On April 30, 2024, the creation of hotel campaigns with COMMISSION bidding strategy will sunset. This bidding strategy was available only to travel advertisers. Requests to create new hotel campaigns or apply this bidding strategy to existing campaigns after April 30th will result in a BiddingStrategyError.BIDDING_STRATEGY_NOT_SUPPORTED error. Existing campaigns with the COMMISSION bidding strategy will continue to run until October 31, 2024. After this day campaigns will stop serving until their bidding strategy is updated. A notification will be displayed in the Google Ads UI, guiding users on how to update the affected campaigns.

We suggest that travel advertisers with Hotel campaigns and Things to do Ads migrate to the Target ROAS (TARGET_ROAS) auto bidding strategy. You can find more information about the tROAS in our Help Center article.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us in the forum.

Daniel Rodriguez, the Google Ads API Team

We previously announced that standard (non-portfolio) TargetCpa and TargetRoas bidding strategies are being replaced by MaximizeConversions (with target_cpa) and MaximizeConversionValue (with target_roas) for Search campaigns (those with advertising_channel_type = SEARCH).

Starting in July 2022, all remaining Search campaigns that use standard TargetCpa and TargetRoas bidding strategies will be converted to MaximizeConversions and MaximizeConversionValue strategies, with the same target_cpa and target_roas settings applied, respectively. The migration of portfolio strategies is planned later in 2023.

With this change there will be no impact to bidding behavior. Using MaximizeConversions with a target_cpa setting will have the same bidding behavior as TargetCpa. Likewise, using MaximizeConversionValue with a target_roas setting will have the same bidding behavior as TargetRoas.

Example

The following sample Campaign object illustrates what a migrated Search campaign’s bidding strategy settings would look like before and after the transition.

Existing campaign using standard TargetCpa

Previously using TargetCpa	Now uses MaximizeConversions
{ bidding_strategy_type: TARGET_CPA target_cpa: { target_cpa_micros: 1000000 } ... }	{ bidding_strategy_type: MAXIMIZE_CONVERSIONS maximize_conversions: { target_cpa: 1000000 } ... }

Existing campaign using standard TargetRoas

Previously using TargetRoas	Now uses MaximizeConversionValue
{ bidding_strategy_type: TARGET_ROAS target_roas: { target_roas: 2.0 } ... }	{ bidding_strategy_type: MAXIMIZE_CONVERSION_VALUE maximize_conversion_value: { target_roas: 2.0 } ... }

What to do

The Google Ads API already prohibits creating or updating standard (non-portfolio) TargetCpa or TargetRoas bidding strategies for Search campaigns. In July, any code that reads or manages remaining strategies of those types should account for the settings migrating to MaximizeConversions and MaximizeConversionValue.

If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us via the forum or at googleadsapi-support@google.com.

Adam Ohren, Google Ads API Team

We previously announced changes to how Smart Bidding strategies are organized to help advertisers choose the right one. Google Ads API developers can now create new or update existing Search campaigns using the following bidding strategies:

• MaximizeConversions, with an optional target_cpa field (mutable starting in v8)
• MaximizeConversionValue, with an optional target_roas field

What’s changing
Starting on September 30, 2021, Google Ads API developers won’t be able to create new TargetCpa or TargetRoas standard bidding strategies in Search campaigns. This change will prevent creating new Search campaigns that use these strategies, as well as prevent updating existing Search campaigns to use these strategies. Instead, use the new optional target CPA field with MaximizeConversions, and the new target ROAS field with MaximizeConversionValue. This change will not affect portfolio (shared) bidding strategies.

AdWords API
AdWords API users can continue to use the old style TargetRoasBiddingScheme and TargetCpaBiddingScheme bidding strategies, since v201809 of that API does not contain the MaximizeConversions.target_cpa field required to migrate to the new style bidding strategies. Their usage will sunset when the AdWords API itself sunsets in April, 2022. Switch to using the new bidding strategies when you migrate your code to the Google Ads API.

