Targeting Idea STATS service: RATE_LIMIT error after 3 consecutive operations

[Federico Conti]

Hi All,

What is the limit of Targeting Idea STATS service per minute?

I can't find this in the documentation.

I created a script that requests the service 3 consecutive times, but if I don't put a 30 seconds pause between the requests, I encounter the RateExceededError called "RATE_LIMIT".

These are the details of the error - my API access is Basic:

RateExceededError

rateName=RATE_LIMIT

rateKey=null 

rateScope=ACCOUNT

retryAfterSeconds=30

I would like to minimize the time of the script, but I have no indications from the documentation regarding requests per minute limits, can you please help?

Thanks in advance,

Federico 

[Luis Xander Talag (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Federico,

The rateScope=ACCOUNT indicates that you are making too many request against a single AdWords account at a single given time. Regardless of access level, this limit will be encountered if too many requests are made. I would suggest to review and reduce any requests being made at once in order to avoid this error. 

Additionally, since you are using the TargetingIdeaService, you may note that this is a more expensive service to call as compared to the other services of the AdWords API. The rate limits for this service are significantly more strict than for other services that can be used for managing campaigns. The rate limits can vary based on time of day, overall volume of API usage by all users, and other factors. Our team do not publish specific allowable QPS numbers to allow for this variance, and instead use rate limit errors and require that integrations against the API adhere to the timeouts as they encounter rate limit errors.

I hope this helps and feel free to write back if you have any further concerns.

Thanks and regards,

Luis

AdWords API Team