Tag Archives: campaign

Upcoming change to LowerTargetRoas recommendations in the Google Ads API and Google Ads scripts

As of v17 of the Google Ads API, recommendations of type LOWER_TARGET_ROAS have included a current_average_target_micros as a whole currency value instead of a micros value (where one million is equivalent to one currency unit) as indicated by the field name. On April 23, 2025, we are rolling out a fix to populate current_average_target_micros with the micros value.

Note that as a result of the incorrect unit, the currently returned current_average_target_micros value is truncated and is therefore less precise than the micros equivalent. If you were converting the existing value to micros by multiplying by 1,000,000, the resulting value wouldn't necessarily be correct because any digits past the first position are dropped. For example, a current_average_target_micros value of 5 might have been converted to 5,000,000 in micros before the change, but could be returned as 5,750,000 (more precise) after the change.

What do I need to do?

If you use the Google Ads API or Google Ads scripts to query the recommendation resource for recommendations of type LOWER_TARGET_ROAS, and your application logic uses the current_average_target_micros field, you must update your application to treat the value as micros instead of a whole budget value for when the change takes effect on April 23, 2025.

If you have any questions or need help, check out the Google Ads API support page for options.

Announcing Budget Prefills with the Google Ads API

With v18 of the Google Ads API, you can now use the Recommendations.GenerateRecommendations method during campaign construction to retrieve optimized budget suggestions for Performance Max and Search campaigns.

When using the GenerateRecommendations method with a recommendation type of CAMPAIGN_BUDGET, you can supply inputs, such as final URL and bidding strategy, which Google machine learning models will use to generate budget recommendations. Google Ads API users that provide a campaign creation interface can provide budget prefills that fit into the campaign creation workflow. As with many recommendation types, campaign budget recommendations provide projected impact metrics to help understand the effect that implementing the recommendation will have on account performance.

Explore additional Recommendations API features

Recommendations in the Google Ads API offer several ways to increase your campaigns' performance through customized suggestions like adding new keywords or updating your bidding strategy. With RecommendationSubscriptionService, you can subscribe to automatically apply specific recommendation types of your choosing for your account. To retrieve and process recommendations directly, you can leverage the recommendation reporting resource.

To explore the full recommendations offering, check out our implementation guide.

Deprecation of New Smart Display Campaign Creation in the Google Ads API

We are removing the ability to create new Smart Display Campaigns in all versions of the Google Ads API. Version v12 already has these changes implemented.

On January 17, 2023 we will make a breaking change to all active versions of the Google Ads API older than v12, disallowing the creation of new Smart Display Campaigns in the API.

You will still be able to update your existing Smart Display Campaigns until they are auto-migrated in Q1 2023. For more information, please see this Help Center article.

Change Description
In all versions, after January 17, 2023, mutate operations to create a Smart Display Campaign (setting the AdvertisingChannelSubType to DISPLAY_SMART_CAMPAIGN) will throw an OperationAccessDeniedError.CREATE_OPERATION_NOT_PERMITTED error.

Next Steps
If you receive this error during Smart Display Campaign creation, you should create a Standard Display Campaign instead by leaving the optional AdvertisingChannelSubType field blank.

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

Deprecation of New Smart Display Campaign Creation in the Google Ads API

We are removing the ability to create new Smart Display Campaigns in all versions of the Google Ads API. Version v12 already has these changes implemented.

On January 17, 2023 we will make a breaking change to all active versions of the Google Ads API older than v12, disallowing the creation of new Smart Display Campaigns in the API.

You will still be able to update your existing Smart Display Campaigns until they are auto-migrated in Q1 2023. For more information, please see this Help Center article.

Change Description
In all versions, after January 17, 2023, mutate operations to create a Smart Display Campaign (setting the AdvertisingChannelSubType to DISPLAY_SMART_CAMPAIGN) will throw an OperationAccessDeniedError.CREATE_OPERATION_NOT_PERMITTED error.

Next Steps
If you receive this error during Smart Display Campaign creation, you should create a Standard Display Campaign instead by leaving the optional AdvertisingChannelSubType field blank.

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