Creatives with unexpected destination URLs

[Zweitze]

Hello,

We have some software that creates ads. When a new ad is created, we
check whether the domain of the destination URL is the same as every
other destination URL domain in that group - the ad policy of Adwords
requires that, so we enforce it before we submit the new ad.
The destination URLs are retrieved from a creative report.

Recently we retrieved a creative report, where the field
'creativedesturl' contained a very weird value: http://ignore_this_destination.com.

According to that same report, the ad type is 'richMediaAd' (?!)
although the web UI states 'Third Party Ad' (?!). (AdwordsAdvisor: see
adgroup 1290650060, creatives 3405546110 and 3405546200.)
In another instance, the ad type is also 'richMediaAd' but the web UI
now states 'Gadget Ad' (Adgroup 1448948919, creatives 4558938699,
4558938789 and more)

Obviously such URLs break my application. I know of other ad types
without destination URLs, like mobile ads, but those ads have an empty
creativedesturl. I could deal with those - return an empty URL to
suggest a NULL value.

But this URL is something else... Is this a temporary glitch of
Adwords reports, and should we actually get empty URLs? (As I
understand, they don't really have destination URLs, as the
destination URL is created dynamically)
If not, where can I find a complete list of all 'mock-up' URLs that
Adwords may report?

Thanis in advance.

[AdWords API Advisor]

Hi,

It appears that the current behavior of Third Party Ads is to return a
destination URL of "http://ignore_this_destination.com/". I agree
that this is inconsistent with other ad types, and I'll open a dialog
with the core engineering team to see if we can better align these
values. In the meantime, I suggest adding this domain as a special
exception in your application. There are no other fake URLs like this
that I am aware of, but let us know if anything else pops up.

Best,
- Eric Koleda, AdWords API Team

[Zweitze]

Thanks, I hope you'll post the results here.

On a side note, I'm having troubles with all these new ad types. The
software retrieves all info from a creative report, looking at column
'creativetype'.

Some values are trivial, for instance 'text', 'image', 'mobile' and
'video'.
But value 'richMediaAd' means that the ad is either a Gadget Ad or a
Third Party Ads - how does one find out? (For example, see my opening
post)
Would 'geo' be a Local Business Ad?
And what ad type is 'gadgetTemplate'?

Note that my software must communicate to end users about the ad.
Nowadays I report just the value of column creativetype, but names
like 'richMediaAd' and 'geo' make no sense to them. Essentially I'm
looking for a rather complete table of ad type descriptions.

Thanks in advance.

[AdWords API Advisor]

Hi,

Unfortunately there is no definitive list of ad types at this time.
I'll reach out to my colleagues to see if I can get a list of these
values. In the meantime I would recommend comparing returned values
in the report XML to the displayed values of the same report in the
AdWords web interface. This should give you more information about
the meaning behind these values.

Best,
- Eric

[Zweitze]

Hi,

Do you have any updates on the issues raised in this thread?

Thanks.

[AdWords API Advisor]

Hi,

Unfortunately I wasn't able to get any further information about the
ad type values that are returned. It appears that various ad types
are listed as richMediaAd in the reports, and it is not possible to
determine the exact type using reports alone.

Best,
- Eric