Optional Path fields in Expanded Text Ads and CSV Reports

[Dorian Kind]

Hi,

I just noticed that with ETAs, the path1 and path2 fields are optional—you can create an ad without either of these two fields set. This is in contrast to the previously used text ads, where every field is required.

This has an interesting effect, as the CSV reports show unset path fields as " --" (a space and two hyphens)—but you can also set either path field to consist of two hyphens, which also causes the field in the report to show a space and two hyphens.

This means that theoretically, you can't tell from a CSV report whether a path field of an expanded text ad is really empty or has been set as "--". Here's an actual CSV report from a test account:

Path 1,Path 2,Headline 1,Headline 2,Description

 --, --,Headline 1,Headline 2,Empty path fields.

 --, --,Headline 1,Headline 2,"Path fields set to ""--""."

Total, --, --, --, --

Now I freely admit that this is a contrived scenario, but I wonder whether it would be possible to leave the field empty instead of using " --".

Seeing as " --" usually means "Not applicable" in the CSV reports (it's mainly used if a metric doesn't have a meaningful aggregate in the totals line, for example), I feel a clear distinction would be helpful.

Any thoughts on this matter?

Best regards,
Dorian

[Anash P. Oommen (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Dorian,

Thanks for reporting, I'll ask the reporting team to take a look.

Cheers,
Anash P. Oommen,
AdWords API Advisor.

[Dorian Kind]

Hi Anash,

thanks for your response. Just as an addendum, there are already fields that are formatted as empty in CSV reports (meaning just two commas in a row) when they are not set—"CreativeDestinationUrl" is an example. So there seems to be a certain inconsistency.

Best regards,

Dorian

[Oliver]

We believe path1 and path2 used to be blank until early last week.  The " --" is something we started seeing only last week as our parsing code broke for exactly this reason.

Oliver

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Oliver, Dorian,

Can either of you think of a valid reason why a user would want "--" as path1 or path2? If not, then perhaps the solution here is to simply change the validation of those fields to prevent that value.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Dorian Kind]

Hi Josh,

no, as I mentioned I don't think that's a very likely scenario, and we have already adapted our parsing/validation logic.

I was just a bit surprised by the fact that there are two different representations of the "Not set" value for attributes, i.e. some like CreativeDestinationUrl returning an empty string and others like Path1 returning " --" and wondered whether that was by design.

Thanks for your feedback and best regards,

Dorian

[Zweitze]

I noticed this too - see this related thread where I ask for more documentation on report fields.

A few thoughts:
1. We download XML, the null value is represented as "--"
2. I agree with Oliver, this null value was introduced recently for these fields, before we got an empty value. As far as I know such a change was not announced.
3. As Josh states, I cannot think why anyone would enter this value for these fields, but then again, our software downloads reports managed by others. And they do many things I cannot think of.

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi,

Thanks for the additional details. I'm following up with the reporting team specifically on the change in how nulls are represented in reports and will get back to you as soon as I have more information.

Best regards,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Oliver,

You mentioned the following earlier:

We believe path1 and path2 used to be blank until early last week.  The " --" is something we started seeing only last week as our parsing code broke for exactly this reason.

Would you mind sharing the AdGroupId and Id for the rows where you suddenly started getting " --" instead of empty string? I'd like to look into those particular ads.

Cheers,

Josh, AdWords API Team