Google Ads Developer Blog: PMax

Introducing the Performance Max Developer Guide

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Today we are pleased to announce the release of a dedicated Performance Max developer guide. With this release, we’ve moved Performance Max content to its own tab in the main navigation of our developer documentation with a dedicated landing page and updated navigation to help you more easily find the information you need to build Performance Max integrations.

Other notable improvements include:

Adding a new Structure requests guide that details many of the intricacies of constructing requests that create and update Performance Max campaigns
More clearly identifying and renaming business goals in the developer documentation
- Standard Performance Max is now referred to as Performance Max for online sales or lead generation
- Performance Max for Retail is now referred to as Performance Max for online sales with a product feed

Improving Performance Max integrations Blog Series

This article is part of a series that discusses new and upcoming features that you have been asking for. Keep an eye out for further updates and improvements on our developer blog, continue providing feedback on Performance Max integrations with the Google Ads API, and as always, contact our team if you need support.

- Devin Chasanoff, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

Other notable improvements include:

Adding a new Structure requests guide that details many of the intricacies of constructing requests that create and update Performance Max campaigns

More clearly identifying and renaming business goals in the developer documentation

Standard Performance Max is now referred to as Performance Max for online sales or lead generation
Performance Max for Retail is now referred to as Performance Max for online sales with a product feed

Improving Performance Max integrations Blog Series This article is part of a series that discusses new and upcoming features that you have been asking for. Keep an eye out for further updates and improvements on our developer blog, continue providing feedback on Performance Max integrations with the Google Ads API, and as always, contact our team if you need support.

- Devin Chasanoff, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

Performance Max Guide Enhancements

Thursday, January 18, 2024

Today, we are pleased to announce several guide enhancements to improve the experience of creating, managing and reporting on Performance Max campaigns with the Google Ads API.

New Getting Started guide that outlines the steps to create

Reorganized guide structure to better reflect entity relationships in Performance Max campaigns

Clarified asset requirements

Revamped Performance Max reporting guide

Better surfaced features such as campaign-level conversion goals and asset group signals

Additional troubleshooting content

- Devin Chasanoff, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

Change to updates of Google Ads custom audience types

Tuesday, August 8, 2023

Starting September 27, 2023 you will see a change if you use custom audiences. You will no longer be able to update a custom audience type once you create the custom audience. For example, if you set the type to AUTO or INTEREST, then you cannot update it to the type SEARCH in the Google Ads API. This change ensures that your campaign continues to serve by making sure that your custom audience remains eligible. What do I need to change? Modify your code so it avoids attempting to update the type of an existing CustomAudience. If your code attempts to update the type field after September 27, 2023 then the API will return a CustomAudienceError.INVALID_TYPE_CHANGE error. Where can I get support? If you have questions, please reach out to us on the forum or at googleadsapi-support@google.com.

Nadine Wang, Google Ads API Team

Changes to location targeting in Google Ads Search, Shopping, Display, and Performance Max campaigns

Monday, February 27, 2023

April 14, 2023location targeting settingsGoogle Ads API

Campaign.geo_target_type_setting fields

positive_geo_target_type can no longer be set to SEARCH_INTEREST for Search, Shopping, and Display campaigns. The default value is PRESENCE_OR_INTEREST.

negative_geo_target_type can no longer be set to PRESENCE_OR_INTEREST for Performance Max, Search, Shopping, and Display campaigns. The default value is PRESENCE.

SettingError.SETTING_VALUE_NOT_COMPATIBLE_WITH_CAMPAIGNApril 24, 2023SELECT campaign.id, campaign.geo_target_type_setting.positive_geo_target_type, campaign.advertising_channel_type FROM campaign WHERE campaign.advertising_channel_type IN ('DISPLAY', 'SEARCH', 'SHOPPING') AND campaign.geo_target_type_setting.positive_geo_target_type = 'SEARCH_INTEREST' LIMIT 1SELECT campaign.id, campaign.advertising_channel_type, campaign.geo_target_type_setting.negative_geo_target_type FROM campaign WHERE campaign.geo_target_type_setting.negative_geo_target_type = 'PRESENCE_OR_INTEREST' AND campaign.advertising_channel_type IN ('DISPLAY', 'PERFORMANCE_MAX', 'SEARCH', 'SHOPPING') LIMIT 1Where can I get support?forumgoogleadsapi-support@google.com

Nadine Wang, Google Ads API Team

Google Ads API Video Roundup - Feb 2023

Thursday, February 2, 2023

The Google Ads Developers Channel is your source for release notes, best practices, new feature integrations, code walkthroughs, and video tutorials. Check out some of the recently released and popular videos and playlists below, and remember to subscribe to our channel to stay up to date with the latest video content. Performance Max for Developers [New Series] In this series, we navigate the entire developer journey of creating standard Performance Max campaigns and Performance Max campaigns for online sales with a product feed. We discuss how to think about Performance Max as compared with other campaign types and walk through the process of creating Performance Max campaigns conceptually. In addition, we explore several implementation options with the use of the new Performance Max Interactive Guide, which you can use to easily follow along and jumpstart your integration. Five episodes have been published with an additional three more on the way. Subscribe to our channel to be notified when new episodes are released. Testing Your Integration [New Series] In the first two episodes of this miniseries, we begin to look at testing with the Google Ads API. In the introductory episode, we discuss Google Ads test accounts and test account alternatives. In the second episode, we demonstrate test account usage in practice. Subscribe to our channel to be notified when the next episode about testing best practices becomes available. Campaign Primary Status [New Video] The Google Ads API introduced two new fields on the campaign resource in v12, called primary_status and primary_status_reason. In this video, we discuss how they can help you understand what is going on with your campaigns and how to optimize their serving. Meet the Team [New Episodes] Check out the two new episodes in our Meet the Team series to catch in-depth discussions with Eric Schwelm, who is a Software Engineer and Tech Lead on the Google Ads API, and Carolyn Chou, who is a Product Manager working on Performance Max campaigns in the Google Ads API. For additional topics, including Release Notes, Authentication and Authorization and Working with REST, check out the Google Ads Developers YouTube channel. As always, feel free to reach out to us with any questions via the Google Ads API forum or at googleadsapi-support@google.com.