What to do
Update any code that creates or updates standard (non-portfolio) TargetCpa or TargetRoas Search campaigns. Use MaximizeConversions or MaximizeConversionValue strategies with their target_cpa (mutable starting in v8) or target_roas fields instead.

There will be no impact to bidding behavior due to this update. Using MaximizeConversions with target_cpa will have the same bidding behavior as TargetCpa. Likewise, using MaximizeConversionValue with target_roas will have the same bidding behavior as TargetRoas.

Refer to our product level announcement for more details on this change.

All existing campaigns using TargetCpa or TargetRoas will continue to run as usual, and you will still be able to manage their bidding strategies and budgets as before. We’ll give advance notice before automatically migrating these old bidding strategies to the new format in 2022.

If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us via the forum or at googleadsapi-support@google.com.
Adam Ohren, Google Ads API Team

Update (March 12, 2021): Updated the language in this post to emphasize that this change is a reorganization of existing features.
The v6 release of the Google Ads API added support for Maximize conversions and Maximize conversion value bid strategies in Search campaigns. This includes a new read-only MaximizeConversions.target_cpa field. Bid strategies having either this new target_cpa field or the read-only MaximizeConversionValue.target_roas field act identically to TargetCpa and TargetRoas bid strategies, respectively. In the future, bid strategies for Search campaigns will be reorganized for simplification.

What’s changing
Starting in April 2021, the Google Ads UI will start allowing some users to create MaximizeConversions and MaximizeConversionValue bid strategies with their target_cpa and target_roas fields set, in lieu of the old-style TargetCpa and TargetRoas bid strategies. This change will gradually ramp-up to more accounts over time.

There will be no impact to bidding behavior due to these changes. The MaximizeConversions bid strategy using the new optional target_cpa setting will still behave like the TargetCpa strategy does today, and likewise, MaximizeConversionValue using the new optional target_roas setting will behave like TargetRoas.

Before	After
TargetRoas	MaximizeConversionValue.target_roas
TargetCpa	MaximizeConversions.target_cpa

The target_roas and target_cpa fields will remain read-only to API users until a future version of the API enables mutate functionality. Be on the lookout for such an announcement in the API’s release notes.

What to do
Developers should ensure their code treats Search campaigns that have MaximizeConversions with a set target_cpa field and MaximizeConversionValue with a set target_roas field the same way it treats TargetCpa and TargetRoas bid strategies, respectively.

Developers can continue to create TargetCpa or TargetRoas bid strategies or manage existing TargetCpa or TargetRoas bid strategies, even after we introduce the new representations in April. We will publish an update on the blog when the above fields are mutable, along with several months' notice before we start moving to the new representations of the bid strategies for existing Search campaigns.

If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us via the forum or at googleadsapi-support@google.com.
Adam Ohren, Google Ads API Team

On March 22, 2021 we will begin to sunset portfolio (shared) Enhanced cost-per-click (ECPC) bid strategies. The following behaviors will be blocked in all versions of both the AdWords API and the Google Ads API:

• Creating new portfolio ECPC strategies.
• Attaching portfolio ECPC strategies to campaigns.

Note that standard (non-portfolio) ECPC strategies will not be affected.

	Affected Portfolio Enhanced CPC Strategies
Google Ads API	Bidding_strategy.type = BiddingStrategyType.ENHANCED_CPC
AdWords API	SharedBiddingStrategy.type = MANUAL_CPC, SharedBiddingStrategy.biddingScheme.enhancedCpcEnabled = TRUE

Change Description
Any operation creating new portfolio ECPC strategies, or attaching a portfolio ECPC strategy to a campaign, will generate one of the following errors:

	Error Upon Creation	Error Upon Attaching
Google Ads API	BIDDING_STRATEGY_NOT_SUPPORTED	CANNOT_ATTACH_BIDDING_STRATEGY_TO_CAMPAIGN
AdWords API	BIDDING_STRATEGY_NOT_SUPPORTED	CANNOT_ATTACH_BIDDING_STRATEGY_TO_CAMPAIGN

Migration Description
In the future, we will remove the portfolio ECPC strategy entirely, in favor of standard ECPC. In order to prepare for this change, you can proactively migrate all your portfolio ECPC strategies to standard ECPC strategies using the instructions below.

