Google Ads Developer Blog

Smart Shopping and Local Campaigns upgrading to Performance Max

Thursday, January 27, 2022

Starting July 2022, existing and future Smart Shopping campaigns (SSC) will begin automatic upgrades to Performance Max campaigns. Local campaigns (LC) will begin automatic upgrades starting August 2022. If you manage and/or report on SSC and/or LC, you should implement Performance Max campaign features as early as possible in order to avoid loss of functionality. Closer to July, we will provide more details and precise timing.

We recommend you begin to build integrations now to ensure adequate preparation for migration.

New retail and local campaigns

Performance Max has been available in the Google Ads API since v9. We recommend you use Performance Max today for any new campaigns with online, offline or omnichannel sales goals.

SSC can be created without conversion tracking. While Performance Max campaigns, including retail, do not require conversion tracking, it is highly recommended.

Ways to upgrade

Here are the ways you will be able to upgrade existing campaigns to Performance Max:

[Recommended] Self-upgrade through API recommendations. In an upcoming Google Ads API release later this year, a new recommendation type will be available for per-campaign or bulk upgrades. You can use this to control the sequence of campaign upgrades or apply all recommendations at one time. There will be equivalent upgrade options available in the Google Ads UI. Self- and auto-upgraded campaigns will carry forward some learnings from the legacy campaign to help ensure continuity.
Auto-upgrade. Starting July 2022, SSC will be auto-upgraded to Performance Max on a rolling basis. Starting August 2022, LC will be auto-upgraded on a rolling basis.
Create a new Performance Max campaign through the API. This would involve creating a new Performance Max campaign with the same attributes and properties as an existing SSC or LC. Should you choose to create a new Performance Max campaign, the new campaign may not utilize the learnings of the existing SSC or LC to the same extent.

Upgrade impact on existing campaigns

An upgraded campaign, whether by self-upgrade or auto-upgrade, will:

Preserve budgets, assets, and settings of the existing SSC and LC
Mark the legacy campaign as REMOVED status (metrics will continue to be available in the legacy campaign for historical purposes)
Contain a mapping from the previous campaign ID to the new campaign ID

Upgraded campaigns will function like your previous campaigns and use existing assets to run on additional inventory that drives your conversion goals. We recommend adding additional assets to get the most value out of Performance Max.

Timeline

Date	Event
Now	Start implementing Performance Max in your application. When possible, start new campaigns with Performance Max instead of SSC or LC.
April 27, 2022	Sunset of AdWords API
April 2022	Self-upgrade period begins in the UI
April / May 2022	Self-upgrade period begins with the API's new recommendation type
July 2022	Start of SSC auto-upgrade
August 2022	Start of LC auto-upgrade
September 30, 2022	Completion of most SSC and LC auto-upgrades

Guidance for AdWords API developers

The AdWords API will sunset on April 27, 2022. Developers using SSC via the AdWords API should migrate to the Google Ads API using SSC as early as possible. The self-migration by the Google Ads API will only be available after the sunset of the AdWords API.

Additional information

For additional information, see the Google blog post about this upgrade.
If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us via the forum.

David Wihl, Google Ads API Team

Revised Schedule for the Auto-migration of Feeds

Wednesday, January 26, 2022

4 May 2021

8 November 2021

Legacy Type

Subtype

Status

Auto Migration Starts

Extensions

Promotion, Callout, Sitelink, Structured Snippet

AUTO MIGRATION IN PROGRESS

10 January 2021

Extensions

App, Call, Hotel Callout, Price

Developers can start migrating on 25 January 2022

8 April 2022

Dynamic Search Ads & Dynamic Remarketing

Page Feed, Education Feed

Developers started migrating on 3 November 2021

27 April 2022

Dynamic Remarketing

Custom, Flight, Hotel, Real Estate, Travel, Job, Local Deals

Developers can start migrating on 27 April 2022

5 October 2022

Extensions

Image

Developers can start migrating in Q3 2022

ETA January 2023

Extensions

Location

Developers can start migrating in Q3 2022

ETA January 2023

What do I need to do?

Extensions

Dynamic Search Ads

Dynamic Remarketing

What happens after the auto-migration?Can I opt-out of the auto-migration?forumBob Hancock, Google Ads API Team

Google Ads scripts now supports asset-based video ads

Monday, January 24, 2022

must migrate your code by February 28, 2022the same change in Google Ads API v9YouTubeVideoAssetBuildervideo ads of various typesforum - Mike Cloonan, Google Ads Scripts Team

Upcoming changes to Simulations in the Google Ads API and Bid Landscapes in the AdWords API

Monday, December 20, 2021

We are changing the way ad group simulations with SimulationModificationMethod = DEFAULT are calculated in the Google Ads API and the AdWords API. What’s changing? For an ad group with keyword bid overrides, we provide estimated traffic for different values of the ad group’s default bid. Currently, all keywords with bid overrides are excluded from this estimate. This results in a lower-than-expected traffic estimate. Starting the week of January 17, 2022, we will modify our estimation to include both keywords using the default bid and keywords with bid overrides when calculating ad group simulations. We will further assume that only the ad group default bid would change in the simulation, and all keyword bid overrides will remain the same. This may affect the simulations returned by the GetAdGroupSimulation method of the AdGroupSimulationService service in the Google Ads API and the getAdGroupBidLandscape and queryAdGroupBidLandscape methods of the DataService service in the AdWords API. What should you do? If you use this feature, we recommend that you ensure that your code continues to work with the modified results returned by these methods. If you have any questions, please contact us via the Google Ads API forum. Reminder: Share your feedback about the Google Ads (AdWords) API. Take the 2021 AdWords API and Google Ads API Annual Survey. - Anash P. Oommen, Google Ads API Team

Google Ads API and Google Ads scripts issues on Dec 17

Friday, December 17, 2021

Update (December 21, 2020 16:50 EST): The issue below also occurred between 8:15 am EST and 9:30 am EST on December 20, and has since been resolved.

Between 8:30 am EST and 12:50 pm EST on December 17 and 8:15 am and 9:30 am EST on December 20, there were outages that may have prevented some users from accessing the Google Ads API & Google Ads scripts. If you were using the Google Ads API or running Google Ads scripts using the beta AdsApp.search feature or the Google Ads scripts beta, then you may have experienced slowness, errors, or timeouts. This issue has been resolved, but please check for any failed requests from these tools during the outage and consider re-running the impacted operations.

If you have any questions, please contact us via the Google Ads API forum or the Google Ads scripts forum.

Josh Radcliff, Google Ads API Team

Shared budget for Smart Shopping Campaigns

Thursday, December 16, 2021

February 15, 2022Smart Shopping Campaignsshared budget typereportsexplicitly_shared = trueisExplicitlySharedmigrateforum

David Wihl, Google Ads API Team

Set asset names by February 9, 2022

Wednesday, December 15, 2021

Google Ads APIreleaseasset typesFebruary 9, 2022Google Ads APIAdWords APIset the asset nameforumgoogleadsapi-support@google.com

Nadine Wang, Google Ads API Team

Ads Developer Blog

Smart Shopping and Local Campaigns upgrading to Performance Max

Revised Schedule for the Auto-migration of Feeds

Google Ads scripts now supports asset-based video ads

Upcoming changes to Simulations in the Google Ads API and Bid Landscapes in the AdWords API

Google Ads API and Google Ads scripts issues on Dec 17

Shared budget for Smart Shopping Campaigns

Set asset names by February 9, 2022

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