Google Ads Developer Blog: May 2019

Content API for Shopping live webinar on May 31st (Mandarin, Chinese)

Thursday, May 30, 2019

We are running a live webinar this Friday, May 31, on the Content API for Shopping. This webinar is for our Chinese-speaking developers that are interested in using the API to manage products and Shopping ads at scale.

The webinar will cover topics on:

Content API for Shopping use case
Merchant Center setup
Content API features
Best practices
API request/response demo

You will be able to submit questions throughout the live event. We will answer questions during the Q&A session in the webinar.

Note: The webinar content will be delivered in Mandarin, Chinese.

The webinar will begin at 10:00am (China Time, GMT +8) on Friday, May 31, 2019.

Join @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ7qzgfTIbo

Please contact us via the Content API forum if you have any questions or need help.

If you’d like to review some of our previous webinars covering the Google Ads API, you can find them at the following links:

Fei Xiang, Google Ads API Team

Migrating from position to impression share bidding strategies in Google Ads

Wednesday, May 29, 2019

In June 2019, we will shut off the ability to add new Target Search Page Location and Target Outranking Share bidding strategies. This will affect both the AdWords API and the Google Ads API. Later this year, existing campaigns on these strategies will automatically be migrated to the new Target Impression Share bidding strategy, which offers more flexible and granular controls to optimize for your desired impression share and search page location.

Read on to see how this will affect your API usage.

Google Ads API Users
Please start using the TARGET_IMPRESSION_SHARE BiddingStrategyType rather than TARGET_OUTRANK_SHARE or PAGE_ONE_PROMOTED.

If you attempt to create a TARGET_OUTRANK_SHARE or PAGE_ONE_PROMOTED after they are removed, you will get an error.

AdWords API Users
If you attempt to use the AdWords API to add a TARGET_OUTRANK_SHARE or PAGE_ONE_PROMOTED bidding strategy after they are removed, you will get an error.

All existing campaigns using the old bidding strategies will be automatically migrated to use Target Impression Share for both APIs. The AdWords API does not support the Target Impression Share bidding strategy, so we recommend migrating to the Google Ads API if you need this functionality.

If you have any questions about this change or any other API feature, please contact us via the forum.

- Mike Cloonan, Google Ads API Team

Join us for a live webinar on Google Ads API and Hotel Ads

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Please join us later this week for a livestream webinar covering the latest Hotel Ads features in the Google Ads API. In particular, we’ll cover using hotel listing groups and leveraging Hotel Ads-specific reporting features. We’ll also be answering some of your questions during the event.

The webinar will begin at 11:00am EDT on Thursday, May 30, 2019.

Join @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omVQ7SAnjJI

As always, please contact us via the Google Ads API forum if you have any questions or need help.

If you’d like to review some of our previous webinars on related topics, you can find them at the following links:

Google Ads API: Intro - https://youtu.be/7ZOETqEzCWU
Google Ads API: Hotel Ads Overview - https://youtu.be/nY6cfIvI-Lg
Google Ads API: Roadmap and migration - https://youtu.be/d-cSJCficyk

Adam Ohren, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

Announcing v1_3 of the Google Ads API

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Today we’re announcing the v1_3 release of the Google Ads API. With this version, you’ll continue pointing to v1 as your endpoint; however, you'll need to update your client libraries in order to use v1_3 features.

Here are the highlights:

What resources are available?
The following resources should help you get going with v1_3 of the Google Ads API:

The updated client libraries and code examples will be published by May 24, 2019. If you have any questions or need help, please contact us via the forum.

Nadine Sundquist, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

Announcing v201905 of the Google Ad Manager API

Tuesday, May 21, 2019

We're happy to announce that v201905 of the Google Ad Manager API is available starting today. This version introduces a long-requested feature: Targeting Presets. The new TargetingPresetService allows you to read your network's targeting presets in a familiar Targeting object that can be applied to line items, forecasts, and proposal line items.

This release also introduces support for configuring and reporting on custom dimensions, and new Programmatic features such as Pause and Resume actions for Proposals.

For a full list of API changes in v201905, see the release notes.

For questions about these or any other API changes, reach out to us on the Ad Manager API forums.

- Chris Seeley, Ad Manager API Team

Expanding your Shopping ads to additional Google platforms

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

YouTube and Google Discover power visually rich experiences and play a part of millions of users’ shopping journeys. Soon your Standard Shopping campaigns will be able to reach users who discover and continue their shopping journey on these additional Google platforms.

We’re excited to announce that Shopping ads (both Product Shopping ads and Showcase Shopping ads) in your standard Shopping campaigns will be eligible to appear on YouTube and Google Discover beginning the week of July 15th, 2019. Shopping ads served on YouTube and Google Discover will be reported under the Google Display Network.

In preparation for this change, standard Shopping campaigns that are enabled for Search Network will be automatically enabled for YouTube and Discover, beginning the week of June 17th, 2019. This means that any standard Shopping campaigns that target the Search Network will automatically enabled to target the Content Network. After this process, developers using the Google Ads API or the AdWords API can give users the ability to opt-in/opt-out. They can do this by changing the campaign target network as follows:

Google Ads API - Modify the NetworkSettings of the standard Shopping campaign to set target_content_network to true or false.
AdWords API - Modify the NetworkSetting of the standard Shopping campaign to set targetContentNetwork to true or false.

Ads with these settings will only be eligible to appear on YouTube and Google Discover from the week of July 15th, 2019. During that week, you may start seeing new metrics as part of your reporting data. Depending on which API you are using you can access the metrics by doing the following:

Google Ads API - Use GoogleAdsService.Search to request reporting data and check the segment field ad_network_type for type CONTENT.
AdWords API - Download the SHOPPING_PERFORMANCE_REPORT and check either of the two segment fields AdNetworkType1, AdNetworkType2 for type CONTENT.

