Google Ads Developer Blog

Step Inside AdWords on April 22 and be the first to see the newest innovations

Monday, March 31, 2014

It’s an exciting time to be a performance marketer. When we combine the creative magic of marketing with technology that’s available anytime, anywhere, and on any device, we can connect with customers in more innovative and relevant ways than ever before.

We are constantly working to improve AdWords, and on Tuesday, April 22, 2014 at 9am PT, Jerry Dischler, VP of Product Management for AdWords will share a brand new set of innovations with you live on the Inside AdWords blog. Register for the livestream here.

Building on the success of enhanced campaigns, Jerry will announce a number of new features that help you use context to reach customers in even more effective ways. We’ve designed new tools so you can increase awareness and engagement everywhere your customers are online – from the web, to the mobile web, to mobile apps. And when it’s time to manage your campaigns and measure performance, we want to help you do so efficiently in AdWords with new functionality designed for the multi-screen world.

These AdWords innovations are the result of countless conversations we’ve had over the past year with advertisers, both large and small. Based on your feedback, hundreds of product managers and engineers worked hard to build these new products. Simply put, we built these new products for you.

We hope you’ll join the April 22 livestream of our announcements featured here on the Inside AdWords blog. Register for the livestream here. Until then, follow us on our +GoogleAds page for sneak previews of what’s to come. Use hashtag, #StepInsideAdWords, to join in on the conversation.

Posted by Your Inside Adwords Team

Monetizing Unity Mobile Apps Just Got Easier

Monday, March 31, 2014

Calling all Unity app developers! We are excited to announce the launch of version 2.0 of the Google Mobile Ads Unity Plugin. The new version comes with a completely rewritten, but much more flexible, API. It includes the following new features:

A single package supporting both Android and iOS

Support for running apps in the Unity editor

Ability to create multiple banner instances

Ability to create banners of any size

Flexible ad request targeting

and much more!

Taking a closer look at how to integrate the plugin, a typical banner request in v2.0 looks like this:BannerView bannerView = new BannerView( "YOUR_AD_UNIT_ID", AdSize.Banner, AdPosition.Top); AdRequest request = new AdRequest.Builder().Build(); bannerView.LoadAd(request); For custom banner sizes, simply pass in an AdSize object into the BannerView constructor:AdSize adSize = new AdSize(250, 250); BannerView bannerView = new BannerView( "YOUR_AD_UNIT_ID", adSize, AdPosition.Top); Want to pass additional targeting parameters? No problem! Set your custom targeting when building the AdRequest:AdRequest request = new AdRequest.Builder() .AddTestDevice(AdRequest.TestDeviceSimulator) .AddTestDevice("0123456789ABCDEF0123456789ABCDEF") .AddKeyword("unity") .SetGender(Gender.Male) .SetBirthday(new DateTime(1985, 1, 1)) .TagForChildDirectedTreatment(true) .Build(); Listening for ad events is also extremely straightforward. Register for the callbacks you care about:bannerView.AdLoaded += HandleAdLoaded; bannerView.AdFailedToLoad += HandleAdFailedToLoad; bannerView.AdOpened += HandleAdOpened; bannerView.AdClosing += HandleAdClosing; bannerView.AdClosed += HandleAdClosed; bannerView.AdLeftApplication += HandleAdLeftApplication; … public void HandleAdLoaded() { print("HandleAdLoaded event received."); } You can also manage the lifecycle of each BannerView by calling show(), hide(), or destroy().To get access to these awesome features, check out the source code. Also stay tuned for upcoming support for interstitial ads.If you have any feature requests or bug reports against the plugin, track it! If you have questions about how to use the plugin, speak up! And if you just want the latest news on what’s going on in the wonderful world of Google Ads, circle us!

- Eric Leichtenschlag, Mobile Ads Developer Relations

Changes Required for Creating New Campaigns in the AdWords API v201402

Friday, March 28, 2014

With v201402 of the AdWords API, it is now necessary to set the advertisingChannelType when you create a new Campaign. As part of this change, the networkSetting attribute is now used to define in more detail where you want your ads to appear.

All newly created campaigns, or campaigns that are switched into targeting both Search and Display using v201402, will automatically be SNDS campaigns. This behavior is the same as you will see in the AdWords User Interface, bringing that and the API into closer alignment. Existing applications are unaffected. As we continue to invest in Search Network with Display Select (SNDS) and see strong adoption from advertisers, we will over time be upgrading Search & Display Network campaigns to Search Network with Display Select.

With the introduction of both SNDS and Shopping campaigns, the new advertisingChannelType field allows you to state which kind of Campaign you're building. The field is an enumeration, which can be set to:

SEARCH, for the Search Network, including (for campaigns created with older API releases) Search and Display hybrids, and now SNDS campaigns;
DISPLAY, for the Google Display Network only;
SHOPPING, for Shopping campaigns serving Product Listing Ads on Google and Google Shopping.

Note that an UNKNOWN value can be returned if the value set isn't supported by the called version of the API. This covers situations where new options are added in newer releases.

This table specifies the only valid combinations of parameters for newly created campaigns on the networks that you intend to target.

Networks Targeted by the settings on the right	advertisingChannelType	displaySelect	Enabled networkSettings
Search Network	SEARCH	false	Search Networks only
Search Network with Display Select	SEARCH	true or unspecified	Search & Content networks
Display only	DISPLAY	false or unspecified	Content Network only
Shopping only	SHOPPING	false or unspecified	Search Network only

Any parameter combination other than the above when creating a new campaign or making targeting changes to existing campaigns will be rejected with an OPERATION_NOT_PERMITTED_FOR_CAMPAIGN_TYPE error.