All remaining portfolio ECPC campaigns and strategies will be automatically migrated at a later date. We will post an update on this blog ahead of that migration.

Self-migration using Google Ads API
Update a campaign by using CampaignService.MutateCampaigns() to set its manual_cpc.enhanced_cpc_enabled field to true. Be sure to set the update_mask on your request to match:

operations: [
  {
    update: {
      resource_mame: customers/CUSTOMER_ID/campaigns/CAMPAIGN_ID,
      manual_cpc: {
        enhanced_cpc_enabled: true
      }
    },
    update_mask: manual_cpc.enhanced_cpc_enabled
  }
]

Self-migration using AdWords API
Update a campaign by using CampaignService.mutate() to set its biddingStrategyType to MANUAL_CPC, and its biddingScheme.enhancedCpc field to true:

<operations>
  <operator>SET</operator>
  <operand>
    <id>CAMPAIGN_ID</id>
    <biddingStrategyConfiguration>
      <biddingStrategyType>MANUAL_CPC</biddingStrategyType>
      <biddingScheme>
        <enhancedCpcEnabled>true</enhancedCpcEnabled>
      </biddingScheme>
    </biddingStrategyConfiguration>
  </operand>
</operations>

If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us via the forum or at googleadsapi-support@google.com.
Adam Ohren, Google Ads API Team

Starting January 18, 2021, we will start migrating Maximize Clicks bid strategies that still utilize the deprecated target_spend setting to use campaign daily budget pacing instead. This follows last year’s sunset of the target_spend field for Maximize Clicks. After that sunset went into effect, Google Ads has prevented users from creating any new Maximize Clicks strategies that have a target_spend setting.

What’s changing

As part of this migration, any Maximize Clicks bid strategies that still use the target_spend setting may have their maximum CPC bid limit lowered to minimize the performance impact that may result from this change. This would affect the following API fields:

Fields whose values may be lowered as part of the January 18, 2021, migration:
AdWords API	Google Ads API
TargetSpendBiddingScheme.bidCeiling	TargetSpend.cpc_bid_ceiling_micros

What you can do

You can avoid the above changes by removing the target spend setting on your campaigns’ bidding strategies before January 18, 2021. To do so, unset the following field (set its value to 0) on any existing Maximize Clicks bid strategies:

Fields to unset (set to 0) to avoid the migration:
AdWords API	Google Ads API
TargetSpendBiddingScheme.spendTarget	TargetSpend.spend_target_micros

If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us via the forum or at googleadsapi-support@google.com.

 Adam Ohren, Google Ads API Team

On July 31st, 2019 we began to sunset the target spend field for Maximize Clicks bidding strategies. At the time, the feature was only removed from the UI, and the Google Ads APIs were not impacted.

Starting on June 30th, 2020, we will continue to sunset the target spend field in the Google Ads APIs as per our original blog post. This will affect all versions of both the AdWords API and the Google Ads API. The following behaviors will be blocked:

• Populating the target spend field on existing standard and portfolio strategies
• Attaching portfolio strategies that have the deprecated field set to campaigns

Read on to see how this will affect your API usage:

	Affected Target Spend Fields
Google Ads API	campaign.target_spend.target_spend_micros bidding_strategy.target_spend.target_spend_micros
AdWords API	Campaign.BiddingStrategyConfiguration.TargetSpendBiddingScheme.spendTarget SharedBiddingStrategy.TargetSpendBiddingScheme.spendTarget

Change Description
Any mutate operations that set a target spend field for the first time will return an error. You will be able to update a target spend field that currently contains a value, but you cannot set previously empty fields to a new value. Additionally, any operation attaching a bidding strategy to a campaign where that bidding strategy has a value set for a target spend field, will throw an error. To manage Target Spend on any new campaigns, we recommend using campaign budget. In each of these cases an error will be thrown.

