Location targeting update in AdWords

In February, we launched city targeting in additional 17 countries, and our goal is to make location targeting more accurate, easy to use, and flexible. As part of planning for future improvements, we’re making several changes to the AdWords location targeting capabilities that will affect the way you operate with the API. These changes will start occurring after July 8, 2011 and include:

• Changes to existing available locations: Due to changes in real-world geography or the existence of duplicate or overlapping location targets, we’re removing certain location targets in countries such as Japan, Denmark, Spain, and the Netherlands, among others. For example, in 2010, six provinces were abolished in Finland, and while you’ll no longer be able to target these provinces, you can continue targeting cities in Finland. You won’t be able to target these provinces through the API and UI, but you’ll be able to continue targeting cities in Finland. After the changes take effect, you won't be able to add the locations that are listed here to new campaigns. If you're currently targeting any of these locations in your existing campaigns, you should migrate them to the recommended targets in the list. Otherwise, we'll migrate them automatically. Please review the list carefully since some of these changes will result in migration to larger locations. After this change takes place, if you try to use any of these locations you’ll receive a TargetError.TARGETING_NOT_SUPPORTED from the API.

• Sunset of PolygonTarget: You will no longer be able to add PolygonTargets through the API. You’ll still be able to retrieve and delete existing ones in your current campaigns. Any existing polygon target will continue to be used until the end of 2011. After that, all polygon targets that are still present in your AdWords campaigns will be migrated to other GeoTargets such as a city close to your polygon target or to specific ProximityTargets. We encourage you to replace your polygon targets to city, metro, province, country or proximity targets or we will migrate them automatically at end of 2011.

• Removal of allowServiceOfAddress in ProximityTargets: In some countries, you have the option to use the address in a ProximityTarget to show with your ads by setting allowServiceOfAddress. This field will no longer be available in future API releases and ignored when used in current versions. If you want to display your business address or phone number, you will need to use AdWords location extensions.

These changes will take place after July 8, 2011 and we recommend you adjusting your applications before. We also recommend that you adjust the location targeting settings of your campaigns immediately with the available alternatives.

  David Torres, AdWords API Team