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Tag: AdWords API

  • AdWords Impression Share Change Will Affect API

    AdWords Impression Share Change Will Affect API

    Google said on Tuesday that beginning later this month, AdWords will begin rolling out a new calculation for impression share. This will affect reports in the AdWords API if you’re relying on impression share columns and run Video Campaigns.

    The roll out will occur over the next few months for all accounts and impressions. Google says if you run campaigns on YouTube, your impression share stats will become more accurate when your account goes live.

    “Historically, a small percentage of impressions on YouTube videos were not being included in the calculation of the impression share columns,” explains Michael Cloonan from Google’s AdWords API team. “We’ve implemented an improved algorithm to more accurately count impression share volume that now accounts for these impressions.”

    Issues can be reported in the forum here.

    Image via Google

  • Google Releases Keyword Optimizer Sample App

    Google Releases Keyword Optimizer Sample App

    Google announced the release of the Keyword Optimizer sample app for the AdWords API, which combines functionalities of Keyword Planner and the API services for keyword suggestion and traffic estimation.

    Timo Bozsolik from the AdWords API team explains in a post on the Google Ads Developer blog:

    Starting from an initial set of seed keywords (obtained using a sample URL, business category etc.), the iterative process repeatedly discards low-quality keywords and “reproduces” high-quality ones. With each step, the average quality across all keywords increases, just like evolution!

    KeywordOptimizer is designed to provide guidance on how to use the TargetingIdeaService and TrafficEstimatorService. Simply run it from the command-line to get a CSV file with keywords and estimation with minimal effort. Advanced users can easily extend the tool with custom implementations. For example, you can change the calculation for the keyword quality score to combine clicks with impressions, or your own metrics in a way that works best for you.

    You can find the Keyword Optimizer GitHhub repository here.

  • Google In-App Ads Let You Target Those Who Have Made In-App Purchases Before

    Google announced a new targeting capability for its in-app display ads, enabling advertisers to target users who have actually made in-app purchases in the past. If they’ve done it before, it stands to reason that they’d do it again, so this could help the results of these ads tremendously.

    Specifically, it looks at in-app purchases from the Google Play Store, and the feature is an addition to the Google Display Network. It also enables advertisers to reach people who have purchases paid apps.

    “These new settings can help you identify and create a campaign strategy around your most valuable customers,” Google says in a Google+ update. “You can use this new offering in individual ad groups by using the checkbox labeled ‘Only show ads to people who purchased an app or made an in-app purchase.’ You’ll find this under Interests & Remarketing when adding new targeting categories to your campaign.”

    “It’s best to use this option in ad groups specifically designed to reach your highest value customers,” Google adds. “While narrowed targeting can help focus your bidding strategy, it can also limit ad impressions. While the volume of customers gained may be lower than you see in other campaigns, you may find the lifetime value (LTV) of these customers to be higher.”

    The new targeting option is available via the AdWords API.

    Image via Google+

  • Google Makes AdWords API Usage Free

    Google announced that it is going to start making AdWords API usage free starting March 1. They’re doing away with the preferred pricing model.

    There will be two levels of API access once the changes take effect: basic and standard. The former will be the default, allowing for up to 10,000 operations per day. The latter will be available to qualified developers with no daily limit on operations. Neither option comes with a charge.

    “If you have an approved AdWords API token and plan to execute fewer than 10,000 operations per day, there’s no action needed. You’re covered with basic access,” says AdWords product manager S. Srikanth Belwadi.

    “Based on your history with the AdWords API and details you’ve shared with us, you might be pre-qualified for standard access,” says Belwadi. “If so, we will contact you within the next week and let you know. Please keep your contact email address up-to-date in the My Client Center (MCC) account associated with your developer token. If you haven’t been contacted or if you haven’t applied for standard access by February 28th 2013, your token will only have basic access starting March 1st 2013.”

    If you think you need standard access, you can apply for it here.

    There’s an FAQ section in Google’s help center further discussing the changes here.

  • Google AdWords API Improving Advanced Location Targeting

    Last year, Google rolled out an update to the AdWords API that allowed users to target people based on their Location of Presence or Area of Interest. It was a great feature for AdWords, but things can always be improved. Those improvements are coming today.

    Announced on the Google Ads Developer blog, the AdWords API team says they are rolling out four new updates to the advanced location targeting system. These updates are the culmination of customer feedback that wanted to improve the power and clarity of this particular feature. These changes come on top of an already extensive amount of location targeting improvements that came to AdWords proper last week.

    The first change sees location targeting being easier to understand. This just means that the wording under advanced location options has been simplified so all users can understand the options available to them.

    The other change will show ads to people in a physical location, without exception. Google says that when people chose the “target using physical location” option, it would show people in that location ads unless they were searching for something in a different location. Not anymore, as your ad will show up to them regardless of their search. This is especially useful for travel agencies whose ads missed the target market because users were searching for the place they wanted to travel to which excluded them from the targeted ads.

