Category Archives: Google Ads Developer Blog

The blog for information about the AdWords, AdSense, DoubleClick and AdMob APIs and SDKs.

Change to MccApp.accounts() behavior in AdWords Scripts

In response to your feedback, we are enhancing the MccApp.accounts() method. Starting December 3, 2014, the MccApp.accounts() method will return all accounts (e.g. Express, Video, etc.) that you see when logging in to your MCC account through the AdWords UI instead of just the ordinary AdWords accounts.

Note that once this change is live, your MCC scripts may start getting more accounts when calling the MccApp.accounts() method. You should check your MCC scripts to ensure they can handle the possible extra accounts. You can restrict the accounts that AdWords scripts return by applying an appropriate filter condition in your account selector.

Note that this change doesn’t affect the way other selectors work. For example, you cannot retrieve an AdWords Express campaign by calling AdWordsApp.campaigns() on an AdWords Express account.

If you have questions or feedback about this change, let us know on our developer forum or our Google+ page.

Anash P. Oommen, AdWords Scripts Team

Announcing the release of DFP API v201411

Today we are releasing v201411 of the DFP API. This release supports creating and updating VideoRedirectCreatives, enhances cross-sell via the new SharedAdUnitService, and adds an experimental Targeting field to the Line_Item PQL table. There are also new Sales Manager enhancements, including derived custom criteria on proposal line items and PQL filtering for Product.lastModifiedDateTime. A detailed list of these and other changes can be found on our release notes page.

Creating VideoRedirectCreatives

You can now use the DFP API to create and update externally hosted and YouTube hosted VideoRedirectCreatives. Simply set the VideoRedirectAsset.redirectUrl to the YouTube or third party URL hosting your ad:

    videoRedirectAsset.setRedirectUrl("http://0.thirdpartyadserver.com/ad.mp4")

You will also need to set the VideoMetadata information for both externally hosted and YouTube hosted ads. For streaming videos, set the minimumBitRate and maximumBitRate; for progressive videos, use the static bitRate.

Custom targeting filter changes

In DFP API v201411 CustomTargetingService.getCustomTargetingKeysByStatement and CustomTargetingService.getCustomTargetingValuesByStatement will return INACTIVE keys and INACTIVE values, respectively. You can filter them by supplying a where clause in a PQL statement:

    WHERE status = 'ACTIVE'

LineItem status changes

To better match the UI, ComputedStatus.NEEDS_CREATIVES has been renamed to ComputedStatus.INACTIVE. Use LineItem.isMissingCreatives to determine if the line item needs creatives.

Cross selling features

If your network is connected to a cross selling host, you can manage your shared ad units with the SharedAdUnitService. To determine if an AdUnit is shared, use the new isSharedByDistributor and crossSellingDistributor fields. We've also added a skipCrossSellingRuleWarningChecks field to the LineItem object so you can override any cross selling warnings.

Experimental targeting PQL column

We've heard your feedback and are adding an experimental PQL column for line item targeting. Fair warning: experimental means we may make breaking changes as we get your feedback and make improvements. The targeting column will be returned with a Value.Type of "TargetingValue", and the value itself containing a Targeting object:

    <Value.Type>TargetingValue</Value.Type>
    <value>
        <inventoryTargeting>
            <targetedAdUnits>
                 <adUnitId>33985943</adUnitId>
                 <includeDescendants>true</includeDescendants>
            </targetedAdUnits>
        </inventoryTargeting>
    </value>

If you've been waiting for a faster way to retrieve line item targeting, try it out and let us know what you think. Head over to the API forum and tell us what works for you, and how we can improve.

 - , DFP API Team

Announcing support for Content API v2 errors in the Merchant Center API Dashboard

We are pleased to announce that the Merchant Center API Dashboard will now also include errors from Content API for Shopping v2. The errors from Content API v1 and v2 are displayed separately, and you can choose either one from the dropdown menu at the upper-left of the Dashboard. Note that if you’ve been using v2 of the API, your dashboard by default will show the Content API v2 errors.



As a friendly reminder, if you haven’t migrated to the Content API for Shopping v2, please start migrating now; v1 will only be available until the end of February 2015. We also have a handy migration guide that can assist you in the process.

If you have any other questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to head over to the developers forum.

  —Yufeng Guo, Shopping Developer Relations

Ads PHP client library will support only PHP 5.3 or later versions in 2015

This is a reminder that starting from January 1, 2015, new releases of the ads PHP client library will only support PHP 5.3 or later versions. This will allow us to implement namespacing and autoloading, which aren’t available in PHP 5.2. Please see our original blog post announcement for more information. If you have any questions about this, feel free to drop us a line on the DFP API forums, AdWords API forums, or Ads Developer Google+ page.

 - , DFP API Team

Sunset of v1 and v1.1 for DoubleClick Ad Exchange Buyer REST API on December 1st, 2014

Today we’re announcing the deprecation of v1 and v1.1 of the DoubleClick Ad Exchange Buyer REST API, both of which are scheduled to be sunset on December 1st, 2014. These versions are becoming increasingly less relevant as we expand on the latest and greatest version of the API—currently v1.3. We recommend that you migrate to v1.3 before this date in order to take advantage of the newest functionality and also to continue having uninterrupted access to the API. If you have not migrated from these deprecated versions by December 1st, calls against the API will return an error response.

