Google Analytics metrics zero in AD_PERFORMANCE_REPORT

[Lloyd Davies]

Hi

In Adwords UI I can see GA metrics (e.g. Bounce Rate) but recently these metrics have been coming back as zero when I request them from the AD_PERFORMANCE_REPORT (e.g. BounceRate is 0.00% for all records). It was working fine until recently.

Has something changed or is there some issue at the moment?

Thanks,

Lloyd

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Lloyd,

Did you change your report request recently to include the KeywordId field? If you include that field in the API's AD_PERFORMANCE_REPORT or segment by Keywords in the UI's Ads tab, those metrics will be returned as zero.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Lloyd Davies]

Hi Josh

Sorry for the delay responding to you on this.

Yes, KeywordId is included in my search and if I remove it I do get back bounce rate data, so you are right that KeywordId is the cause. The curious thing is that I have been using KeywordId successfully since October and it has only recently stopped working... Did I just get lucky for a few months?

Thanks,

Lloyd

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Lloyd,

I've contacted the reporting team to get more details on why KeywordId in combination with the Ad ID returns zeros for Google Analytics metrics. I'll post back here as soon as I hear from them.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[David Midgley]

Hi Josh

I'm seeing the same thing, I was just about to post this question before I noticed Lloyd's question:

I'm getting zero values via the API for:

- AveragePageviews

- AverageTimeOnSite

- BounceRate

- PercentNewVisitors

in a AD_PERFORMANCE_REPORT. According to the Reports Reference documentation these columns are available and I don't get an error in my report submission, just zero values.

This is happening across multiple clients where I previously had values and the data disappeared on 9-10 December.

This doesn't appear to be a time lag issue as I've tried re-importing the whole of December today and now I have no analytics data since 30 November!

Is anyone else experiencing this? Has anything changed in the way analytics data is integrated into AdWords reporting?

Just to reiterate, I was getting analytics data with no problems prior to 9/10 December and my report definitions have not changed.

Cheers

David

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi David,

Could you confirm that you are only seeing zero values when your AD_PERFORMANCE_REPORT request includes both KeywordId and Id (ad ID)? If that's the case, then it sounds like you have encountered the same error that Lloyd discovered.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[David Midgley]

Hi Josh

Thanks for your quick response!

Yes I am including KeywordId and Id as this is the only report I know of that allows you to split by keyword/ad combination. If there is another report that allows you to do this please let me know as this is crucial to the analysis we need to perform.

Do you know if this bug is likely to be fixed any time soon?

Cheers

David

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi David,

Thanks for confirming that you have a similar use case to Lloyd's. I don't have an ETA for when or if this will be fixed, but one thing that would help greatly in our investigation would be if you have a sample report request and response for a request you ran in the past with both Id and KeywordId where you received non-zero values for the analytics columns. If you have such a sample, please send that only to me by clicking Reply to Author on this message.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[David Midgley]

Hi Josh

Unfortunately I don't have a copy of a past response but I could recreate a past request. Would that be useful?

This incident has prompted me to save all report files generated from the API into an audit trail as of today, but that's a little late!

Cheers

David

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi David,

Thanks for offering, but unfortunately I think you'll get back all zeros for past dates at this point as well. That's what I found when I just tried running a report with id and KeywordId for October 2014.

I'll continue to follow up with the reporting team to try to figure out what changed here.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[David Midgley]

Hi Josh

It's been just over a week since your last post - I don't suppose you have an update? Should I start rewriting my code to workaround this bug?

Cheers

David

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi David,

Sorry for the delay. I contacted the reporting team again today for an update. Hopefully I'll have something to report back soon.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[David Midgley]

Hi Josh

It's been three months since your last post, have you managed to get a response from the reporting team?

Cheers

David

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi David,

The team is still actively looking into this, but I don't have a resolution just yet.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Joey Cozza]

Any news on this? I am getting some behavior very similar to this. All zeroes for 

- AveragePageviews

- AverageTimeOnSite

- BounceRate

- PercentNewVisitors

with the ADGROUP_PERFORMANCE_REPORT endoint for a particular account, but another account is pulling actual numbers for those 4 columns.

I can provide much more details if needed, I'm just curious if there is anything I should be aware of, or documentation that I haven't been able to find.

Thanks,

Joey

[Shwetha Vastrad (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Joey,

Could you provide the complete report definition used along with the clientCustomerIds of both accounts (where you observe zero and non-zero values)? Please use Reply privately to author while responding.

Thanks,

Shwetha, AdWords API Team.