Can ads be created in advance via API? Mobile App Install campaigns

[Sam]

I will only be using the API to create and manage Mobile App Install type campaigns (and creating/managing text, image, and video app install ads) for clients. 

I'm wondering if via the API I can create the template ads listed above in advance (before Campaign or AdGroup)? 

For Example:

Client: ABCDE

Can I create a template ad X and push it to ABCDE's account, then later configure a campaign/adgroup and use ad X that I previously created (tied to ABCDE's account)? Or is the case that each ad must be tied to an AdGroup or Campaign and cannot be tied at the adwords account level?

Are ads in adwords unique objects that can be created in advance and re-used? (can ad X present in ABCDE's account be re-used in another campaign?)

(I believe this is the case for Facebook App Install ads for a point of reference)

If you can point me to any pages on the documentation/sample code that will help with this that would be awesome!

Thank you and Happy New Year!

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi,

Using the API, ads cannot be shared across campaigns and ad groups. You'll need a separate Ad object for each ad group.

In the UI, you can use shared ads under the Shared Library on the left, but this functionality is not supported in the API.

Cheers,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Sam]

Thank you for the clarification Josh. 

1) Is it planned to support this functionality via the API in the future?

2) Can Ad Objects be created separately without creating a campaign or AdGroup via the API? (i.e. create an ad at account level then pull this ad into a new campaign/adgroup later using UI since shared library is not supported via API yet?) 

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi,

Regarding question #1, we're aware that there's some interest in this, but we don't have any immediate plans to support shared ads. You may want to subscribe to our blog so that if and when support is added, you'll know.

For question #2, you cannot create an ad without an ad group, and you need a campaign in order to create an ad group.

Cheers,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Sam]

Great. Thank You.

I'm wondering if you have any suggested solution to my problem. I'm a little confused how the flow should be...

Since I won't be able to bulk create ads beforehand and then tie them to adgroups/campaigns afterwards is there any way to: create ads via API and in that same step/process specify which campaign/adgroup the ad should belong to if I have already created campaigns/adgroups (using API) for a specific adwords account?

For this I think there must be a way to get a list of all campaigns/adgroups associate with an adwords account and then being able to push the ad to a specific campaign/adgroup via the API.

Thanks! 

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi,

For an explanation of how to get campaign and adgroup IDs from your ad groups, please see the following post from earlier today:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/adwords-api/B7HQ5ZGzIx8/py-9203QrGgJ

Once you have the ID of the ad group, you can just submit the same AdGroupAdService.mutate request you used for other ad groups, only change the AdGroupAd id to the current ad group's ID.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team