Negative Polygon Targeting

[Pete Lavetsky (AdWords API Guru)]

We've been negative targeting polygons for some time. Recently, we
were informed by a Google rep that this was a loophole. However, the
online documentation states you can exclude ( negatively target ) a
polygon: http://code.google.com/apis/adwords/v2009/docs/reference/CampaignTargetService.PolygonTarget.html

Documentation and "loophole" aside, how can we go about transforming
our negative polygon targets to something proper for Google. An idea
is to find all the cities in the previously negatively targeted
polygon and negatively target those cities, at the same time
positively targeting the previous negatively targeted polygon.
Simply, target an area, but exclude all cities in the area.

I can't seem to get that idea to work. I always receive a
TargetError.CANNOT_EXCLUDE_IF_NOT_TARGETED error ...

Thoughts?

[AdWords API Advisor]

Hi Pete,

Regarding the documentation, the excluded field is part of the
GeoTarget type, and it may not be valid for all subtypes, particularly
PolygonTargets. I'll work with the documentation team to include this
in the docs at the top of the page, but it won't be possible to hide
or remove the excluded field.

From what I can tell ProximityTargets and PolygonTargets don't support
exclusions, that is to say you can't exclude a city from a
PolygonTarget. If you use the map in the AdWords UI you will see the
same behavior. Exclusions only work for the hierarchical targets
(CountryTarget, RegionTarget, MetroTarget, and CityTarget). Again
I'll work with the documentation team to clarify this.

Best,
- Eric Koleda, AdWords API Team

On Aug 18, 1:02 pm, "Pete Lavetsky (AdWords API Guru)"

<pete.lavet...@gmail.com> wrote:
> We've been negative targeting polygons for some time.  Recently, we
> were informed by a Google rep that this was a loophole.  However, the
> online documentation states you can exclude ( negatively target ) a

> polygon:http://code.google.com/apis/adwords/v2009/docs/reference/CampaignTarg...

[Pete Lavetsky (AdWords API Guru)]

Hi Eric,

Maybe there's something I'm fundamentally missing, but lets run
through the following scenario.

Let's say I wanted to exclude Philadelphia. If I have no GeoTarget's
at all except for one CityTarget ( marked excluded ) for Philadelphia,
I'll get an error saying
TargetError.CANNOT_EXCLUDE_IF_NOT_TARGETED ... that makes sense ...
I'll also get the same error if I have a Polygon that encompasses
Philadelphia and I have the same excluded CityTarget for
Philadelphia ... so is the only way to exclude Philadelphia is if I
have either a Country, Region or Metro target that includes
Philadelphia and then creating an excluded CityTarget for
Philadelphia?

Thanks for clearing this up
Pete

On Aug 19, 3:28 pm, AdWords API Advisor <adwordsapiadvi...@google.com>
wrote:

[AdWords API Advisor]

Hi Pete,

That's correct. As shown in the UI there is a hierarchy of Country ->
Region -> Metro -> City. Excluded geo targets are only possible
within this structure. PolygonTargets and ProximityTargets can't be
excluded from other targets and can't have other targets excluded from
them.

Best,
- Eric

On Aug 20, 9:42 am, "Pete Lavetsky (AdWords API Guru)"