Performing any of the actions listed above will generate one of the following errors:

• OPERATION_NOT_PERMITTED_FOR_CONTEXT
• UNSUPPORTED_FIELD_IS_SET

If you have any questions about this change or any other API feature, please contact us via the forum.
- Cory Liseno, Google Ads API Team

Update (Jul 30, 2019): clarified the sunset schedule.

Starting the week of September 30, 2019, the average position metric will be sunset. This change was announced this past February in the Google Ads Help Center. The new alternatives were described in this November 2018 blog post. Once the sunset occurs, requests for the average position (AdWords API, Google Ads API) will return NULL values.

In the AdWords API v201809, NULL values are returned as two dashes. In the Google Ads API, NULL values are returned as NullValues.

If you use ValueTrack parameters, we encourage you to remove the ValueTrack parameter {adposition} from your tracking templates. When average position is sunset, the ValueTrack parameter {adposition} will begin returning the empty string.

Note that average position has already been removed from the current beta version of the Google Ads API, but is accessible in the earlier V1_x versions.

In lieu of average position, we recommend you use the new metrics of Impression (Absolute Top) %" and "Impression (Top) %. These are the new metrics:

Absolute Top Metrics
AdWords API	Google Ads API
AbsoluteTopImpressionPercentage	absolute_top_impression_percentage
SearchAbsoluteTopImpressionShare	search_absolute_top_impression_share
SearchBudgetLostAbsoluteTopImpressionShare	search_budget_lost_absolute_top_impression_share
SearchRankLostAbsoluteTopImpressionShare	search_rank_lost_absolute_top_impression_share

Top Metrics
AdWords API	Google Ads API
TopImpressionPercentage	top_impression_percentage
SearchTopImpressionShare	search_top_impression_share
SearchBudgetLostTopImpressionShare	search_budget_lost_top_impression_share
SearchRankLostTopImpressionShare	search_rank_lost_top_impression_share

As always, don't hesitate to reach out to us on the developer forum with any questions.
David Wihl, Google Ads API Team

In June 2019, we will shut off the ability to add new Target Search Page Location and Target Outranking Share bidding strategies. This will affect both the AdWords API and the Google Ads API. Later this year, existing campaigns on these strategies will automatically be migrated to the new Target Impression Share bidding strategy, which offers more flexible and granular controls to optimize for your desired impression share and search page location.

Read on to see how this will affect your API usage.

Google Ads API Users
Please start using the TARGET_IMPRESSION_SHARE BiddingStrategyType rather than TARGET_OUTRANK_SHARE or PAGE_ONE_PROMOTED.

If you attempt to create a TARGET_OUTRANK_SHARE or PAGE_ONE_PROMOTED after they are removed, you will get an error.

AdWords API Users
If you attempt to use the AdWords API to add a TARGET_OUTRANK_SHARE or PAGE_ONE_PROMOTED bidding strategy after they are removed, you will get an error.

All existing campaigns using the old bidding strategies will be automatically migrated to use Target Impression Share for both APIs. The AdWords API does not support the Target Impression Share bidding strategy, so we recommend migrating to the Google Ads API if you need this functionality.

If you have any questions about this change or any other API feature, please contact us via the forum.
- Mike Cloonan, Google Ads API Team

What's new
Starting November 12, 2018, the fields below will be available in AdWords API and Google Ads scripts reports.