    Speaking of location targeting, there are now more options for location targeting on the Display Network. Previously, the only location targeting signal was the “likely physical location of the user.” Now both the likely physical location and the location extracted from the content of the page can both be used.

    The new system won’t apply to everybody though. Google says it only applies on a limited number of pages. They use the example of a person reading news about Hawaii not being interested in Hawaii tours so they won’t be targeted with that ad. A person researching trips to Hawaii, however, would be targeted with that ad.

    As a side note, if you are targeting the Display Network, your ad campaign will automatically be opted into this new service. You can change this by access the “people in my targeted location” option in the advanced location options.

    As a final change, advertisers can now easily avoid getting impressions for excluded areas. The previous wording for exclusions was a bit vague, so they changed it to “People in, searching for, or viewing pages about my excluded location.” This more restrictive option has also been made the default.

    As an example, people will be excluded from your ad campaigns if they live in the excluded location or even search for said excluded location. You can set it to the less restrictive option that will only exclude those who live in the excluded location.

    The AdWords team notes that these changes only affect new campaigns. Already existing campaigns will not be affected.

  • Google AdWords API Asynchronous Workflow Solution Detailed

    Google designed the AdWords API to handle a large number of operations in one request. The only problem is that current API services are synchronous. What this means is that the client has to send a request to the server, wait for processing and then receive a result. Google has added some changes to speed up the service.

    The Google Ads Developer blog today Google+Ads+Developer+Blog%29″>explained how the relatively new MutateJobService works with the AdWords API. The service’s main benefit is that it offers an asynchronous workflow. The benefits of using the new service are detailed below:

    No need to manage connections for each job – the job is executed autonomously and the results can be retrieved when ready.

    Multiple jobs can be submitted and executed in parallel. In fact, the service has no limit on the maximum jobs count.

    Transient errors like ‘CONCURRENT_MODIFICATION’ are automatically retried with no extra requests necessary.

    Workload is automatically balanced so you will never receive a ‘RateExceededError’ error.

    If that doesn’t convince you to switch over to the MJS service, perhaps a reduction in cost will. Google says that using MJS operations cost only about 50 percent of usual operations units cost.

    If you are using the old BulkMutateJobService, you can replace existing calls with the new MJS service. Google says that you can just the same operations array to submit a job and it will take care of the rest. You can see implementation examples on the blog post for Java, PHP, Perl, DotNet, Ruby and Python.

    Google recommends that developers not poll for job status too often as it results in a RATE_EXCEEDED_ERROR error. They say you should pause for five to 30 seconds between get requests.

    MJS jobs have no minimum number of operations, but the team recommends that you at least send 100 operations per job. There is a maximum number of jobs, however, but it’s at a generous 10,000 operations per job.

    As a final recommendation, developers should try to group operations in a way that minimizes the number of different AdGroups in one job.

    If you need more visual examples of how MJS works, Google recorded a talk given at an AdWords workshop event that explains how MJS can be applied. Check it out to see if MJS is the right fit for your AdWords campaign.

  • AdWords Terms and Conditions Get Clarification

    AdWords API has received an update under it’s terms and conditions section. This is okay though, as Google reminds us, they reserve the right to change the terms at any time. They also stress the fact that by continuing to use AdWords, we have agreed to the terms. Also, they insist that if you can’t agree to the terms, you may stop using AdWords.

    Thank you Google and AdWords. I’m sure the changes are fine, but you do make it sound rather ominous. They do state that the changes are in an effort to clarify and improve the service. Sounds strangely familiar? Anyhow, before you write to your local lawmakers, take a look at what has changed from the Google+Ads+Developer+Blog%29″>mouth of Google themselves:

    Below is an overview of what has changed:

    1). We’ve updated the definition of an AdWords API client. In addition, we’ve modified the definition of an “End-Advertiser-Only AdWords API Client” (section I).

    2). We clarify when we may terminate a token for non-use (section II.1).

    3). We’ve added a clause specifying that a token may only be used for the applications/tools that it was approved for in the application process, and that we need to be notified of any changes (section II.5).

    4). We’ve clarified the “Copying Data” section of the co-mingling clause to ensure that users manually import or export all campaigns (section III.2.c.ii).

    5). We will now require clients to contact Google within 15 days of a change of control via written notice and re-application for a token (section IV.16).

    6). We’ve added an “experimental program” clause and are deprecating our current 4-month deprecation clause (section IV.2.a). We are giving people 4 months notice before these changes take effect (section IV.17).

    When they use the term “we” so often, it sounds like they are trying to diffuse responsibility. Regardless of the ominous tone, there doesn’t seem to be anything inherently evil here. Though it does go a long way to make an otherwise boring piece of news seem rather interesting. AdWords has updated their terms and conditions. May they bring you happiness in the years to come.