DUPLICATE_ADGROUP_NAME when re-creating removed ad group

[t.k...@social-mining.com]

Hi,

We are running into a problem with re-enabling removed ad groups. In the past both campaigns and ad groups could be re-enabled from REMOVED status by simply setting their status to ENABLED, this no longer works, as the removal seems to be permanent. Instead the API allows multiple campaigns with the same name to exist, as long as only one campaign is ENABLED or PAUSED and the rest are REMOVED.

However, this does not seem to work for Ad Groups. After setting a Ad Group status to REMOVED the status can no longer be set to ENABLED, but no other Ad Group with the same name can be created either. In essence, we are now have a number of Ad Groups that are 'locked', they cannot be re-enabled, but they can't be renamed either (although the web interface can still do this.)

We have worked around the issue by renaming ad groups prior to deleting them, but this is far from optimal. Is this a bug or is this working as intended?

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi,

Starting with v201406 of the API, you can no longer edit any attributes of a removed Campaign or a removed AdGroup. You are correct that Campaigns allow duplicate names among REMOVED objects, but AdGroup names must be unique across all AdGroups in a Campaign, regardless of status. For the time being, the approach you are taking of renaming AdGroups on delete is the best option. Note that you can rename and remove an AdGroup in the same SET operation (it sounds like you are doing separate operations, but that's not actually necessary).

I realize that this inconsistency is a bit of a pain, especially now that you cannot change the name of a removed AdGroup. I'll talk to the team about making the uniqueness rules for AdGroups the same as the rules for Campaigns.

Cheers,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[ma...@pcbacker.nl]

Josh, 

If not possible to change a Removed status back to a Paused or Enabled status, at least you would expect to allow a new adgroup having the name of the removed one (like it works with campaigns). 

Please make those rules the same as you state. At the moment it totally frustrates our naming convention for automatically created adgroups. 

Thanx in advance

Peter Backer, Maxlead

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the feedback. I'll continue to push for consistent name rules and will update this thread with any progress.

Cheers,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Dorian Kind]

Hi there,

sorry to revive this old thread, but I just wanted to clarify whether it's still the case that once an ad group is set to "removed" state, its name can never again be used in the containing campaign (as re-enabling or renaming the ad group is not possible)?

Thanks & cheers,

Dorian

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Dorian,

The behavior has not changed since the last post. I'll post back to this thread when I have an update.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Anthony Madrigal]

Hi guys,

I just wanted to let you know that this issue has been fixed.

Cheers,

Anthony

AdWords API Team

[Dorian Kind]

Hi Anthony,

thanks for getting back. Could you clarify whether that means that it's now possible to rename a deleted ad group or to re-activate it from the removed state (or both)?

Best regards,

Dorian

[Anthony Madrigal]

Hi Dorian,

No problem. You should be able to create ad groups with the same name as a deleted ad group, but you still cannot change the state of a removed ad group.

Hope this helps!

[Razvan Balosin]

Hi Anthony, 

We still have this issue when creating Ad Groups with Batch Jobs API v201710 

Any idea whats happening? 

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[Milind Sankeshware (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Razvan,

You should be able to create AdGroups with the same name as that of a removed AdGroup. Are you facing issues while doing this? If so, could you please share the complete SOAP logs of the upload operation and the response log so that I can troubleshot the issue?

Thanks,
Milind, AdWords API Team.