New Criterion Rules

[Chris]

While testing some of the v201109 functionality regarding the
switching of locations, languages and platforms to criterion I noticed
an inconsistency and was wondering if anyone knew how each of the
criterion types worked. Obviously when a location is not specified
then all locations are on and likewise with languages and platforms.
Now when you add a location or a language criterion to a campaign then
only those criterion are enabled. So if I had a campaign with no
languages specified (meaning all languages are enabled) and I make a
call to add the Language criterion for English; only English is
enabled for that Campaign. So far so good. this works the same way for
locations.

Now if I have not specified a platform (meaning all platforms are
enabled) and I make a call to add the Desktop criterion to the
campaign then the campaign still has all Platforms enabled. I have to
make a call to remove the other two platforms in order to enable only
desktops.

Obviously this is not that noticeable when editing existing campaigns
as you would normally look at what is enabled and what is desired and
run both the adds and removes, but when creating a new campaign this
is a little odd considering how the other criterion seem to work. I
have not run this test on Age Range, Carrier, Content Label, Gender,
Os Version or Placement yet and I was wondering if anyone knew which
way those functioned.

[mm]

Hey Chris -
I also ran into this discrepancy and asked the team about it in one of
the last few hangouts & they confirmed that it is the expected (though
arguably odd) behavior.

Best -
Margaret

[Chris]

Does this only apply to Platforms or does it apply to other criteria types as well?

[Eric Koleda]

Hi Chris,

As Margaret mentioned this is the expected behavior for Platform criteria, but other criteria types should default to an empty list for new campaigns (which represents targeting all of them).

Best,

- Eric Koleda, AdWords API Team