The vast majority of users have already migrated to newer versions of the API, but if you’re among the few who haven’t, we expect it to be an easy upgrade because newer versions still support all of the resources you’re familiar with. The only changes that could cause a code break when migrating from v1 to v1.3 are in the Creatives resource; the adgroup_id field was removed and the disapprovalReasons field is no longer a list of strings. You can use the following resources to help you with your migration:
  • Release Notes: A listing of all changes between versions of the API.
  • Code Examples: Examples demonstrating how to use the client libraries with the most recent version of the API.
  • Developer Guides: Guides covering the most recent version of the API.
Of course, if you have any questions or need help with the migration, feel free to reach out to us via the forum or the Ads Developers G+ page.

 - , DoubleClick Ad Exchange Team

IMA HTML5 SDK now supports Internet Explorer 11

Today we're announcing support for Internet Explorer 11 in the IMA HTML5 SDK. The SDK is now compatible with the desktop versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer, as well as the mobile versions of Chrome, Safari, and the default Android browser. For more information on the supported platforms of the IMA SDK, check out the supported video player platforms.

Getting started

There are no configuration or setting changes to the IMA HTML5 SDK to enable IE11 support. If you already have a player with the IMA HTML5 SDK integrated, you can start serving to IE11 visitors immediately.

If you want to walk through integrating the IMA HTML5 SDK with an HTML5 video player, check out our quick start guide.

Older Internet Explorer versions

Currently only IE11 is supported; some publishers are using the IMA HTML5 SDK with IE10 without issues, but it isn't officially supported. SDK support will be focused on on IE11 and subsequent versions given the upgrade rate from IE10 to IE11. Version 9 and earlier of Internet Explorer are not supported by the IMA HTML5 SDK and likely will not correctly serve video ads.

Questions?

If you have any questions about Internet Explorer support or other IMA SDK questions, feel free to contact us via the support forum.


 - , IMA SDK Team

New features in AdWords scripts

We have added the following new features in AdWords scripts.

Ad customizers
AdWords scripts now support ad customizers, a more advanced version of ad params. Ad customizers adapt your text ads to the full context of a search or the webpage someone's viewing, by inserting a customized parameter within the ad. Ad customizers let you customize your ads for each query without having to create a separate ad for each variation.

AdWords scripts allow you to create ad customizer sources, add or update items in the sources, and create parameterized ads. You can also target an ad customizer item to a specific campaign, ad group or keyword, and track the performance of ad customizers using the PLACEHOLDER_FEED_ITEM_REPORT.

To learn more about ad customizers, refer to our code snippets and guide. Also, check out the brand new ad customizers solution that shows how to use this new feature in your account.

v201409 reports
We now support AdWords API v201409 reports in AdWords scripts. See blog post for more details.

Product ads
You can now retrieve your product ads using the ads() method of the ShoppingAdGroup. You can create new product ads using the newAdBuilder() method of ShoppingAdGroup.

We hope you enjoy these new features. If you have any questions about these features or AdWords scripts in general, you can post them on the developer forum.

Anash P. Oommen, AdWords Scripts Team

Support for v201409 Reports in AdWords Scripts

We are announcing support for AdWords API v201409 reports in AdWords scripts. The new version introduces PLACEHOLDER_REPORT, a new report type that allows for retrieval of extension stats.

If you use API versioning in your reports, then you need to modify your code to use v201409 as shown below. If you don’t use API versioning, no code changes are required. 

var report = AdWordsApp.report(query, {
   apiVersion: 'v201409'
});
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

Minimum Java version requirement changes to client library for AdWords, AdX, DFP and DFA

Are you using the Google Ads API Java Client Library and Java 5 (1.5)? If so, we have important news: starting April 2015, all releases of the Google Ads API Java Client Library will only be compatible with Java 1.6 and higher.

Why this change is happening
The primary reasons for this change are: Next steps
If you are using Java 6 or higher, then you're all set -- all releases of the client library on github already support your runtime.

If you are still using Java 5 and need to migrate to Java 6 or higher, check out the following adoption guides from Oracle: Still have questions? Feel free to file an issue on the library's issues page or contact us via our Google+ page.

- Josh Radcliff, AdWords API Team

AdsPyGoogle Sunset on January, 5 2015

As an avid reader of this blog, you have undoubtedly already seen the announcement that our dear old friend, the client library known as ‘AdsPyGoogle,’ will be sunset on January 5, 2015. Yes—we too at Google are very sad about this.

Fret not! In its place, we have a more than capable replacement in the form of our new GoogleAds Python client library which is more lightweight, has far fewer dependencies, boasts improved utilities and functionality, and perhaps most importantly, supports Python 2.7 as well as 3.x.

If you need a starting point on how to perform this switch, we have a blog post detailing the differences between the two, as well as a nifty migration guide on Github.

As usual, if you have any questions, feedback, or comments, please don’t hesitate to reach out on the DFP or AdWords forums.

 - Nicholas Chen, DFP API Team