In April, we announced that Search Network with Display Select support would begin in AdWords API v201402. Now that all previous API versions have been sunset, we’re on schedule to begin migrating all Search and Display Network campaigns to Search Network with Display Select beginning September 16, 2014.

This blog post will walk through everything you need to know about setting up your campaigns, including what this migration means for your campaign-creation code. You can proactively migrate your campaigns by setting their displaySelect property to true.

Remember, this will not affect Search-only or Display-only campaigns. Only campaigns that target both networks simultaneously will be migrated.

If you have any questions about this change, please contact us on the forum or via our Google+ page.
 - Michael Cloonan, AdWords API Team.

It’s an exciting time to be a performance marketer. When we combine the creative magic of marketing with technology that’s available anytime, anywhere, and on any device, we can connect with customers in more innovative and relevant ways than ever before.

We are constantly working to improve AdWords, and on Tuesday, April 22, 2014 at 9am PT, Jerry Dischler, VP of Product Management for AdWords will share a brand new set of innovations with you live on the Inside AdWords blog. Register for the livestream here.

Building on the success of enhanced campaigns, Jerry will announce a number of new features that help you use context to reach customers in even more effective ways. We’ve designed new tools so you can increase awareness and engagement everywhere your customers are online – from the web, to the mobile web, to mobile apps. And when it’s time to manage your campaigns and measure performance, we want to help you do so efficiently in AdWords with new functionality designed for the multi-screen world.

These AdWords innovations are the result of countless conversations we’ve had over the past year with advertisers, both large and small. Based on your feedback, hundreds of product managers and engineers worked hard to build these new products. Simply put, we built these new products for you.

We hope you’ll join the April 22 livestream of our announcements featured here on the Inside AdWords blog. Register for the livestream here. Until then, follow us on our +GoogleAds page for sneak previews of what’s to come. Use hashtag, #StepInsideAdWords, to join in on the conversation.

Posted by Your Inside Adwords Team

AdWords scripts allow you to create and email PDF documents, complete with pretty formatting and images. You can schedule a script that emails a professional-looking PDF report to your client weekly, complete with logos, watermarks, signatures, and other artwork. This blog post discusses this feature in more details.

Sending an attachment

The following snippet sends an email with an attachment:

// assuming you have a good-to-go blob, more on that later.
MailApp.sendEmail(
    "[email protected]",
    "TPS report",
    "Please find the TPS report attached to this email",
    {attachments: [blob]}
);

BLOB stands for Binary Large OBject. In Google Apps Script, blobs are used as the in-between data format that allows different services to pass data to each other.

Creating a BLOB

Start with an HTML string, and use Utilities.newBlob() to convert it into a blob:

var html = "<h1>TPS report</h1><p>Please read this carefully and respond " +
    "by end of day...</p>"
var blob = Utilities.newBlob(html, MimeType.HTML);

Converting a blob into PDF is as easy as

var pdfBlob = blob.getAs(MimeType.PDF);

Dealing with images

A reasonable attempt looks like this:

var html = "<img src='url_of_the_image'>";

But that, unfortunately, won't work. The PDF generator never actually fetches resources that your HTML links to, so the image won't make it into the PDF. You need to specify the source of the image inline instead, as a base64-encoded string:

<img src="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAADIA..." />

Don't worry about the contents of the base64-encoded strings - they are gibberish and will consume lots of screen space if printed out.

Putting it all together

The following snippet will fetch the image from imageUrl, embed it into the PDF, and email the results to [email protected]:

// fetch the image. This example assumes it's a PNG.
var imageBlob = UrlFetchApp.fetch(imageUrl).getBlob();

// grab its bytes and base64-encode them.
var base64EncodedBytes = Utilities.base64Encode(imageBlob.getBytes());

// create HTML.
var html = "<h1>TPS report</h1><img src='data:image/png;base64," +
    base64EncodedBytes + "'/>";

// create a blob, convert it to PDF.
var htmlBlob = Utilities.newBlob(html, MimeType.HTML);
var pdfBlob = htmlBlob.getAs(MimeType.PDF);

// give it a name - this will become the file name of the attachment.
pdfBlob.setName("tps_report.pdf");

// send the email.
MailApp.sendEmail(
    "[email protected]",
    "TPS report",
    "Please find the TPS report attached to this email",
    {attachments: [pdfBlob]}
);

Instead of fetching the image from the URL, you can upload it to Google Drive and use DriveApp to fetch it:

var blobFromDrive = DriveApp.getFilesByName(imageFileName).next().getBlob();

So there you have it - blobs aren't just fun to say, they're useful as well. If you have questions or feedback about this feature or AdWords scripts in general, you can post them on our developer forum or our Google+ page.

Posted by Ilya Netchitailo, AdWords Scripts Team

We understand the importance of documentation when navigating a system as complex as the AdWords API. For this reason, we would like to remind you about the reference materials available on our Developers site

First off, we’ve updated the Selector Fields page that provides information about the fields that can be used in generic selectors. This information is available on an object’s individual reference page, but we’ve collected it together across entire services for quicker lookups.

Next, we’ve added more columns to the Report Types page to include a field’s type, its behavior, and its XML and display names. The behavior of a field in the generated report describes its effect on zero impression rows as well as whether the field represents historical data or the latest object state.

Finally, we’ve added new tips to our Best Practices Guide on topics such as grouping batch job operations by ad groups and campaigns and using the partial failure feature. The guide is a great resource for developers starting an AdWords API project, but is also useful for established developers trying to increase the efficiency of their applications.

There is a feedback link on the top right hand corner of every page where you can report documentation issues. For technical help, visit our forum or office hours. You can also follow the Google Ads Developer page for all Ads-related updates.

 - Eric Koleda and  - Danial Klimkin, Ads Developer Relations Team.

Editor’s note: "reposting from Google Mobile Ads Blog post by Morgan Hallmon." -- Stan Grinberg, Ads Developer Relations Team

Apps are a powerful way to keep your most loyal users engaged, and can also be a real driver of revenue for marketers big and small. When advertising apps, the key is to know what’s working and what’s not. While advertisers have already been able to measure their Android app downloads within AdWords, we’ve now launched the ability to track iOS downloads that were driven by in-app display ad campaigns.

To set up iOS conversion tracking, advertisers need to create a single code snippet in their AdWords account and install it in their app. This snippet is accessible in the AdWords interface in the same place where advertisers have been able to codelessly track Android downloads. With iOS conversion tracking, marketers can better understand which campaigns are most effective at driving app downloads. These enhanced insights help marketers iterate on app promotion strategies to reach their return on investment goals, with the help of features like the Conversion Optimizer for apps.

Figuring out what ads are working is key for marketers like Sho Masuda, Vice President of Player Marketing for GREE, a leading mobile social game app developer. GREE has used click to download and in-app advertising solutions with AdWords to promote their app, and Masuda says, "Google’s host of tracking and optimization tools help us quickly iterate and maximize ROI across our app promotion campaigns. iOS conversion tracking will help us gain even deeper insights into our Google app promotion efforts for our iOS apps.

If you’d like to learn more about how to track value beyond the app download, you can watch a recording of our Learn with Google webinar “Understanding your App Users with Google Analytics” here.

Posted by Morgan Hallmon, Product Manager