Empty fields "AdType" and "Headline" in Ad Performance Report (v201705)

[Thao]

Hi all, 

current, in my download data AdWords API return empty for fields "AdType" and "Headline", any change on API or error, give me a hand, thank you.

[Bharani Cherukuri (AdWords API Team)]

Hello, 

I could verify that the AD_PERFORMANCE_REPORT does not return AdType and Headline for this specific ad. To investigate the issue further, could you please confirm if the Ad has been created from the AdWords API or the web interface(new UI or old UI)? 

If the Ad is created through the API, could you enable logging and share the complete SOAP request and response logs, so I can take a look? Please use Reply privately to author option to share the details. 

Regards,

Bharani, AdWords API Team  

[HK]

Bharani/Thao,

 

Unsure if our issue is related, but on 11/18/17, our AD_PERFORMANCE_REPORT stopped returning clickType="Headline" for what I believe is all our accounts. Prior to that, we'd always get clickType="Headline" as well as other click types for the same ad, such as a PLA. Now we are getting the other click types for each ad, just not headline. No code changes were made on our side. We are also on v201705. I'll be happy to provide more details if you guys believe it's the same issue.

Thanks,

Hans 

[Bharani Cherukuri (AdWords API Team)]

Hello Hans, 

We can definitely take a look at this issue. From what I understand, you're experiencing a discrepancy with the clickType field in your Ad Performance Report. If that's the case, could you share us the complete report definition along with the clientCustomerId, so I can take a look? Please use Reply privately to author option to share the details. 

Regards,

Bharani, AdWords API Team

On Monday, December 25, 2017 at 9:46:07 PM UTC-5, Thao wrote:

[HK]

I have replied privately to Bharani with further details.

[Nadine Sundquist (AdWords API Team)]

Hello Everyone,

I would like to follow up publicly on the thread since I have multiple threads going on privately in case someone bumps into this. There are two issues that are happening on this thread:

• Issue 1: The AdType is at times coming back empty. There are some ad types that are only available in the UI and are not yet supported in the API. That is the case here with some of these Gmail ads. In this case, the proper response should be UNKNOWN rather than an empty response as AdType. I've filed an issue for this, and I'll report back when the issue has been fixed.
• Issue 2: The secondary issues is that PLA ads have stopped showing Headline as a ClikType as of November 18th. I've seen that in a number of places, but I don't see an exact reason. I'm asking around about it now. I personally noticed that shopping ads did change recently (while I was doing my holiday shopping), and I'm wondering if that that's had an impact on how clicks are reported.

I'll report back here when I hear more.

Cheers,

Nadine, AdWords API Team

[HK]

Hi, Nadine

As for issue 2, any indication as to what is going on? This is having a pretty big impact on a number of large accounts we manage and has been occurring for two months soon. Appreciate your help!

Hans

[Nadine Sundquist (AdWords API Team)]

Hello Hans,

At this point, I'm not sure why that's happening. We're still investigating. I'll get back to you when we have more information. I'm glad you brought it to light with your analysis.

Best,

Nadine, AdWords API Team

[HK]

Hi, Nadina

Hate nag you about this, but is there any way to escalate this? It's a pretty big unexplained/undocumented change that is affecting ~30 merchant accounts we manage.

Hans

[Nadine Sundquist (AdWords API Team)]

Hello Hans,

No worries! It gets pretty busy around here, so it's fine to bump a thread. It's good to know the scale of how it's affecting you. I'm checking in on the internal thread I have going for this. Hopefully, we'll have an answer soon. This does seem to be an odd one.

Regards,

Nadine, AdWords API Team

[HK]

Hi, Nadine

This issue is becoming more and more urgent. Nothing personal, but I find it very surprising that no one can explain what is going on after 20 days. The AdWords APIs is not just a tool we are using for fun, we have an enterprise solution built around it and it's affecting around 30 important customers of ours and ~20 million impressions per days. Please let us know how we can get some traction on this now over 2 month old problem.

Thanks for all your help,

Hans

[Nadine Sundquist (AdWords API Team)]

Hello Hans,

Thanks for checking in. I can feel your frustration. I've escalated the issue internally as high as I can. I'm also trying on a couple of other avenues internally to see if we can get this resolved. I'll get back to you when I've seen some movement. In the meantime, please feel free to ping this thread if you don't hear back soon. 

Thanks,

Nadine, AdWords API Team

[emar...@commercehub.com]

Hi Nadine-

Any further updates here? It's been another week and a half. We really have to get this fixed.

[Nadine Sundquist (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Hans,

Oh, my goodness. Time really does fly. I can't believe we are already in February. 

I think I've gotten to the bottom of this. At one point, the stats were being reported under the Headline ClickType for shopping ads because that's how the old shopping ads worked. When we moved to the new shopping ads with more updated features, some of the new shopping ads would still report that old way. On that day where you saw it go to zero, we changed it where we correctly moved all the stats to go into the more specific category of Shopping Ad - .... So, you haven't lost your stats. They just moved into more specific categories as we were doing a bit of housekeeping. I'm working on updating some of our documentation to get that confusion sorted out.

If there's a specific use case in mind where you needed this, please tell me. The good news is that your stats are reporting correctly, and you haven't lost anything. I think that's where your concern was. Your accounts have just been updated to report to more specific categories rather than just a generic Headline, as it appears we will be retiring this for specifically these shopping ads. 

Best,

Nadine, AdWords API Team

[Nadine Sundquist (AdWords API Team)]

Hello AdWordsians,

There was another issue on this thread where the AdType was coming back empty. That also should be resolved at this time. Please get back to me if you see more issues.

Cheers,

Nadine, AdWords API Team

[HK]

Hi, Nadine

Thanks for getting to the bottom of this. For the record, our concern has primarily been that our system has been without PLA impressions for 3 months which is pretty bad, especially having this occur during the busiest time of the year. We can update our system to work with the new behavior, the important thing is that we know this behavior will stick around and not be reverted as it requires quite a bit of work on our side to change it. The main reason we were using impressions from the headline row in the report was to avoid double-counting impressions for sitelinks. Please note that we are still seeing the headline row come back with impressions for shopping ads for the Display Networks. We only have around 10 impressions in 3 months for this scenario, but it makes me wonder if you missed a spot when you converted over? Here is an example:

<row adGroupID="29289674941" adID="109108712461" keywordID="384772557517" campaignID="228801421" avgPosition="1.0" impressions="2" clicks="0" cost="0" day="2018-02-06" network="Display Network" clickType="Headline" device="Mobile devices with full browsers" />

Please let us know when this change has been documented and whether PLAs on the Display Network will continue to report impressions on the headline row.

Thanks,

Hans

[Nadine Sundquist (AdWords API Team)]

Hello Hans,

I would feel the exact same way; I appreciate you being so kind through this process. I'll check on that for you because off the top of my head, I'm not sure about that. This is really helpful because I want to make sure that we have all the edge cases and caveats covered as I'm updating documentation. 

Thanks again,

Nadine, AdWords API Team

[HK]

Hi, Nadine

Any feedback on my impression question above about the Display Network? Would like to get all this sorted about before I change our production code. This needs to be right.

Thanks,

Hans

[Nadine Sundquist (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Hans,

I just did a quick check-in on the internal thread I have going. I haven't gotten a reply yet, so I've bumped that thread. 

Regards,

Nadine, AdWords API Team