ad_group_criterion.display_name not filled reliably in age_range_view, gender_view (potentially more criteria views))

[Robert Heise]

Dear Google Ads API Team,

we noticed an issue with the criteria performance views (e.g. age_range_view, gender_view , etc.) in Google Ads API (using API v9 currently via the google-ads-ruby gem v15.0.0). When fetching the performance data along with ad_group_criterion.display_name, the display_name is only filled if ad_group_criterion.status is not "REMOVED".  Probably there are more statuses or other column values affecting, this is the pattern we observed. In case ad_group_criterion.status is "REMOVED", the ad_group_criterion.display_name contains only an empty string. The ad_group_criterion.criterion_id is provided nonetheless.

To check run following simplified GAQLs for any account which has both ad_group_criterion.status REMOVED and ENABLED for age range or gender criteria types and check the content of ad_group_criterion.display_name:

SELECT ad_group_criterion.criterion_id, ad_group_criterion.display_name, ad_group_criterion.status, metrics.impressions

FROM age_range_view

WHERE segments.date = '2022-02-20' AND ad_group_criterion.status = 'ENABLED'
LIMIT 1

Here response contains something like:

<Google::Ads::GoogleAds::V9::Services::GoogleAdsRow: ad_group_criterion: <Google::Ads::GoogleAds::V9::Resources::AdGroupCriterion: resource_name: "customers/REDACTED/adGroupCriteria/REDACTED~503002", criterion_id: 503002, display_name: "25to34", status: :ENABLED, ...

SELECT ad_group_criterion.criterion_id, ad_group_criterion.display_name, ad_group_criterion.status, metrics.impressions

FROM age_range_view

WHERE segments.date = '2022-02-20' AND ad_group_criterion.status = 'REMOVED'
LIMIT 1

Here response contains something like:

<Google::Ads::GoogleAds::V9::Services::GoogleAdsRow: ad_group_criterion: <Google::Ads::GoogleAds::V9::Resources::AdGroupCriterion: resource_name: "customers/REDACTED/adGroupCriteria/REDACTED~503001", criterion_id: 503001, display_name: "", status: :REMOVED, type: ...

Notice the missing display_name in latter case. We also observed the same behavior for gender criteria via gender_view, so we assume this issue is affecting potentially all Google Ads API criteria performance views.

One workaround is to sync the criteria IDs and their labels (aka display names) from https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/reference/data/codes-formats and always look them up on our side based on the criteria type and ID. However it would be more consistent if the Google Ads API would reliably fill and provide the ad_group_criterion.display_name, no matter what value ad_group_criterion.status has. Otherwise due to lack of reliability, providing ad_group_criterion.display_name makes no sense.

Thanks,

Robert

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hi Robert,

Thanks for reaching out to the Google Ads API Forum.

Could you provide us with the complete request and response logs with the request-id, so our team can better check?

For the client library, logging can be enabled by navigating to the Client libraries > Your client library (ex select Python) > Logging documentation, which you can access from this link. You may then send the requested information via the Reply privately to author option. If this option is not available, you may send the details directly to our googleadsapi-support@google.com alias instead by referring to this thread.

Regards,

Teejay Wennie Google Ads API Team

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