Ad Policy Error Management is evolving in Google Ads API

Update (February 11, 2021): Added APP_AD and APP_ENGAGEMENT_AD to the list of ad types that are impacted by this change.

On March 1st, 2021, all versions of the Google Ads API will replace policy violations with policy findings for all remaining ad types.

The impact is limited to the creation and update of ads that trigger ad policy errors for the following types:

• APP_AD
• APP_ENGAGEMENT_AD
• CALL_ONLY_AD
• EXPANDED_DYNAMIC_SEARCH_AD
• GMAIL_AD
• HTML5_UPLOAD_AD
• IMAGE_AD
• LEGACY_APP_INSTALL_AD
• LOCAL_AD
• RESPONSIVE_DISPLAY_AD
• RESPONSIVE_SEARCH_AD
• VIDEO_RESPONSIVE_AD

If your application is impacted by this change and not upgraded before March 1st, 2021, then the ad policy errors will no longer be recognized and the requested exemptions will not be applied.

What’s Changing
Both AdGroupAdService.MutateAdGroupAds and AdService.MutateAds methods will behave differently:

• Request: For each operation, the Google Ads API will only take into account the requested exemptions that are listed in PolicyValidationParameter.ignorable_policy_topics from the field policy_validation_parameter, not in PolicyValidationParameter.exempt_policy_violation_keys.
• Response: The Google Ads API will only return ad policy errors as PolicyFindingErrors in the field GoogleAdsError.error_code and provide details as PolicyFindingDetails in the field GoogleAdsError.details, not as PolicyViolationErrors and PolicyViolationDetails.

What’s Not Changing

• All the ad policies will remain and all the ad policy checks will still occur.
• AdWords API
• The ad policy status information AdGroupAdPolicySummary will remain accessible by querying the field AdGroupAd.policy_summary.

What to Do
Before March 1st, 2021, make sure to add the support of policy findings in your management of ad policy errors. To get started, you can refer to our guide and code example that are both dedicated to ad policy error management. We recommend testing with the ad types that already use policy findings: EXPANDED_TEXT_AD and RESPONSIVE_SEARCH_AD.

If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us through the forum or at googleadsapi-support@google.com.
Pierrick Voulet, Google Ads API Team