Absolute top metrics:

• AbsoluteTopImpressionPercentage
• SearchAbsoluteTopImpressionShare
• SearchBudgetLostAbsoluteTopImpressionShare
• SearchRankLostAbsoluteTopImpressionShare

Top metrics:

• TopImpressionPercentage
• SearchTopImpressionShare
• SearchBudgetLostTopImpressionShare
• SearchRankLostTopImpressionShare

AbsoluteTopImpressionPercentage and TopImpressionPercentage are specific indicators of page location. You can use these metrics to determine when and where your impressions are showing above the organic search results.

SearchAbsoluteTopImpressionShare and SearchTopImpressionShare are your share of the eligible top impressions. They are the best indicators of the headroom available to show your ads in more prominent positions. If your goal is to bid on page location, you should use these metrics. Bidding by average position is not recommended since:

• Average position doesn't actually describe position on the page but position in the auction.
• Sometimes, average position may decrease as bids increase. This happens as higher bids sometimes allow you to enter more competitive auctions lower on the page.

See our post on the New features & announcements page for more details.

What you should do
Whenever you are using AveragePosition as a proxy to bid to a page location, switch to using the new SearchAbsoluteTopImpressionShare or SearchTopImpressionShare metrics in your bidding logic.

If you have any questions or need help, please contact us via the forum.
- Josh Radcliff, AdWords API Team

Update: this change will go live in June 2017.

In June 2017, AdWords will begin gradually altering the specifics of the Enhanced CPC bidding strategy. If you're not familiar with the Enhanced CPC (ECPC) bidding strategy, it works by adjusting the bids for clicks that seem more likely to lead to a conversion. Clicks that seem unlikely to convert will get lower bids, while those more likely to convert will have the bid increased.

Currently, the strategy does not increase bids by more than 30% after bid modifiers are applied. Starting in June, this bid cap will be eliminated over time in order to get more clicks that are likely to convert. On Search and Display, the goal of the strategy will be to help you get more conversions while maintaining the same cost-per-acquisition (CPA) as you get with manual bidding. On Shopping, the goal of the strategy remains to help you get more conversions while maintaining the same cost as you get with manual bidding. The strategy will still respect your manual bids by trying to keep the average CPC below the max you set, which is done in the CpcBid.

This change will allow our system more flexibility to improve performance, and we will be monitoring the effects closely to make adjustments as necessary to continue to fine tune ECPC.

If you are an API user, there is no action required on your part for this change to take effect. The setup in the API works the same as before, so you can use your existing version to make any changes you may want to your account as a result of this change in functionality.

If you have any questions about this change or other API features, please post on the forum.
- Mike Cloonan, AdWords API Team

Adwords currently supports demographic targeting only for Display network campaigns, but starting September 19, 2016 and launching over the subsequent days, demographic targeting will also be supported for Search campaigns. All existing AdWords API versions will retroactively allow these criteria in Search campaigns.

The benefit here for AdWords API users is that AgeRange and Gender criteria will be allowed in Search campaigns. Formerly, you would receive a CriterionError.CANNOT_ADD_CRITERION_TO_SEARCH_PLUS_CAMPAIGNS error when trying to add these types.

If your application does any type of automatic bidding, make sure that you update your app to accommodate these new potential bid modifiers on Search campaigns before September 19. These new criteria may be added by users of the AdWords user interface, so your code may have to handle them even if your application doesn't add them explicitly. This may be particularly relevant if you use the "Target and bid" (targetAll=false) option in TargetingSettingDetail, because the new criteria will begin restricting targeting.

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

- Michael Cloonan, AdWords API Team

Update (Dec 13, 2016): The clearing of bid modifiers described in the previous version of this post are complete.

What’s changing?

Starting in late August, platform bid modifiers of campaigns and ad groups attached to Target CPA and Conversion Optimizer bidding strategies will be cleared. Your campaigns will continue to serve as they do currently.

Why is this happening?

