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For those who consider blogs or discussion groups passé, we wanted to let you know that you can now stay up to date on the latest AdWords API announcements by following @adwordsapi on Twitter.

AdWords API on App Engine (Python)

Most of you have probably heard about Google App Engine, which lets you write web applications that run on Google's infrastructure. But did you know that the code which you develop using the AdWords API can be easily hosted on App Engine, thus making it many times easier to build, maintain, and scale your application as your traffic grows?

Today, we'd like to release a demo application that can be hosted on App Engine and is uses the AdWords API to communicate with the Sandbox environment (it is just as easy to access production AdWords accounts). In this demo, we access a given Sandbox account using the AdWords API and illustrate the following operations and features:

• Retrieve existing campaigns.
• Retrieve stats for each campaign.
• Add new campaigns.
• Update a campaign's budget.
• Retrieve existing ad groups.
• Add new ad groups.
• Keep track of API usage for each user in a datastore.
  

We hope this demo will start you off in creating innovative and cool applications that take advantage of the AdWords API's ease of use and Google's infrastructure.

-- Stan Grinberg, AdWords API Team

Client Library Updates: Part 1

There are a lot of changes going on with the AdWords API lately and we'd like to take a minute to talk about what else we have in store. In recent news, we released the API v2009 Sandbox and we appreciate all the great feedback we are getting (keep it coming!). With the release the v200902 API, we also have begun updating the client libraries for each of the supported languages. The client libraries have always made it simple for both first time developers and experts to use our API and we are now adding even more features to improve your API experience.

Above all, we want to allow you to experiment with the API v2009 Sandbox while still being able to make production calls to the v13 version. To that extent, each client library now has cross-version compatibility so that v200902 code and v13 code can be run together. It still stands, though, that v200902 can only operate within the Sandbox. Included in each client library are some examples showing you how to use the v13 code along with v200902 to supplement your learning.

In addition to our existing list of supported client libraries, a new Perl client library, found here http://code.google.com/p/google-api-adwords-perl/, has been developed specifically for use with v200902. This library does not include support for the v13 services, but it does offer most of the functionality that our other client libraries offer.

The support for v200902 in the APIlity (PHP) client library is in the works as well.

Here's some other features that you'll find in the new refresh of each client library:

• Improved logging support.
  
• Reports can now be downloaded through the client library.
  
• Full support for UTF-8 encoding.
  
• Thread-safe architecture.
  

As always, you can find a list of supported client libraries here: http://code.google.com/apis/adwords/docs/clients.html

We'll be releasing more features as the client library update continues, so stay tuned!

-- Adam Rogal, AdWords API Team

AdWords Downtime: May 16, 10am-2pm PDT

We'll be performing routine system maintenance on Saturday, May 16 from approximately 10:00am to 2:00pm PDT. You won't be able to access AdWords or the API during this time frame, but your ads will continue to run as normal.

Cheers,
-Jeffrey Posnick, AdWords API Team

Upcoming Budget Optimizer Changes

We want to take a minute to notify all AdWords API developers about an upcoming change in the way bids are handled in campaigns that make use of the Budget Optimizer. If none of your campaigns use the Budget Optimizer, or if you never plan on turning the Budget Optimizer off, then feel free to stop reading (and get back to trying out the new v2009 Sandbox!).

Each Campaign object has a budgetOptimizerSettings property, which in turn has a takeOnOptimizedBids setting. Currently, if takeOnOptimizedBids is set to false and you turn off the Budget Optimizer in a campaign, the original bids that were manually set for the ad groups and criteria contained in the campaign will be restored. In other words, the AdWords API will save your old bids from before the Budget Optimizer was turned on, and restore them when it is turned off. If takeOnOptimizedBids is set to true, however, the old bids will not be restored when the Budget Optimizer is turned off. Instead, the last bids that were automatically set by the Budget Optimizer will persist for the ad groups and criteria in your campaign.

You can, if you wish, use the AdWords API to manually update the bids for ad groups and criteria once the Budget Optimizer is turned off in either scenario.

The upcoming change will effectively treat takeOnOptimizedBids as if it were set to true (regardless of what it is actually set to) for all campaigns using the Budget Optimizer. Once the Budget Optimizer is turned off, all bids will be set to the last bid used by the Budget Optimizer. This change will match the behavior currently in place when the Budget Optimizer is turned off via the AdWords web interface.

We're planning on making this change to AdWords API behavior on May 19. It is not likely that you will have to make any substantial changes to your code in advance of this change, but please take the new behavior into account when you write code that turns the Budget Optimizer off.

-Jeffrey Posnick, AdWords API Team