Rules for usage of new-for-v201609 campaignCriterionStatus field?

[adiv...@wordstream.com]

Hello,

One of the changes introduced for v201609 of the AdWords API concerns the addition of a campaignCriterionStatus field to the CampaignCriterion type.

Related changes have been introduced concerning the addition of a couple new values to the "CriterionCriterionError.Reason" enumeration used in the "CampaignCriterionService" - 

"CANNOT_SET_STATUS_FOR_CRITERIA_TYPE" and "CANNOT_SET_STATUS_FOR_EXCLUDED_CRITERIA".  These seem to indicate that there are restrictions concerning how the "campaignCriterionStatus" field based on the value of the criterion's "CampaignCriterionService.Criterion.Type" and/or value of its "CampaignCriterionService.CampaignCriterion.isNegative" field.

I would like to know:

1) How is the "campaignCriterionStatus" currently being used?  A quick examination of the behavior of Campaign Criteria in the AdWords UI suggests that the "campaignCriterionStatus" field is not yet exposed in that UI.  That is, I can only "Remove" existing Campaign Criteria - it does not appear that I can "ACTIVE" or "PAUSE" them.

2) What are rules regarding whether or not "campaignCriterionStatus" can be SET for a Campaign Criteria instances based on the value of its value of its "CampaignCriterionService.Criterion.Type" and/or "CampaignCriterionService.CampaignCriterion.isNegative" fields?

3) What are the rules regarding which specific values of the "campaignCriterionStatus" enum are allowed for a Campaign Criteria based on the value of its "CampaignCriterionService.Criterion.Type" and/or  "CampaignCriterionService.CampaignCriterion.isNegative" fields?

For #2 and #3, I reviewed the documentation at the following  links - but they did not provide the answers I am seeking.

https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/appendix/targetingtypes

https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/appendix/criteria-usage

Thanks!

[Nadine Sundquist (AdWords API Team)]

Greetings Al!

That's a good question. I had to check into it myself to figure it out. I turns out that for campaignCriterionStatus, only positive criterion of type CriterionuserList can set the status field to PAUSED. All others do not have the ability to do that.

Best,

Nadine, AdWords API Team

[adiv...@wordstream.com]

Hello Nadine,

Thank you for the quick reply.  Currently it does not appear possible to create a positive Criterion User List via the AdWords UI at the Campaign level.  There is a Google Ads Developer Blog posting that suggests Campaign-level positive criterion user lists will be rolled out shortly.  When these Campaign-level positive criterion user lists are rolled out to accounts - will they be available via the v201609 AdWords API, or will support for them be introduced only in the next AdWords API version?

Thanks again!

-Al

[Nadine Sundquist (AdWords API Team)]

Hello Al,

This is one of those unusual cases where a feature is set up to be available in the API before it gets rolled out across accounts. Yes, you will be able to use v201609 for this feature once the feature is available in your account.

Regards,

Nadine, AdWords API Team

[Robert Rodakowski]

Hello Nadine,

Let me ask another issue in this topic. My account has this feature already enabled - for instance, I'm able to set positive audience remarketing on campaign level, as well as changing its status.

What surprised me, is that in case of using Bid only targeting method, I can set CampaignCriterionStatus to PAUSED using API. In AdWords UI, this action is possible only when Target and bid targeting method is enabled.

I cannot find any constraints regarding "CampaignCriterionStatus" vs CampaignService.TargetingSettingDetail in API documentation,  thus I'm not sure, if it is AdWords UI or API related bug...

I would appreciate any clarifications in this matter.

Regards,

Robert.

[Nadine Sundquist (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Robert,

It sounds like the UI has some additional validation going on that the API might have missed. I find sometimes the API gives you a bit more rope. I'll check with some of my teammates to see if that was intentional for some reason or if it is something we need to fix. I'll get back to you once I've made a bit more progress on figuring that out.

Best,

Nadine, AdWords API Team

[Nadine Sundquist (AdWords API Team)]

Hello Robert,

There was an interesting discussion here amongst my teammates, so I'll give you the summary. The UI was simplified because from the perspective of a UI user, paused and removed will give them the same functionality. That's why you don't see this kind of functionality in the UI for this feature. The UI will still render the paused state if it was set through the API. So, there is a situation where if you have it set to 'target and bid' with a paused state and then change it to 'bid only', you can have that paused state still. So, the good news is that there isn't a validation issue. It's just that the UI was simplified, which doesn't allow fine-tuning in that other state. I hope that clears things up!

Best,

Nadine, AdWords API Team

[Robert Rodakowski]

Thank you!