adCenter API Blog for Developers

Scheduled Maintenance on Microsoft Advertising adCenter API on January 14th

Tina Kelleher - MSFT — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:13:00 GMT

If you didn't see the post on the adCenter Blog, please be aware that on Saturday, January 14, 2012, adCenter, pubCenter, the adCenter API and the adCenter Desktop will be unavailable from approximately 11:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. Pacific Time for routine system maintenance. Additionally, please be aware that reporting will be delayed through 9:00 P.M., but you shouldn't notice any staleness in data beyond that point.

Though you will be unable to access your accounts during this time, please note that campaigns will continue to run normally and your ads will continue to serve.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Negative Keyword Refinements in the Microsoft Advertising adCenter API

Eric Urban - MSFT — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 22:00:00 GMT

Last month we reached out to Microsoft Advertising adCenter users to inform that we are deprecating keyword level negative keywords. Starting today, the campaign and ad group level negative keywords will continue to impact delivery in adCenter and any existing keyword level negative keywords will be ignored.

What do these changes mean for adCenter Web users?

In the adCenter Web UI, keyword level negatives will be visible and available for export and historical reporting; adCenter will not recognize keyword level negatives. As a result, any remaining keyword level negatives will no longer restrict ad delivery. It is strongly suggested that advertisers migrate keyword level negatives to the ad group or campaign level.

How will the API be affected?

There will be no breaking API changes, and all add, get, update, delete operations will appear to succeed. We want to emphasize that delivery will not be impacted by keyword level negative keywords, even though the corresponding adCenter API service operations will appear to go through without error.

For example, an API call to the AddKeywords service operation will allow you to add new keyword level NegativeKeywords, and likewise UpdateKeywords will modify existing negative keywords. Again though, any changes will not be utilized for delivery.

Retirement of keyword level negative keywords

You’ll now only need to set negative keywords at the campaign or ad group level, simplifying account management.

Exact Match negative keywords

You can now set Exact Match negative keywords for even greater precision in filtering unwanted search traffic, which means greater campaign performance potential.

Easy identification and resolution of keyword conflicts

The new Negative Keyword Conflicts report and alerts in the adCenter web platform show you when you have negative keywords in conflict with bidded keywords. Resolving keyword conflicts may help improve campaign performance.

Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or comments; we always have an open ear for feedback.

Thanks!

Heads Up: Microsoft Advertising adCenter API Reporting Delays Expected

Tina Kelleher - MSFT — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 19:00:00 GMT

Some adCenter API users may experience up to a 2-6 hour delay with API performance reports beginning Wednesday November 16, 2011 at 8:00 PM PDT through 2:00 AM PDT Thursday November 17th. Reports are expected to be running normally by November 17, 2011 2:00 AM PDT.

Coming Soon to the Microsoft Advertising adCenter API

Tina Kelleher - MSFT — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 18:59:00 GMT

During the next week we will be announcing upgrades and improvements to the adCenter API. Below you'll find a quick sneak peek at what is coming so you are able to keep track of the announcements and leverage the new functionality as you plan your holiday campaigns.

Much of our focus this year has been around improving the adCenter experience through building features to help you unlock more volume through an engaged audience on Yahoo! Search and Bing marketplace.

Here's what’s new...

• Negative keyword enhancements
We will soon support exact match Negative Keywords, deprecate keyword level negatives to help ease campaign management, and offer a negative keywords conflict report that shows negative keyword conflicts with bidded keywords.

• Share of Voice reporting
Understand your missed impressions, and more effectively prioritize your optimization efforts, with new data available including overall impression share and impression share lost to budge, rank and relevance.

• Historic & aggregate quality scores in reporting
Gain more visibility into your campaign performance and insight into opportunities for campaign optimization. You can now request Historic Quality Score on daily grain which will now be available in the Campaign, Ad Group & Keyword Performance reports.

Other additions...

• We upgraded budget calculation to calculate your monthly budget by multiplying your daily budget amount by the actual number of days in the month instead of the average number, to help reduce cases of campaign pause for months with 31 days
• We’ve updated the way our system examines special characters during the editorial review process to more efficiently identify errors versus special characters
• Our optimizer service provides operations that you can use to discover opportunities for improving campaign performance.

More information will be coming over the next week, so keep checking back for updates (you can also stay in touch via @adCenter or the API RSS feed).

