CANNOT_ADD_CRITERION_TO_SEARCH_PLUS_CAMPAIGNS

[Richard Moran]

I'm trying to post my first campaign to AdWords. I can successfully create a campaign, an AdGroup, add keywords and add a Text Ad, but I cannot seem to add any criteria.

Whenever I add a criteria to either my campaign or my AdGroup (can't really tell which one I should add them to), I always get this "CANNOT_ADD_CRITERION_TO_SEARCH_PLUS_CAMPAIGNS" error. Which is great but I can't see how to make my campaign anything other than a "search plus campaign".

Does anyone have any ideas as to how I can fix this?

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi,

Search plus campaigns (also known as Search Network with Display Select or SNDS campaigns) only support specific types of criteria: Keyword, Language, Location, LocationGroups, Platform, and Proximity at the campaign level, and Keyword at the ad group level. The reason for this is that SNDS campaigns are basically Search only campaigns that also automatically server your ads on the Display Network, so any criteria types that are Display Network-specific (such as Vertical or Placement) are managed automatically for you by AdWords. This Help Center article goes into more detail on the different campaign types.

Which types of criteria do you want to add to your campaign or ad group?

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Richard Moran]

Ideally I want to be able to use gender, age range, proximity and some sort of "interests" criterion (which I think is "verticals" in the AdWords API?). I tried using the code from one of the examples which has age-range and gender but they were both rejected with the "CANNOT_ADD_CRITERION_TO_SEARCH_PLUS_CAMPAIGNS" error message. 

I'm guessing that the reason I can't use them is because I'm apparently using a "search plus campaign". I have no idea how I've made it one of those, the MCC says the campaign I've created is "search only" but ones I've created through the AdWords website are "with display network". What do I need to do to make the campaign "search only"? I'm just following the code examples from the .NET nuget package at the moment. You can see my test code here: https://gist.github.com/RichardMoran/605119732e63e9b25c0a 

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi,

Among the criteria types you mentioned, only Proximity is available for Search Network only or Search with Display Select campaigns. The rest are only valid for Display Network Only campaigns. I realize this is a bit confusing, and I'm actually working on improving our documentation on this as we speak.

A few more points that may be helpful:

• The Vertical type is for targeting sites where you want your ads to appear on the Display Network by the site's products or services. If you want to target users by the their interests, you can use CriterionUserInterest criteria. Both of these types are limited to Display Network only campaigns.
• On a Search Network only or Display Network only campaign you can target users by user list (Audience in the UI) by adding an BiddableAdGroupCriterion with criterion type CriterionUserList. This is not available on Search Network with Display Select campaigns for the reasons I outlined in my previous email.
• When creating a campaign with advertisingChannelType = SEARCH, what differentiates between a Search Network only vs. a Search Network with Display Select campaign is how you set targetContentNetwork on the campaign's networkSetting.
• false -> The campaign will be a Search Network only campaign
• true -> The campaign will be a Search Network with Display Select campaign

Hope this helps. Let me know if you still have questions.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Richard Moran]

Ok, thanks Josh. I've managed to get a proximity criterion working and I think our clients are only going to need "search only" for the time being so that should be all I need for now.