for Shopping and Google Ads API.

Feed label replaces target country in Content API for Shopping.

Country targeting in Shopping Ads campaigns is changing in August 2022.

What’s newMerchant Center & Content APIfeedLabeldatafeedsfeedLabel

products

datafeeds

DatafeedStatus

datafeedtargetfeedLabelcountrydatafeedtargettargetCountriesdatafeedsdatafeedsshippingproductsNotedatafeedsBehavior changesfeedLabelInsert and updateProducts.insertProducts.updatefeedLabelWINTERPRODUCTSfeedLabeltargetCountryfeedLabeltargetCountryUse feed labels to advertise products from specific feedsfeedLabelTargetingtargetCountryproductsshippingproductstargetCountriesdatafeedsOpt out of receiving products and datafeeds without a countryFeed label replaces target country in the Content API for Shopping - temporary exemptionfeedLabelContent API for Shopping forum

Ian Ballantyne, Content API for Shopping Team

Country targeting update for products in Content API for Shopping and Google Ads API

יום חמישי, 22 בספטמבר 2022

On August 10, 2022, we announced a change to country targeting for shopping products with the introduction of the feedLabel field.

See Feed label replaces target country in Content API for Shopping for the original announcement for the Content API for Shopping.

See Country targeting in Shopping Ads campaigns is changing in August 2022 for the original announcement for the Google Ads API.

What’s already changedGoogle Ads:feed_labelShoppingSettingfeed_labelMerchant Center & Content API:feed labelUse feed labels to advertise products from specific feeds

Products that have only feedLabel, and not targetCountry, if they were added in the Merchant Center UI.

Products with feed labels that aren’t two-letter country codes.

Products.updatefeedLabelofferIdfeedLabelsalePricePATCH https://shoppingcontent.googleapis.com/content/v2.1/{merchantId}/products/online:en:WINTERPRODUCTS:1111111111 { "salePrice": { "value": "17.99", "currency": "USD" } } Behavior summary:feedLabel

Insertion: You can only call Products.insert on products with a matching feedLabel and targetCountry. Currently, Products.insert might return an error if you don’t provide a matching targetCountry. This behavior hasn’t changed if you continue to use only targetCountry.

Targeting: If you set feedLabel to a valid 2-letter CLDR territory code, you must still set the shipping attribute of the products resource to the same country in order to target that country. For example, if you set a new feedLabel to “US”, you must also set the country field in the shipping attribute to “US”. If you don’t set both fields, the product might not be eligible to serve in that country. You can configure targeting for an entire feed in the Merchant Center UI.

Get/List: When you use Products.list or Products.get, you might see products that only have feedLabel (and not targetCountry) set if they were added in the Merchant Center UI.

Product IDs: Once a feedLabel is set for a product it becomes part of the product Id. This means you can’t modify the feedLabel for that product (this is similar to how language works). If you wish to change the feedLabel you will need to create a new product with a different product Id.

What’s coming nextProducts:Products.insertfeedLabeltargetCountryDatafeeds:datafeedsOpt out of receiving products and datafeeds without a countryFeed label replaces target country in the Content API for Shopping - temporary exemptionfeedLabelContent API for Shopping forum

Ian Ballantyne, Content API for Shopping Team

Country targeting in Shopping Ads campaigns is changing in August 2022

יום רביעי, 10 באוגוסט 2022

Feed label replaces target country in Content API for ShoppingContent API for Shoppingfeed_labelShoppingSettingfeed_labelsfeed_label not set to a 2-letter CLDR territory code can serve ads in any country as long as the campaign has the appropriate geoTargeting and the appropriate target countries are set in Merchant Center.

This change doesn’t impact the countries targeted by existing shopping feeds. You don’t need to update existing shopping feeds or campaigns.

What’s changing in Merchant Center
Today, Google Merchant Center feeds require you to select a primary country of sale target (sales_country in Google Ads API), with the option to provide additional target countries once the feed has been created. Starting in August 23, 2022, we will make the following changes to how target countries are organized in the Merchant Center UI:

The primary country of sale option will be removed in Google Merchant Center. Country of sale will be replaced by the more generic feed_label that can accept any string, including any existing 2 letter CDLR country code.
The current additional countries field will be renamed target countries, and will include all countries you want the feed to target.

What’s changing in Google Ads UI and API
The current sales_country field for all available Shopping campaign types, including Performance Max, will eventually be replaced by feed_label. Note that we will keep the sales_country field for backwards compatibility until at least Q2 2023. Right now, you can continue to use sales_country in your campaigns.

You can create a feed_label in Google Merchant Center or the Content API. Feed labels let you group different offers according to a common trait, like language (or a country, as you’ve currently been doing). You can also use feed_labels in Google Ads campaigns to target the relevant offers (all products with the same Merchant Center feed label).

The ads for the offers that match the feed_label will show based on the following:

The countries you selected as target countries in Merchant Center.
Your campaign’s geo targeting. Note: The default campaign targeting behavior (if you do not geo target) is that your products will serve in all your Merchant Center target countries.

How you’re impacted
The phased rollout to enable this feature in Google Ads UI and API has already started, and is expected to be complete by the end of September 2022. For existing feeds, feed_label will automatically be set to the two-letter territory code of the existing sales_country field to avoid interrupting existing targeting.

However, if you want to support new users or new feeds that only have a feed_label and not a sales_country field, we recommend you update your code by August 23, 2022 to accommodate customers who will use campaigns that only have a feed_label (without a sales_country).

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us via the forum.

Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Feed label replaces target country in Content API for Shopping

יום רביעי, 10 באוגוסט 2022

On August 23, 2022 we will gradually start updating the way country targeting works for shopping products.targetCountrycountryContent API for ShoppingtargetCountrycountryfeedLabelshippingIf you're accessing accounts whose product data you don’t have total control over and you are unsure whether the products or datafeeds will have ONLY a feedLabel field beginning in late August, we recommend you update your code to support the feedLabel field.productstargetCountrydatafeedscountryCountry targeting in Shopping Ads campaigns is changing in August 2022What’s already changedAugust 8, 2022Content API for ShoppingfeedLabelfeedLabelCLDR territory codestargetCountryfeedLabelfeedLabeltargetCountrythe idREST IDfeedLabeltargetCountryhereThis change to product identifier is backwards compatible, so existing REST IDs for existing products will continue to work without change.ImportantfeedLabelfeedLabeltargetCountryshippingWhat’s coming nextAugust 23, 2022feedLabeltargetCountryfeedLabeltargetCountrycountryfeedLabeltargetCountrycountryHow you’re impactedProductstargetCountryfeedLabelproductstargetCountryfeedLabelfeedLabelstargetCountryAll products inserted with a feedLabel instead of targetCountry, even if the feedLabel is a CLDR territory code, will not automatically target that country. You must explicitly set the countries you want to target via the shipping field.Datafeedsfeed labelcountry of salefeedLabelcountryfeedLabelfeedLabelscountryRecommendation for third party integrationstargetCountrycountryfeedLabelproducts.listtargetCountryfeedLabelcountrydatafeeds.listcountry

Make a request to products.list.

Filter your products to search for products where the targetCountry field does not exist on the product.

If any products appear, you have offers without a country in your Merchant Center.

Detailed ChangeshereDatafeeds ServicedatafeedsfeedLabelcountrydatafeeddatafeedscountryfeedLabelOpt out of receiving products and datafeeds without a countryFeed label replaces target country in the Content API for Shopping - temporary exemptionforum

Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Performance Max upgrade has started

יום שישי, 22 ביולי 2022

As we announced in January and again in March, existing and future Smart Shopping campaigns (SSC) will automatically upgrade to Performance Max campaigns between July and September 2022. The self-upgrade started in April 2022. The automatic upgrade has commenced (related blog post) and should complete by September 30, 2022. This blog post adds details for our API developers. Starting July 25, 2022, accounts without active or paused SSCs (including new accounts) will no longer be able to create SSCs. Once an account with active or paused SSCs has been automatically upgraded from SSC to Performance Max, no new SSC creation will be permitted in any surface including the UI, the API, Google Ads Scripts or Google Ads Editor. The Google Ads API v11 included a new UpgradeSmartShoppingCampaignToPerformanceMaxRecommendation recommendation type to allow developers to upgrade a given SSC to a Performance Max campaign. This can still be applied to an account that has not yet automatically upgraded. As mentioned in the January blog post, Local campaigns will also be automatically upgraded to Performance Max. An upcoming release of the Google Ads API will include a new recommendation type to allow developers to upgrade an eligible Local campaign to a Performance Max campaign. Additional information If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us via the forum.