While you can no longer create Search & Display Network campaigns, existing campaigns of this type will remain unchanged. You can identify them by their displaySelect attribute being false, while both the Search and Content Networks are enabled. These campaigns should be migrated to SNDS by setting displaySelect to true.

The advertiserChannelType and isDisplaySelect fields are also present in reporting, so you can see how your Campaigns are configured.

If you have any questions about this change 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.

- Mark R. Bowyer, AdWords API Team

Support for v201402 Reports in AdWords Scripts

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

We are announcing support for AdWords API v201402 reports in AdWords scripts. The following new reports are available for use:

BID_GOAL_PERFORMANCE_REPORT
PAID_ORGANIC_QUERY_REPORT
PRODUCT_PARTITION_REPORT
SHOPPING_PERFORMANCE_REPORT

You can refer to https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/appendix/reports for the list of supported columns and other details for these new reports.

If you use API versioning in your reports, then you need to modify your code to use v201402 as shown below. If you don’t use API versioning, no code changes are required.

var report = AdWordsApp.report(query, {
   apiVersion: 'v201402'
});

If you have any questions about this feature or AdWords Scripts in general, you can post them on our developer forum.

Anash P. Oommen, AdWords Scripts Team

AdWords API users - don’t wait to migrate from ClientLogin to OAuth 2.0!

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

ClientLogin authentication support for the AdWords API will sunset along with v201309 on July 21st, 2014. But it doesn’t mean you should wait till the last minute to migrate!

We have plenty of resources to help you migrate. It might take longer than expected to migrate to OAuth2, especially if you don't already use a single top-level MCC to manage your AdWords accounts.

Start your migration as soon as possible and reach out to us early on the AdWords API Forum with any questions.

- Ray Tsang, AdWords API Team

New geo targeting options in AdWords API

Friday, March 21, 2014

Building on our AdWords announcement in November 2013, v201402 of the AdWords API supports geo targeting for areas with particular places of interest or income levels. These are useful for reaching customers based on the types of places they visit or demographic information based on their location. Please check the support site for more information, and to determine if these new targeting options are available for the country you would like to target. Within the API, these new criteria types are called LocationGroups and can be applied on a campaign to affect all of its ads.

The targeting can be set up using a matching function, which you may already be familiar with from other parts of the API. There are three new operand types for LocationGroups matching functions. Each matching function will pair one of either IncomeOperand or PlacesOfInterestOperand with a GeoTargetOperand, which is always required, to target income brackets or places of interest within a specific geographical region.

For example, to target airports in New York City using the Java client library, you would set up a matching function using a PlacesOfInterestOperand and a GeoTargetOperand, like this:

LocationGroups locationGroup = new LocationGroups();
Function matchingFunction = new Function();
matchingFunction.setLhsOperand(new FunctionArgumentOperand[] {
    new PlacesOfInterestOperand(null, PlacesOfInterestOperandCategory.AIRPORT)
});
matchingFunction.setOperator(FunctionOperator.AND);
matchingFunction.setRhsOperand(new FunctionArgumentOperand[] {
    new GeoTargetOperand(null, new long[]{ 1023191L }) // ID for NYC
});
locationGroup.setMatchingFunction(matchingFunction);

You can look up geo target IDs via the LocationCriterionService or in the documentation. You can also see fully functional, runnable code demonstrating this criterion type in each client library (Java, PHP, .NET, Python, Ruby, Perl).

If you have any questions about this or anything else related to the AdWords API, please contact us on the forum or via our Google+ page.

- Michael Cloonan, AdWords API Team

Bidding on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange with the Google Cloud Platform

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Real time bidding (or programmatic buying), is one of the fastest growing methods of buying and selling ads online, and is predicted to account for 25% of all display spending by next year. Marketers are embracing this model as it allows them to connect to audiences at scale quickly and we've been making ongoing investments to help them grow their programmatic businesses. Today we're continuing those investments by introducing functionality that enables marketers to conduct their real-time bidding on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange (AdX) directly from Google Cloud Platform.

Speed is critical to success in programmatic buying and many exchanges, including the DoubleClick exchange, require that bidders respond to an ad request within a certain time limit in order to preserve the real-time nature of the marketplace. Real time bidding transactions typically happen within 100 milliseconds from a user visiting a website. Starting today, Ad Exchange users hosting on Google Compute Engine will always receive 100 milliseconds for bid request processing and free network transit from Google Cloud Platform to all Ad Exchange trading locations. This effective increase in processing time, combined with the strengths of Google Compute Engine will make Google Cloud Platform a great choice for DoubleClick Ad Exchange buyers.

To ensure that AdX customers have the best possible experience on Google Cloud Platform, we now offer complimentary Gold support for Google Cloud Platform to qualified customers hosting their bidding infrastructure for AdX. You can find more information on this offer as well as instructions on how to sign up here.

For customers who would like to jump start their real-time bidding using a framework provided by Google, Open Bidder provides you the real-time bidding infrastructure. You can sign up for access to Open Bidder here.

For those looking to build their own bidders without the use of our Open Bidder framework, we’ve also published a white paper on how to build real-time bidding solutions on Google Cloud Platform.

If you are interested in learning more about Open Bidder, real-time bidding on DoubleClick Ad Exchange, and bidder hosting on Google Cloud Platform, please join us at an AdX Developer Day in Google’s New York City or San Francisco office on April 9. You can register for the event here.

Posted by Scott Spencer, Director of Product Management, Doubleclick Ad Exchange
Greg Demichellie, Director of Product Management, Google Cloud Platform

* For trading on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange Hong Kong trading location, please contact Ad Exchange Sales.

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