Note: If you would like to upgrade to the Google Ads API from the AdWords API, please see more information our blog.

If you have any questions or need help, please contact us via the forum.

- Ian Ballantyne, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

Upcoming breaking changes to the Google Ad Manager API

Friday, May 3, 2019

Update 2019-10-03: A prior version of this post incorrectly listed the HOUR dimension as supported for Ad Exchange historical reports. The HOUR dimension is no longer supported in newly created Ad Exchange historical reports. However, HOUR will continue to be supported in existing Ad Exchange historical reports for a limited time. Please update your existing reports as soon as possible.
On Monday July 8, 2019 the Ad Manager API's ReportService will stop supporting reports that mix Ad Exchange historical reporting fields with Historical reporting fields. This change will impact all API versions.

After July 8, any API reports that use both an Ad Exchange historical Dimension or Column and a Historical Dimension or Column will fail with the following error: ReportError.REPORT_CONSTRAINT_VIOLATION

Why are we making this change?

This change is being made to ensure all API reports return accurate data. The Query Tool has never supported creating reports that mix Ad Exchange historical and Historical data, and in some cases this may lead to unexpected results. This change brings the API in line with the Query Tool.

How can I tell if I am impacted?

This change impacts approximately 2% of all reports run with the Ad Manager API. If you only run saved queries that were created with the Query Tool, this change does not impact you.

If you use any of the following columns, your report will be considered an Ad Exchange historical report, and you may only use either Dimensions prefixed with AD_EXCHANGE or date Dimensions including DATE, WEEK, DAY or MONTH_AND_YEAR:

Column.AD_EXCHANGE_ACTIVE_VIEW_ENABLED_IMPRESSIONS
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_ACTIVE_VIEW_MEASURED_IMPRESSIONS
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_ACTIVE_VIEW_VIEWED_IMPRESSIONS
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_AD_CTR
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_AD_ECPM
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_AD_REQUEST_CTR
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_AD_REQUEST_ECPM
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_AD_REQUESTS
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_AVERAGE_VIEWABLE_TIME
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_CLICKS
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_COVERAGE
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_CPC
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_CTR
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_DEALS_AD_REQUESTS
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_DEALS_BID_RESPONSES
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_DEALS_MATCH_RATE
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_DEALS_MATCHED_REQUESTS
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_ESTIMATED_REVENUE
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_IMPRESSIONS
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_LIFT
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_MATCHED_ECPM
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_MATCHED_REQUESTS
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_VIDEO_ABANDONMENT_RATE
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_VIDEO_DROPOFF_RATE
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_VIDEO_QUARTILE_1
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_VIDEO_QUARTILE_3
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_VIDEO_TRUEVIEW_SKIP_RATE
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_VIDEO_TRUEVIEW_VIEWS
Column.AD_EXCHANGE_VIDEO_TRUEVIEW_VTR

What changes do I need to make?

To prevent your reports from failing, you must convert your report to be either an Ad Exchange historical report or a Historical report.

To convert the report to an Ad Exchange historical report:

Remove any Columns not in the list above.
Remove any Dimensions that are not prefixed with AD_EXCHANGE, with the exception of the following Dimensions:

DATE
WEEK
DAY
MONTH_AND_YEAR

Remove any DimensionAttributes for dimensions you removed.
Remove any PQL filters that applied to fields you removed.

To convert the report to a Historical report:

Remove any of the Columns in the list above.
Remove any Dimensions that are prefixed with AD_EXCHANGE.
Remove any PQL filters that applied to fields you removed.

If you have questions about this change or are unsure if it impacts you, reach out to us on the Ad Manager API forums. We'll be happy to check if you're impacted and work with you to update your applications.

- Chris Seeley, Ad Manager API Team

Reporting issues April 30 and May 1, 2019

Thursday, May 2, 2019

Update 5, May 17 2019, 12:00pm PDT: Latest and all future updates on this issue are available here.

Update 4, May 10 2019, 10:00am PDT: We have edited this post to confirm that store sales and store visits data has been fixed for April 28 and 29, as well as May 3 to present. We are actively working on correcting the data for April 30, May 1 and May 2 (all dates in PDT).

Update 3, May 8 2019, 6:30pm PDT: We are actively working on correcting the data from 12:01am on May 1 to 4:00am May 2 (PDT). All other data is now accurate, with the exception of store visits and store sales data which is impacted from 12:01am (PDT) on April 28 onwards, and which we are also working to correct. Google Ads bid strategy & Local campaign users do not need to take any action, as our bidding models are not impacted by the incorrect data.

Update 2, May 3 2019, 8PM PDT: We are actively working on correcting the data from 12:01am on May 1 to 4:00am May 2 (PDT). All other data is now accurate.

Update: We have edited this post to confirm the accuracy of data after 4am on May 2 PST and beyond and provide guidance for when fixed data is expected to be available.

On May 1, at approximately 5pm PST, a bug caused Google Ads reporting for April 30 and May 1 (Pacific Time) to be incorrect. This bug impacts reports in all Google Ads interfaces, including any report data downloaded via the AdWords API, Google Ads API and Google Ads Scripts.

We are actively working to correct the data from 12:01am on May 1 to 4:00am on May 2 (PDT), as well as the store visits and store sales data, which is inaccurate from 12:01am on April 30 to end of day May 2 (PDT). All other data is now accurate. Google Ads bid strategy & Local campaign users do not need to take any action, as our bidding models are not impacted by the incorrect data.

We appreciate your patience as we work to resolve this issue as quickly as possible.

If you have any questions or need help, please contact us via the forum.

Adam Ohren, Google Ads API Team

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