Seeing a lot of null and (not set) values for ga:matchType and ga:adwordsCreativeID when pulling data out of GA with AdWords integration

[toli]

I have a set of queries to get GA data via AdWords integration.

It's been working swimmingly for the past few months, but yesterday I started seeing a lot of "null" and "(not set)" for values of adMatchType and adwordsCreativeID.

The AdWords account has auto-tagging on, so i'm trying to pull out the ga:keyword,ga:adMatchType,ga:adwordsCreativeId dimensions from GA. 

Here's the sample data from Data Feed Query Explorer, my underlying app is calling with similar dimensions/metrics/filters

And i'm seeing a lot of keywords coming back with (not set) for both matchType and adwordsCreativeID.

My API queries have been working in the past, and there were no modifications on my side. I've checked the AdWords account, and auto-tagging is turned ON, and there are no utm_content or any other utm_xxx parameters in the destinationURL.

I'm seeing this behaviour across multiple GA accounts. 

Is anybody else seeing this? Anybody knows what that means?

I can filter these results out with a filter: ga:adwordsCreativeID!@set),ga:adMatchType!@(not; but i'd prefer not to do that in case i'm losing legitimate data..

Any advice?

[Nick]

keyword and matchType are available through the web UI.

Are you seeing consistent behavior there?

-Nick

On Nov 17, 5:54 pm, toli <com...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a set of queries to get GA data via AdWords integration.
> It's been working swimmingly for the past few months, but yesterday I
> started seeing a lot of "null" and "(not set)" for values of adMatchType
> and adwordsCreativeID.
>
> The AdWords account has auto-tagging on, so i'm trying to pull out the
> ga:keyword,ga:adMatchType,ga:adwordsCreativeId dimensions from GA.
> Here's the sample data from Data Feed Query Explorer, my underlying app is
> calling with similar dimensions/metrics/filters
>

> <https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-AXPCFxy_9ME/TsW5rc0Z8pI/AAAAAAAACq...>

> And i'm seeing a lot of keywords coming back with (not set) for both
> matchType and adwordsCreativeID.
>
> My API queries have been working in the past, and there were no
> modifications on my side. I've checked the AdWords account, and

> auto-tagging is turned ON, and there are no *utm_content *or any other *
> utm_xxx* parameters in the destinationURL.

[André Scholten]

Hi Nick,
Yes we're seeing the same happening. A lot of known keywords (even
with the broad match modifier '+') attached to "not set" campaigns/
adgroups. Not for all clients but a few.

[Nick]

Hmm...so since it's consistent with the API and UI, this really isn't
an API issue per say (it's more of a service level issue)

Anyways, if this is reproduceable, you can send me your profile ID and
we can take a look.
-Nick

[Jon of All Trades]

We saw similar results when I added the ga:adwordsCustomerId dimension to the query we were using to get matchType.  Removing that dimension, we once again got plenty of matchType data.  Sounds like a bug to me: if the AdWords customer ID is invalid for any reason, then return NULL for that field, but don't silently swallow the whole row!