Heads Up: Microsoft Advertising adCenter API Scheduled Maintenance

Tina Kelleher - MSFT — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 18:00:00 GMT

Some adCenter API users may experience up to a 8-12 hour delay with API performance reports beginning Tuesday November 01, 2011 at 9:00 PM PDT through 9:00 AM PDT Wednesday November 2nd. Reports are expected to be running normally by November 2, 2011 9:00 AM PDT.

If you have any questions or concerns, visit the API forum.

Heads Up: Scheduled Maintenance for Microsoft Advertising adCenter on October 15th, 2011

Ricky Poole - MSFT — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 23:31:00 GMT

On Saturday, October 15, 2011, adCenter will be unavailable from approximately 10:00 AM PDT to 10:00 PM PDT for routine system maintenance.

Though you will be unable to access adCenter during this time, please note that campaigns will continue to run normally and your ads will continue to serve.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Maintenance Scheduled for the Microsoft Advertising adCenter API Monday, October 8th

Tina Kelleher - MSFT — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 21:21:00 GMT

If you missed the post on the adCenter Blog last week, this is just a quick heads up that the API, the adCenter UI and the Desktop will be unavailable from approximately 11:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. Pacific Time for routine system maintenance.

Though you will be unable to access adCenter during this time, please note that campaigns will continue to run normally and your ads will continue to serve.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Improve Campaign Performance with the New Optimizer Service for Microsoft Advertising adCenter API

Tina Kelleher - MSFT — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 22:00:00 GMT

In an effort to make it easier for you to identify and act upon opportunities to improve your campaign performance, we’re excited to announce the new Optimizer Service, now available via the adCenter API. With this new feature, you can use operations to identify campaigns that have paused or will soon pause because of budget limitations. Additionally, you can also get easy-to-implement budget recommendations for your campaigns.

The Optimizer Service has two new calls:

• GetBudgetOpportunities returns campaigns that have experienced pauses related to budget limitations, and provides a recommended budget, as well as the estimated increase in impressions and clicks.
• ApplyBudgetOpportunities lets you accept the budget recommendations by GetBudgetOpportunities in bulk.

Get more information about the Optimizer Service on MSDN.

Final Notice: Microsoft Advertising API Version 6 Sunsets Today, Upgrade to Version 7 or 8 Now

Tina Kelleher - MSFT — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 22:00:00 GMT

As you’ve seen in previous posts here on the API Blog, Microsoft Advertising adCenter API Version 6 will sunset as of today, September 30th. After today, Microsoft will end support of Version 6 in the Sandbox and Production environments. If you are still using adCenter API Version 6, your ads and campaigns will continue to run, but you will no longer be able to manage your campaigns using the Version 6 services.

If you haven’t already upgraded to a newer version, you have two options:

1.) Upgrade directly to adCenter API Version 8
Microsoft adCenter API Version 8 is the latest version upgrade to the adCenter API system and offers several new features and functionalities to help you manage your campaigns. To learn more about adCenter API Version 8, review the release notes on MSDN.
Note: Version 8 is currently only available in the Production environment.

2.) Upgrade to adCenter API Version 7
You can learn more about Microsoft adCenter API Version 7 by reviewing the release notes on MSDN. There you’ll find additional details on the features in Version 7. Version 7 is available in both the Production and Sandbox environments.

For additional resources...

• Visit the adCenter API developer portal for the latest updates, recordings of past webcasts and notice of upcoming ones.
• Stay up to date on the latest news from adCenter and the adCenter API with the blog posts in the adCenter API Community. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed.

If you have already upgraded and are no longer using adCenter API Version 6, no further action is needed at this time. If you have any questions, stop by the API forum.

Thanks!

Tina Kelleher, SMB Community Manager

Reminder: Microsoft Advertising adCenter API Version 6 Will Sunset on September 30th, 2011

Tina Kelleher - MSFT — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 22:00:00 GMT

If this post looks familiar, it's because you saw it about a month ago when we first made the announcement that adCenter API Version 6 will no longer be supported in the Sandbox or Production environments as of September 30th, 2011. If you are still running adCenter API Version 6, we recommend that you begin upgrading as soon as possible to give yourself time to be code complete before the 30th arrives.

Two upgrade paths are available to you; you can upgrade to adCenter API Version 7 or Version 8.

If You Choose to Upgrade to adCenter API Version 7
To learn more about adCenter API Version 7, review the release notes on MSDN. There you can find additional details on the features in Version 7.

If You Choose to Upgrade Directly to adCenter API Version 8
Microsoft adCenter API Version 8 is the latest version upgrade to the API system and offers several new features and functionalities to help manage your campaigns. Version 8 is currently only available in the Production environment. To learn more about adCenter API Version 8 review the release notes on MSDN.