The clearing of these bid modifiers is part of an upcoming feature launch. The new feature will allow users to set platform bid modifiers for entities attached to Target CPA and Conversion Optimizer bidding strategies. In the past, this platform bid modifier value was ignored. By clearing these values for you, we can release the functionality without affecting your currently serving campaigns.

How does this affect me?

For most users, we will only clear platform bid modifiers on Target CPA and Conversion Optimizer entities. Some customers will also see a shifting of platform bid modifiers where a Target CPA ad group inherits modifiers from a non-Target CPA campaign.

Here are some changes that you’ll see in your account before the new features launches:

• For ad groups, clearing mean the entire AdGroupBidModifier will be removed.
• For campaigns, clearing means CampaignCriterion.bidModifier will be set to 1.0.
• If the AdGroupBidModifier.bidModifier or the CampaignCriterion.bidModifier was set to 0.0 to opt-out, the bid modifier will not be touched.
• If the AdGroupBidModifier.bidModifier or the CampaignCriterion.bidModifier does not target a Platform criterion, the bid modifier will not be touched.

The new feature will roll out to all users over the course of three weeks starting in late August. Sometime during those three weeks, we will clear your platform bid modifiers, and shortly thereafter we will enable the feature for your account. You will then see the option to set platform bid modifiers in the AdWords user interface. Bid modifiers set after that point will be preserved.

What should I do?

• Check your code and verify that if you’re setting this platform bid modifier it’s intended because that code will have an effect on bidding after the clearing process.
• If you care about the platform bid modifiers that you have set for Target CPA or Conversion Optimizer campaigns, save them offline before late August.

Where can I learn more?

• Bidding guide
• Bid modifiers guide
• Ads API Client Libraries

Questions? Visit us on the AdWords API Forum or our Google+ page.
Nadine Sundquist, AdWords API Team

Historically, device-specific bid modifiers were supported only for HighEndMobile, and were not allowed on other Platforms. Now, as part of our mobile-first initiative, we're extending this functionality to include support for these bid modifiers for all platforms.

All versions of the API currently permit bid modifiers for Desktop and Tablet criteria to be returned and modified in requests for test accounts only, allowing you to manage these bid modifiers programmatically. We will be rolling out this feature to live accounts for all versions over the coming weeks. These bid modifiers will be allowed on both the campaign and the ad group level.

If you rely on fetching bid modifier information in your app, these upcoming changes will affect you. Once device-specific bid modifiers launch on the web interface, users of the web interface may add them and they will be returned when making requests with the API. This can be particularly impactful if your application has made assumptions that the Desktop bid is a static, base bid, which is no longer the case.

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

- Michael Cloonan, AdWords API Team

In preparation for improvements to CPA bidding in AdWords, starting October 26, 2015, we'll perform a one-time removal of inactive ad group-level CPA bids.

What's an inactive ad group CPA bid, you ask? An ad group-level CPA bid is inactive if the ad group's effective bidding strategy is not a CONVERSION_OPTIMIZER strategy. This includes CPA bids on ad groups whose effective bidding strategy is TARGET_CPA, since the target for such ad groups is specified at the strategy level. The effective bidding strategy is the ad group-level strategy, if specified. Otherwise, it’s the bidding strategy set at the campaign-level.

How this change impacts the AdWords API

After the one-time removal of inactive CPA bids, there are two categories of ad groups you'll want to review:

• Ad groups from which inactive CPA bids were removed: For these ad groups, the AdGroup object will no longer have a CpaBid in the bids attribute of its ad group-level BiddingStrategyConfiguration. Therefore, if you change the effective bidding strategy of these ad groups back to a CONVERSION_OPTIMIZER strategy, you will have to add a new CpaBid to the ad group’s BiddingStrategyConfiguration for your ads in the ad group to serve. You will only have to make this change once.
• Ad groups you change from TARGET_CPA to CONVERSION_OPTIMIZER: AdWords will no longer copy the TargetCpaBiddingScheme.targetCpa value to a CpaBid on the ad group's bidding strategy configuration. Therefore, you will not automatically get the TARGET_CPA strategy bid if you transition to CONVERSION_OPTIMIZER. If the ad group's bidding strategy configuration already has a CpaBid, then CONVERSION_OPTIMIZER will use that bid. Otherwise, you will have to add a new CpaBid to the ad group BiddingStrategyConfiguration before ads in your ad group will serve.

