New API release: MCC reports and image creatives

Wednesday, April 20, 2005


Hello, developers! We keep cranking out the AdWords API features, and this time around we have two new things to offer you.

The first new feature is MCC reports. Now you can create your reports with statistics for all of the campaigns you manage under MCC. No more scheduling a different report for each account! Using MCC reports will save you quota and make the report generation more efficient.

The second new feature is support for image creatives. We try hard to make the AdWords API support all the features of the AdWords product, but until now we were a bit behind on images. Now you can upload image creatives alongside your usual text ads.

Three caveats around the image ads. First, the first image for an account must be uploaded via the AdWords front-end; this is to ensure that the account owner agrees to let Google use their images in the AdWords program. Second, while we've tried hard to make all API changes backward compatible, there's a chance that your existing software may break if you download all the Creatives for an AdGroup that has an image creative in it. In the past you wouldn't have downloaded the image creative at all. The addition of that data may cause problems for your client software, particularly strongly typed languages like Java or C#. If you find yourself having trouble, refreshing and rebuilding the client from the WSDL file should take care of it. Finally, we will continue to update the documentation. So if you don't find what you need right now, please check again a few days later and/or post to the Developer Forum.

Enjoy the new features!

Nelson Minar, Software Engineer