Confusion about Historical versus Forecast in Ads

[Bruce Axtens]

Using the following settings 

        "CcId": "6239854509",
        "Keywords": "attractions",
        "Language": "English",
        "Location": "Western Australia,Australia",
        "Network": "GoogleSearch",
        "From": "01/07/2023",
        "To": "31/07/2023"

we get the following out of a Historical request

            "Metrics": {
                "AvgMonthlySearches": 49500,
                "Competition": 2,
                "CompetitionIndex": 0,
                "LowTopOfPageBidMicros": 0,
                "HighTopOfPageBidMicros": 0,
                "MonthlySearchVolumes": [{
                        "Year": 2023,
                        "HasYear": true,
                        "Month": 8,
                        "MonthlySearches": 49500,
                        "HasMonthlySearches": true
                    }
                ]
            },
            "Text": "attractions",
            "CloseVariants": []

Compare that to the setting we use for a Forecast request (our code converts dollars to micros and language and location to their respective Id values),

        "CcId": "6239854509",
        "From": "2023-09-01",
        "To": "2023-09-30",
        "Language": "English",
        "Location": "Western Australia,Australia",
        "Network": "GoogleSearch",
        "DevToken": "REDACTED",
        "BiddingStrategyDailyBudgetDollars": 1000000,
        "BiddingStrategyMaxCpcBidDollars": 1522,
        "ConversionRate": 1,
        "AdGroupsMaxCpcBidDollar": 1522,
        "BiddableKeywords": "attractions",
        "BiddableKeywordsMaxCpcBidDollars": 1522,
        "BiddableKeywordsMatchType": "Broad"

and the result. 

        "KeywordForecastMetrics": {
            "Impressions": 774.91845703125,
            "HasImpressions": true,
            "ClickThroughRate": 0.13109692931175232,
            "HasClickThroughRate": true,
            "AverageCpcMicros": 4824580,
            "HasAverageCpcMicros": true,
            "Clicks": 101.58943176269531,
            "HasClicks": true,
            "CostMicros": 490126290,
            "HasCostMicros": true,
            "Conversions": 101.58943176269531,
            "HasConversions": true,
            "ConversionRate": 1,
            "HasConversionRate": true,
            "AverageCpaMicros": 4824579,
            "HasAverageCpaMicros": true

Why is it that the Historical's AvgMonthlySearches value is so different to the Forecast's Impressions (49500 vs 774)? Is 774 for the full month or for some part thereof?

What are we not understanding correctly here? 

-Bruce

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hi Bruce,

Thank you for reaching out to us.

Kindly note that generating historical metrics and generating forecast metrics differ from each other. Historical metrics provide metrics on how keywords have previously performed on Google Search, including average monthly searches (past 12 months), approximate monthly search volume (per month), competition level, competition index, 20th percentile of bids, and 80th percentile of bids, while forecast metrics provide metrics for proposed or existing campaigns, including impressions, click-through rate, average cost per click, clicks, and cost.

Note that you can use historical metrics to reduce a large set of keywords to a more manageable size based on their performance. However, if you already know the keywords you want to use, you can skip historical metrics and go straight to forecast metrics.

On the other hand, kindly note that the Google Ads API mirrors the Google Ads UI. Whatever data shows on the Ads UI report, the API should pull it the same. With this being said, could you please provide us with the entire UI screenshot where you can see the specific expected data you want to retrieve in the API, so that our team can further check this and provide appropriate recommendations to you?

You may then send the requested information via the Reply privately to author option. If this option is not available, you may send the details directly to our googleadsa...@google.com alias instead.
 

This message is in relation to case "ref:_00D1U1174p._5004Q2o9M4Q:ref"

Thanks,
 

Google Ads API Team

[Bruce Axtens]

Hello "Team"

The difficulty of getting comparable values from the online Forecast tool is that the bidding strategy daily budget seems to be tied to the budget of the CCID's account. We're trying to find out what the impressions would be if the budget was effectively unlimited. Is there a way to do that in the Forecast tool?

Kind regards,

Bruce 

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hello Bruce,

Thank you for getting back to us.

With regards to “online forecast tool”, can you please provide us an uncropped screenshot of this? Are you referring to the Google Ads UI, Keyword Planner? With regards to using forecast metrics via the API perspective, please refer to our API documentation on Generate Forecast Metrics(https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/docs/keyword-planning/generate-forecast-metrics) for more information of this.

You can provide it via Reply privately to the author option. If this option is not available, then send it instead on this email address googleadsa...@google.com

[Bruce Axtens]

Rather than $120 we'd want to put in, say, $1,000,000 so that we can "what if" with increased budgets.

But the issue is that the historical for the previous month yields 49,500 impressions and the Forecast doesn't give anything like that. On the expectation that the above image with its impressions are the result for one day, dividing 49,500 by 30 to give the number of clicks per day gives 1,650 which is about three times more than this forecast of 550. Surely a forecast should allow for more flexibility in settings and give results that correlate better with the historical.

-Bruce

P.S. Keywords are "attractions" 

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hello Bruce,

Thank you for getting back to us.

Can you please confirm if you are able to change the $120 value to $1,000,000 in the Google Ads UI view? Please note that the Google Ads UI and API mimic each other’s behavior. If you are able to modify this via UI view it should also be possible to do this via the API. 

[Bruce Axtens]

Thanks for getting back to me.

As far as I can see, there's no means to change the $120 value. I'm very willing to be proved wrong.

-Bruce

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hi Bruce,

 

Thanks for providing more context to this.

 

Allow me to raise a request for the feature to allow for more flexibility in settings and give results that correlate better with the historical to be exposed via the Google Ads API. Kindly note however that we would be unable to provide a definite timeline with regard to it's release and would instead recommend you keep an eye on our Ads Developer Blog for future updates and latest announcements.

 

Let us know if we can assist you with anything else.

[axtens]

Thank you for the prompt response. You said, " unable to provide a definite timeline ". How about a ballpark guesstimate? Six months? 12?

Kind regards,

Bruce

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hi Axtens,

Thank you for your patience.

Upon the investigation of our wider team regarding this concern, they've shared that a request for this feature should be raised regarding the Google Ads UI as this is more within their scope rather than the Google Ads API.

With this, we would recommend to reach out to the Google Ads Product Support Team (https://support.google.com/google-ads/gethelp) and ask for their insights if a request for this feature to be exposed in the UI could be filed on their end. Once this functionality is available in the UI, and as the Google Ads API only mirrors the behaviour that which is being exhibited in the Google Ads UI, then it would be likely exposed in the API.