keyword id 3000004

[GregT]

Hi,

We have a client who has a search only campaign using manual CPC bidding with enhanced CPC.  When running the keyword performance report for them, we get back rows that have a keyword id of 3000004 and keyword text of "AutomaticKeywords", with other fields like quality score, max cpc, approval status, etc. having bogus values.

I know that 3000000 and 3000006 have a special, defined meaning (https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/guides/reporting-concepts#keywordid3000000), but have not noticed 3000004 before.  It seems apparent that it is similar to these other special keyword ids, but I don't know exactly what it means.  Searching through the forum, the only time it was mentioned that I find is a post from over 6 years ago, but it was never answered.  Could someone please enlighten me with what this special keyword represents?

Thanks in advance,

Greg

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Greg,

I'm still investigating this one.  If you wouldn't mind sharing the customer ID with me, please send it to me only by clicking "Reply to Author" on this post.  I'd like to run the report myself to help figure this out.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[GregT]

Hi, Josh.

I've sent you that email.

Thanks,

Greg

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Greg,

Thanks for sending over the additional details.  I've tried to reproduce that behavior but I'm not seeing 3000004 or "AutomaticKeywords" in the results.

1. Could you send over the full report definition you are using so I can replicate the request in its entirety?
   
2. Are you still seeing this behavior today?  If not, could you let me know the dates when you did see this?

Note that I have confirmed that 3000004 is not a value for any active feature of AdWords.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[GregT]

Hi, Josh.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to that particular account anymore, so I don't know if it's still happening.  I've sent you the customer id, campaign ids, and date range via email previously.  The rest of the info: this is for the keyword performance report, in GZIPPED_CSV format, with the fields AdGroupId, AdGroupName, AverageCpc, AveragePosition, CampaignId, CampaignName, Cost, Clicks, Impressions, Date, Id, KeywordMatchType, MaxCpc, KeywordText, AdNetworkType1, Device, QualityScore, Conversions, ConversionsManyPerClick, and TotalConvValue, with returnMoneyInMicros set to true, using v201309 of the API.  We last ran this report Nov 19 and saw this then, but haven't run it since and, as I said, can't anymore at the moment.  We probably ran the report 5 or 6 times that day, and saw it each time.

Thanks,

Greg

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Greg,

Thanks for the additional info.  Is it possible that you ran the reports for 2010 instead of 2013?  The deprecated 3000004 value does appear on reports for that old time frame, but not after.

Cheers,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[GregT]

Hi, Josh.

My apologies -- I posted about two different keyword performance report issues on the same day here, and got some of the specifics of this one confused with the other.  I looked through our logs to verify... the purpose of this particular report was to just get structure -- i.e. get the attributes of all keywords -- so it was run for ALL_TIME, and did not include anything but attribute fields -- namely, KeywordMatchType, KeywordText, DestinationUrl, IsNegative, QualityScore, MaxCpc, ApprovalStatus, AdGroupName, FirstPageCpc, Status, AdGroupId, and Id.  The campaign ids were what I sent over email, along with 23 additional campaigns - I can send those ids to you as well, if you need them.  Everything else should be as I posted or emailed.  

Note that the keyword with the id 3000004 was returned as having an active status (so we tried to process it and store it locally, which failed, since the fields like approval status, quality score, etc., did not have real values).  If it is deprecated, I wouldn't expect it to be returned as an active keyword?

Sorry for the prior wrong information.

Thanks,

Greg

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Greg,

Thanks for confirming that this was run for ALL_TIME - that explains why you saw the old 3000004 ID.  Regarding the status of that Keyword, my suspicion is that since it is a universal placeholder ID like 3000000 and 3000006, the concept of a status doesn't really apply, or rather that it will always be ACTIVE.  I'm looking to confirm this though and will get back to you.

I would be curious to know how you handle the 3000000 and 3000006 placeholder IDs, or have you not encountered those yet?

Cheers,
Josh, AdWords API Team

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Greg,

I've confirmed that the placeholder IDs (300000x) will always be reported as active (by design) since they are a special case.  These keyword IDs represent an aggregation of keywords, display keywords, etc., so they won't have values that cannot be aggregated, such as Quality Score.

Hope that clears things up.  Let me know if you still have additional questions.

Regards,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[GregT]

Okay, thanks, Josh.

To answer your earlier question about how we handle the 3000000 and 3000006 placeholders, those placeholders are only for display campaign functionality.  We use the keyword report only for search campaign data and use other reports to gather the display campaign data -- so we don't end up downloading these other placeholders through this report.

Thanks again,

Greg