Can I programmatically remove a closed CrmBasedUserList from AdWords

[George D Elig]

Hi, 

I am programmatically creating a UserList for my campaign. When a new marketing campaign (Marketing campaigns reuse the existing AdWords campaigns) starts, I close the previous userList by setting the status to closed and create a new list, for the new marketing campaign. The old closed list then needs to be manually deleted, which I want to avoid.

Can I programmatically delete them or is there a better way to handle this?

[Sreelakshmi Sasidharan (AdWords API Team)]

Hi George, 

Unfortunately, the AdWordsUserList service does not support the REMOVE operator. You will have to delete the user lists from the UI. You could post your question on the advertisers community forum to see if the product experts there have recommendations on alternate approaches. 

Thanks,
Sreelakshmi, AdWords API Team

[Roger Webb]

I'll amend my previous comment to note I've seen the current version of the page you've linked to showing REMOVE is not supported, but the page I hopped to (w/o reading that sentence above, admittedly) was still misleading.  Thanks, Roger

https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/reference/v201710/AdwordsUserListService#mutate

[Roger Webb]

Hey Sreelakshmi,

If the REMOVE operator is not supported for the AdWordsUserList service, as you describe, then perhaps this documentation page should be updated accordingly.  I've spent a couple of hours trying to figure out why my mutate REMOVE operation isn't working, and this page in particular I found misleading as it seems to imply that ADD, REMOVE and SET are valid operations.

https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/reference/v201710/AdwordsUserListService.UserListOperation

I know this doesn't fix the lack of support for REMOVE and that is not likely to change, but an update to the documentation may help others avoid confusion on this point.

Regards,

Roger

On Tuesday, November 21, 2017 at 2:01:23 PM UTC-8, Sreelakshmi Sasidharan (AdWords API Team) wrote:

[Sreelakshmi Sasidharan (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Roger, 

Thanks for your feedback, it does seem confusing since it is listed in the operator field. I will let the team know about this and see if we can get the documentation updated to make it clear.

Usually, if there are any exceptions to a service/operation (as in the case of AdWordsUserList service), the exception will be documented in the summary section. Might be helpful while trying to lookup something in the future.