Automatic Targeting in Adwords API

[Mahmoud Gamal]

How can I turn off automatic targeting (Targeting Expansion) in the ad group settings? I don't want to turn it off using the slider. Is there a way to do so using the Adwords API?

[PPC Developer]

Looking for the same answer here...One feedback for the Google Ads team : this new setting was enabled silently, and default value was set to not-off, which means some audience expansion level 1 or 2 out of 5. (It's a sliding scale in the UI). Silent updates like this breaks existing systems and should be avoided by Google. In the past, a similar thing happened, where all mobile traffic was enabled (again, silently for currently active ad groups), whereas currently enabled ad groups specifically had a negative targeting for all mobile apps. Remember the adsenseformobileapp.com setting? That was retired, but then all ad groups which previously were configured NOT TO SERVE on mobile app, suddenly started reaching mobile apps. 

These could be simply overlooked as "default values", but has dire consequences for active campaigns. When Google introduces a new setting, the default for new adgroups or campaigns is one thing, but applying the same default to currently live camapaigns and ad groups is an entirely different animal. What should Google do? Preserves the old state of the current campaigns and ad groups. 

So in this case, "Similar Audience" targeting was off for all our campaigns, and therefore the new "sliding scale" should have been off for these. Now we have a problem in hand to turn all of them off. But how do we do that via the API?

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor Prod]

Hello, thank you for raising this question and for voicing your concerns over silent updates.

To answer your question about adjusting or turning off automatic targeting (Targeting Expansion) via API, it is currently not possible to set the Targeting Expansion settings through the API. We have an outstanding feature request for this. Please keep an eye on our blog for updates.

As for your concern about silent product changes impacting active campaigns, we appreciate you bringing this to our attention. We try to communicate any changes like these in order to avoid breaking systems that are already in place and understand what an inconvenience it can be when these changes are not properly communicated. I will escalate this to our team internally to see how we can better communicate product changes in the future. 

All the best,
Devin
The Google Ads API Team

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[Anthony Gianastasio]

Hello,

I was looking to retrieve this information of whether or not Targeting Expansion was "ON" on our hundreds of adgroups (we wanted to build a dashboard with a filter "Audience Expansion TRUE/FALSE"). But from what I understood, this information is not provided in the different API methods used to retrieve targeting details.

Do you confirm it's still the case as of now? We are using Adwords API v201809.

Thanks a lot!
Anthony

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Anthony,

Unfortunately, those details are still not available using the API. As Devin mentioned, you can follow our blog for updates.

Regards,
Anthony

Google Ads API Team

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[cv]

Hi Anthony,

Is this available now?

I just wanted to check Targeting Expansion is set or not.

Thanks,

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor Prod]

Hello,

We are still working on implementing this feature to the API. Our blog will feature any announcements.

Regards,
Anthony
Google Ads API Team
 

Anthony Google Ads API Team

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