Report from API different than {placement}

[Mike-Indiana]

Hello, this discrepancy seems to have existed for several years, I thought that I would post.

Pulling AUTOMATIC_PLACEMENTS_PERFORMANCE_REPORT will yield non-www. domains in the report for 'Domain'. For example, google.com

However when using valuetrack {placement} in ads, a click may yield either google.com or www.google.com. However in the reports, it will not return the www. version and assign the click data to the other.

In short, it would be kind if the API placements report would reflect the same variable as valuetrack. Has anyone else noticed this, or is it an issue on my setup?

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi,

Could you pass along a campaign ID, date range, and domains where you are seeing the discrepancy so I can investigate further?

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Mike-Indiana]

Private reply sent. Thank you Josh

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi,

Thanks for sending over the example. While looking into this, I found that one of my colleagues already asked this question, so I'm following up with him. I'll send you an update as soon as I have more information.

Cheers,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Mike-Indiana]

Hi Josh, any word back on this?

Thank you,

Mike

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Mike,

No word yet, but I'll keep asking for updates. I'll let you know as soon as I hear back.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Mike-Indiana]

Hi Josh,

One more thing. I noticed that subdomains do not exist in the reports either. For example, news.domain.com will come in from {placement} in ValueTrack, but only domain.com in the reports.

Thank you,

Mike

[Mike-Indiana]

Sorry for the multiple messages on this. I am seeing that sub-domains are not being passed in ValueTrack placement clicks, just the domain. This must have changed within the past year or so, can you confirm?

Thanks again.

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for providing the example re: subdomains. I've passed that along to the engineer looking into this. I'll let you know as soon as I have more info.

Cheers,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for bearing with me while I gathered info on this question. I've heard back from the Display network experts, and they informed me that the ValueTrack {placement} will be populated as follows:

• Managed placements: the URL as specified on the placement criterion's url attribute.
• Automatic placements: the full host name of the placement

In reports and the user interface, automatic placements are displayed using the second level domain, e.g., for {placement} of news.domain.com, reports and the user interface will show domain.com.

I plan to update our documentation to reflect this, but first could you confirm that what I described above matches what you're seeing?

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Mike-Indiana]

Hi Josh,

I certainly appreciate you looking into this. Your response is great to clarify what we should expect to receive in both valuetrack and reports.

I'm not sure if it's on the plate, but it would be helpful to pass the full URL in ValueTrack and report data (if no-one asks, then no-one may know).

Thank you,

Mike

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Mike,

Appreciate the feedback! I'm not sure if your request is on the roadmap, so I passed it along.

Cheers,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Mike,

I know it's been a while, but I was reviewing this feature request and realized that I had not suggested using the URL_PERFORMANCE_REPORT. That won't give you GCLID-level details, but it will allow you to see the full placement URL (in the Url field) for your impressions. Would that address your use case?

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Mike5577]

Hi Josh,

Thank you for the follow up, and my apologies for the late reply.

Getting data for individual URLs for each click would allow matching such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzzz. This would allow very good targeting of key pages if that info can be passed through the click. In your suggestion, the report will show the URLs, however internally I would just have youtube.com since that's all being passed on valuetrack.

Thanks, and looking forward to your reply.

Mike

On Tuesday, January 3, 2017 at 10:51:33 PM UTC-5, Mike-Indiana wrote:

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the response. Just so I'm clear, what is the added benefit of having the full placement URL at the GCLID level vs. just having your clicks and impressions summarized by the full placement URLs (in the URL_PERFORMANCE_REPORT)? Do you need to do something with that URL in real-time (at the moment of each click)?

Cheers,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Mike5577]

Hi Josh,

Having the full URL in real-time allows us to credit the conversion to that URL. Otherwise everything goes to the domain, and there is no way to match it in the URL_PERFORMANCE_REPORT, unless I'm missing something on that.

Managed placements return the full URL on the click,  but automatic placements or remarketing just gives the domain. These used to give the full URL a few years ago.

Thanks again,

Mike

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for clarifying. I've passed this information along in the feature request I filed.

Cheers,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Mike5577]

Thank you Josh!

On Tuesday, January 3, 2017 at 10:51:33 PM UTC-5, Mike-Indiana wrote: