Google Ads Developer Blog

Beta Support for search in Google Ads scripts

Thursday, August 6, 2020

Today, we are announcing beta support for a new search method in Google Ads scripts. This method is backed by the Google Ads API and supports most queries supported by that API. Please see the documentation page for the AdsApp.search method for more information.

Additionally, we are adding beta support for the Google Ads Query Language to our existing AdsApp.report method. When using the report method, Google Ads scripts will automatically determine the correct reporting engine (either AdWords API or Google Ads API) to use based on the FROM clause in your query.

The key difference between the report and search methods is in how the results are returned.

The report method will return a Report object, as it always has. Each row will be a map of column names to values.
The search method will return an iterator of rows, and each row will be analogous to a GoogleAdsRow in the Google Ads API.

For example, the campaign.name column would be accessed using row['campaign.name'] if you use report, and row.campaign.name if you use search. The flat format from report can be useful for exporting to a spreadsheet or CSV. The object format from search is useful for programmatically processing results. Additionally, handling repeated fields is more intuitive since they will be returned as true arrays in the object format rather than concatenated together into a single string.

To help you build queries for your search, check out our query builder tool. If you have any questions, concerns, or feedback on the new beta features, please contact us via our forum.
- Mike Cloonan, Google Ads scripts Team

August update to Display & Video 360 API v1

Tuesday, August 4, 2020

Today we’re releasing an update to the Display & Video 360 API v1 which includes the following features:

A user service that allows for the management of Display & Video 360 users and their assigned user roles.
Partner and partner targeting services that enable users to retrieve partner resources and edit partner targeting.
A custom bidding algorithm service that users can utilize to retrieve existing custom bidding algorithm resources for use in managing insertion order or line item bidding strategies.
The additions of a new advertiser.audit method and lineItem.list orderBy and filter capabilities to give users tools to proactively avoid reaching account entity limits.
A new audio line item type that enables API support for audio line items.

More detailed information about this update can be found on the Display & Video 360 API release notes page.

Before using these new features, make sure to update your client to the latest version. For more information on how to use some of these new features, you can read our new User Management guide and Auditing Account Limits page.

If you run into issues or need help with these new features, please contact us using our support contact form.

- Trevor Mulchay, Display & Video 360 API Team

Announcing v3.4 of the DCM/DFA Reporting and Trafficking API

Friday, July 31, 2020

Update (Sep 1, 2020): Support for path and path attribution report types is now available in v3.4. It has been added back to this post.

Update (Aug 7, 2020): Support for path and path attribution report types, originally listed in this blog post, was not included in the initial release of v3.4 of the DCM/DFA Reporting and Trafficking API. It has been removed from this post.

Today we're releasing v3.4 of the DCM/DFA Reporting and Trafficking API. Highlights of this release include:

Support for path and path attribution report types.
Added site-level and placement-level OBA icon settings for video creative settings.
Support for attribution in floodlight activities, and a new status field.

Details of these and other changes are covered in our release notes.

Deprecation and sunset reminder

In accordance with our deprecation schedule, this release marks the beginning of the deprecation period for v3.3, which will sunset on February 28, 2021. After this date, any requests made against v3.3 will begin returning errors.

Learn More

As with every new version of the DCM/DFA Reporting and Trafficking API, we encourage you to carefully review all changes in the release notes. For those of you looking to get going right away, updated client libraries are now available. If you're just starting out, the Get Started guide is a great reference to help you get up and running quickly.

Give it a try and let us know if you have any questions!

- Nikita Agarwal, DCM API Team

Sunset of v2 for the Content API for Shopping

Monday, July 13, 2020

The Content API for Shopping v2 will sunset on March 29, 2021. On this date, all requests made against v2 of the Content API for Shopping will fail. Please migrate to v2.1 as soon as possible to ensure your applications are unaffected.

To help with the migration to v2.1, we have prepared the following resources:

If you have questions about migration, please reach out to us on the forum.

Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Changes to campaign_bid_modifier reporting in the Google Ads API

Friday, July 10, 2020

Starting on September 1, 2020, we will be making a change to how the Google Ads API reports campaign-level bid modifiers to make the API’s results more consistent with the Google Ads UI.

Currently, Google Ads Query Language queries for campaign_bid_modifier resources only return rows if either of the following conditions are met:

After this change goes into effect, queries for campaign_bid_modifier resources will return rows for all campaigns, more closely matching what a user sees in the Google Ads UI’s Advanced bid adj. > Interactions screen.

Users who wish to keep using a restricted view of their campaign_bid_modifier reports can add a predicate such as “WHERE campaign_bid_modifier.bid_modifier != 1.0" (where a 1.0 value is equivalent to a bid adjustment of ±0%) to their queries to limit reporting to non-zero bid modifier rows.

This change will not affect the behavior of the AdWords API.

If you have any questions about this change, please reach out to us on the forum.
- Adam Ohren, The Google Ads API team

Stricter Validation For DCM/DFA Reporting and Trafficking API

Thursday, July 9, 2020

On July 14th, 2020, we will begin enforcing stricter validation for requests to the DCM/DFA Reporting and Trafficking API. This change will initially be introduced for 5% of API traffic during the week of July 14, 10% the week of July 21, 30% the week of July 28, and all requests by August 7th, 2020.

As a result, your requests might begin returning additional errors. Please update your requests, as needed.

The following list includes the error codes that you might see, as well as the recommended solutions:

"Invalid value - Enum" - Ensure you are using valid enum values. For more information, see the API Reference.
"Invalid value - Bool" - Ensure boolean fields in the request are set to true/false, rather than empty string.
"Invalid value - Integer ####.0" - Ensure integer fields in the request are set to valid integers.
"Invalid JSON Payload - NaN" - Ensure NaN does not appear in the request payload.
"Invalid JSON payload received. - not repeating" - Do not use arrays for non-array fields.

Method specific errors:

dfareporting.reports.run: "Invalid JSON payload received. Unexpected end of string. Expected a value" - Ensure the request body is completely empty.
dfareporting.reports.list: "Request contains an invalid argument." - Ensure that empty fields in the response contain a valid value. For example, empty array fields must be specified by an empty array, rather than an empty string or object.
dfareporting.files.get and dfareporting.reports.files.get: "OAuth token was passed in the query parameter. Please send it in Authorization header instead." - Requests must use the HTTP header Authorization: Bearer [ACCESS_TOKEN] to pass OAuth credentials.

Why is this changing?
Stricter validation helps ensure that problematic requests are not silently ignored, and aligns the behavior of the DCM API with that of other Google APIs.

- Evan Chou, DCM API Team

Announcing v4 of the Google Ads API beta

Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Today, we’re announcing the v4 release of the Google Ads API beta. To use the v4 features, update your client library. If you are upgrading from v1, v2, or v3, some of your code may require changes when you switch to the new v4 endpoint. For more information on breaking changes, see the migration guide. If you are using v1, upgrade by July 29, 2020.

Here are the highlights:

Where can I learn more?
The following resources can help you get going with the Google Ads API:

The updated client libraries and code examples will be published next week. If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us via the forum.

Nadine Wang, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

Ads Developer Blog