How this change impacts bidding

Since the CPA bids being removed are inactive, this change will have no impact on bidding or ad serving.

What you should do

If you are interested in inactive CPA bids for CONVERSION_OPTIMIZER bidding strategies, download the current bids using AdGroupService before the removal date.

More bidding resources

• AdWords API bidding guide
• Latest API docs for TargetCpaBiddingScheme

Still have questions? Feel free to visit us on the AdWords API Forum or our Google+ page.

- Josh Radcliff, AdWords API Team

We have added the following new features in AdWords scripts.

Bidding

You can now manage bids for your campaigns, ad groups and criteria in AdWords scripts. Support is also provided to retrieve and update shared bidding strategies in your account. The current release allows you to use MANUAL_CPC, MANUAL_CPM, BUDGET_OPTIMIZER or CONVERSION_OPTIMIZER as bidding strategies; and set CPC, CPM or CPA bids to your biddable entities. See our guide and code snippets to learn more about this feature.

Display criteria

You can now manage the following display criteria through AdWords scripts: keywords, placements, topics, audiences. Check out our code snippets for usage examples.

New ad extensions

You can now manage review and callout extensions for your campaigns and ad groups in AdWords scripts.

If you have questions or feedback about these features, let us know on our forum.

Anash P. Oommen, AdWords Scripts Team

Starting on April 22nd, 2014, a v201309 or v201402 AdGroupBidModifierService.mutate request will fail with a CriterionError and reason CANNOT_BID_MODIFY_CRITERION_TYPE if all of the following conditions are met for the same criterion:

• The criterion is a Platform criterion for the mobile platform ID (30001)
• The Campaign has a CampaignCriterion for the mobile platform criterion with a bidModifier set to 0 (this is displayed as a Bid adj. of -100% under Settings in the AdWords UI)
• The AdGroupBidModifier has the same mobile platform criterion and attempts to set the bidModifier to any value other than 0

The AdWords API and UI will start rejecting such requests because allowing this combination could give the impression that the ad group will serve ads for the mobile platform criterion when in fact it will not.

For example, assume you create a campaign with a CampaignCriterion containing the following criterion and bid modifier:

<criterion xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xsi:type="Platform">
    <id>30001</id>
    <type>PLATFORM</type>
    <Criterion.Type>Platform</Criterion.Type>
    <platformName>HighEndMobile</platformName>
</criterion>
<!-- This will appear as "-100%" in the UI. -->
<bidModifier>0.0</bidModifier>

If you attempt to create an AdGroupBidModifier containing the following criterion and bid modifier for any ad group in the campaign on or after April 22nd, 2014, it will fail because the non-zero ad group bid modifier of 1.25 would have no effect:

<criterion xmlns:ns2="https://adwords.google.com/api/adwords/cm/v201402"
  xsi:type="ns2:Platform">
    <ns2:id>30001</ns2:id>
</criterion>
<!-- This will appear as "+125%" in the UI.  Any other non-zero
     value will also fail. -->
<bidModifier>1.25</bidModifier>

Before April 22nd, 2014, please take the following actions to ensure a smooth transition for your application:

• Make sure that your application will be able to properly handle the error
• Examine your existing campaigns and ad groups and address any bid modifiers that meet the conditions above

Not using bid adjustments in your campaigns and ad groups? Check out our bid modifiers guide to learn how to use this powerful feature of AdWords.

Still have questions? Feel free to visit us on the AdWords API Forum or our Google+ page.

