Constant Data Service

[Anant Prasad]

Hey everyone, 

I have noticed some differences in the codes & formats tables downloaded from the link when compared with the same tables fetched from the ConstantDataService. For example, for Mobile App Categories table, I can see that all the criterion Ids are having a well defined category along with their parent details, Eg - when `criterion_id` value is 60000, the mapped category is `/All Apps/Google Play`, but when I fetch this same from ConstantDataService, I have seen that it only contains the value `Google Play` and it is missing out on parent details. 

But in other tables like Affinity Categories, I am able to get the parent details from the ConstantDataService as well. 

It would be great if I can get some help to figure out if there is another way or service to fetch the parent Ids for the Mobile App Categories table through the constant data service or if we need to keep using these direct links to get the full name for the category.

Regards,

Anant

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Anant,

Thank you for reaching out.

To better look into the behavior that you observed, could you provide the complete SOAP request and response logs of your ConstantDataService requests for both affinity categories and mobile app categories?

You may send the requested details using the Reply privately to author option.

Best regards,

Peter Laurence Napa Oliquino Google Ads API Team

ref:_00D1U1174p._5004Q29S04n:ref

[Anant Prasad]

Hi Peter, 

Thanks for the quick response on this. 

Along with this email, I am attaching the request and the response logs of ConstantDataService requests for both affinity categories and mobile app categories. These tables are public and can also be download using the respective links as well which are as follows - 

1. Mobile App Categories - https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/data/tables/mobileappcategories.csv

2. Affinity Categories - https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/data/tables/affinity-categories.tsv

On comparing the CSV of Mobile App Categories, and the XML response from the Constant data service, we can clearly see that the parent details are not returned from the API. But in case of Affinity Categories, all looks good.

Let me know if any more details will be required to look into this. 

Regards,
Anant

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Anant,

Thank you for sending these details.

Allow me to reach out to the rest of our team so we can discuss this. We'll get back to you once we have updates.

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Anant,

I think the ConstantDataService was originally designed to return various IDs (e.g. criterion IDs), rather than return more specific details like the hierarchy of the mobile app category. You could depend on the CSV data instead -- it is kept fairly upto date, and the underlying data from ConstantDataService doesn't change frequently.

Cheers
Anash

ref:_00D1U1174p._5004Q29S04n:ref

[Anant Prasad]

Hi Anash,

Thanks for an update on this. 

I can depend on the CSV data instead but it still acts as a barrier for automating things at my end. I was mostly trying to switch to ConstantDataService because I faced an issue before where the URL to download the CSV data for mobile app category was suddenly changed. As you have mentioned above that ConstantDataService was originally designed to return various IDs, but it doesn't seem to be the case for all the tables, as we can see that in case of Affinity Categories table which is also fetched from the same ConstantDataService but it is actually having the hierarchy defined with parent_ids along with all the criterion_ids. 

I am not sure though if in the near future the URL to download this CSV data will be changed. If you can confirm this, it would be great!

Best,

Anant

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Anant,

We don't expect the url endpoints for the csv files to change. If you see the URL being broken, feel free to reach out to us.