- Josh Radcliff, AdWords API Team

We previously announced that we are removing the ability to set contentBid for “Display Network only” campaigns in the AdWords API on February 18th, 2014. However, based on developer feedback, we are moving this date to March 3, 2014.

If your application modifies ad group bids for Display-only campaigns, then your application may be affected by this change.

To make sure your applications and scripts work properly, you should make the following changes to your application code before March 3, 2014:

• Modify your code to set the default ad group bid instead of contentBid for “Display Only Campaigns”.
• Clear out the contentBid field for “Display Only Campaigns” by setting it to zero so that AdWords will start using the default ad group bid when serving your ads.
• If you store campaigns in a local data store, re-sync your data store with AdWords to pick up the updated default bid values.

If you have any questions about this change or the AdWords API in general, you can post them on our developer forum. You can also follow our Google+ page for updates about the AdWords API.

Anash P. Oommen, AdWords API Team

As previously announced, we are removing the ability to set contentBid for “Display Network only” campaigns in the AdWords API on February 18th, 2014. Once this change happens, you will start receiving a ReadOnlyError.READ_ONLY error for all versions of the API if you set contentBid for a “Display Network only” campaign. You can use the fieldPath of the ApiError object to identify the operation triggering the error.

To make sure your applications and scripts work properly, you should make the following changes to your application code before February 18th, 2014:

• modify your code to set the default ad group bid instead of contentBid for “Display Only Campaigns”
• clear out the contentBid field for “Display Only Campaigns” so that AdWords will start using the default ad group bid when serving your ads
• if you store campaigns in a local data store, re-sync your data store with AdWords to pick up the updated default bid values

If you have any questions about this change or the AdWords API in general, you can post them on our developer forum. You can also follow our Google+ page for updates about the AdWords API.

Anash P. Oommen, AdWords API Team

[Update 2/17/2014: Based on developer feedback, we have moved the date of this change back to March 3, 2014.]

We're making a change to how the contentBid setting works in “Display Network Only” campaigns. Here's some background on the change and how it might affect you.

Currently, if you have a campaign that targets only the Display Network, then you can use a CpcBid at the adgroup level to specify a default bid and a display network bid override for content networks. In the past, we've allowed users to specify a contentBid in a "Display Network Only" campaign type, even though contentBid is useful only for "Search & Display Networks" campaign type. This allowed users to switch between "Search & Display Networks" and “Display Network only” campaign types without modifying their bids.

Since display campaigns have become so much more specialized over time, we've recently removed support for switching “Display Network only” campaigns to other campaign types. This makes contentBid setting obsolete for “Display Network only” campaigns, so we are removing the ability to set contentBid for “Display Network only” campaigns in AdWords API. The default bid value will be used for serving your ads on Google Display Network.

What this means for you

If you do not set contentBid at the adgroup level for a “Display Network only” campaign, this change will not affect you.

Starting on February 18th, 2014, if you set contentBid for a “Display Network only” campaign, then you will start receiving a ReadOnlyError.READ_ONLY error for all versions of the API. You can use the fieldPath of the ApiError object to identify the operation triggering the error.

To avoid getting errors, you should:

• modify your code to set the default adgroup bid instead of contentBid
• clear out the contentBid field to make sure that AdWords will start using the default adgroup bid when serving your ads
• if you store campaigns in a local data store, re-sync your data store with AdWords to pick up the updated default bid values

If you're still using contentBid to set ad group display bids in “Display Network only” campaigns within a few days of February 18th, 2014, we plan to do a one-time migration of those bids to become your ad group default bid. This migration is intended to ensure your ads serve with the correct bid; you must still make sure your code is able to handle ad group bids on the Display Network properly.

If you have any questions about this change or the AdWords API in general, you can post them on our developer forum. You can also follow our Google+ page for updates about the AdWords API.

Anash P. Oommen, AdWords API Team