More Resources

Visit the adCenter API developer portal for the latest updates, recordings of past webcasts and notice of upcoming ones.
Stay up to date on the latest news from adCenter and the adCenter API with the blog posts in the adCenter API Community. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed.

If you have already upgraded and are no longer using Version 6, no further action is needed at this time. If you have any questions or would like assistance, please contact our support team, leave a comment below or post your question in the API forum.

Thanks! :)

Tina Kelleher, SMB Community Manager

Update on Yesterdays Microsoft Advertising adCenter API Outage

Tina Kelleher - MSFT — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:43:00 GMT

FINAL UPDATE 9:30PM PDT:

All adCenter reporting now is up-to-date as of 3:50 PM PDT, this concludes the updates to this thread as all open issues have now been resolved.

-------------------

Yesterday's API outage has been resolved, both the UI and API are currently running. Given a moderate delay in report data during the outage, we recommend avoiding requests to the reporting service until the delay has been resolved.

Please note that campaigns will continue to run normally. We will provide notice when the delay in report data is resolved and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Thanks!

Tina Kelleher, SMB Community Manager

Microsoft Advertising adCenter API Sandbox Feature Status

Eric Urban - MSFT — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 22:30:00 GMT

I am writing to give some additional details on our adCenter Sandbox environment upgrade. The last sandbox feature updates were completed in February. We continue to deploy patches and system upgrades as appropriate. As we release new components to the production environment, such changes are not yet being applied to the sandbox. Thus, the new API v8 features and some recent changes to v7 are not currently supported in sandbox. For example, the following v7 API features are not yet available in sandbox:

· Campaign Analytics

· Radius Targeting

· DailyBudgetWithMaximumMonthlySpend

· RichAdComponentPerformanceReportRequest

· Quality Scores

For further information on features released to production since February, please refer to the adCenter API Version 7 Release Notes.

We have not yet announced the timeframe for a sandbox feature upgrade to API v8. At this time, we are laying the groundwork for an even more robust sandbox environment, and further details will be announced this fall. Please check back soon at the adCenter API Developer team blog.

Thank you!

Eric Urban, Senior Technical Support Engineer

CANCELED: Microsoft Advertising adCenter API Sandbox Maintenance Saturday 8/27 - Sunday 8/28

Tina Kelleher - MSFT — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 18:00:00 GMT

UPDATE: This scheduled maintenance did not happen, stay tuned to the blog for updates on when it will be rescheduled.

---------------------

All versions for the Microsoft Advertising adCenter API will experience maintenance downtime starting at 10pm PST on Saturday, August 27th to 6am PST Sunday, August 28th. While the Sandbox environment will not be available, the API Production environment will operate as usual and ads will continue to serve.

If you have any questions, please visit the API Forum.

Thanks for reading!

Tina Kelleher, SMB Community Manager

Upgrade Today: Microsoft Advertising adCenter API Version 8 is Now Available

Tina Kelleher - MSFT — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 22:19:00 GMT

The newest features of Microsoft adCenter Veresion 8 are now available in the API Production environment. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with the new features and plan to upgrade your WSDLs to Version 8.

Here's a quick look at the updates included in this release:

Global Targeting offers you greater targeting control. The LanguageAndRegion elements are divided into separate Language and PublisherCountries elements, allowing fo rmore specific targeting.

Notifications API can help you keep your account up-to-date and avoid potential campaign performance issues. Its service operations can retrieve adCenter notifications, such as a reminder that your credit card is about to expire, or an alert that a campaign budget has been depleted.

New Budget Options provide simpler budget options in adCenter. There are two new daily budget options: Standard, which divides your budget evenly throughout the day; and Accelerated, which allows your budget to spend until depleted. The monthly budget option to Divide Across the Month will no longer be available in version 8.

AdIntelligence is a new service in the adcenter API set that offers bid estimation, keyword research and keyword extraction from web site urls. New in Adcenter API V8, Ad Intelligence is available to all API advertisers. You may opt to use the Ad Intelligence API to optimize keyword bids and boost ROI for your advertising business.

Prepare for adCenter API Version 6 Sunset

We’d like to remind you that the adCenter API Version 6 is scheduled to sunset on September 30, 2011. In order to avoid any service interruptions you must upgrade to a newer version.

You can either upgrade to adCenter API version 7 or upgrade to adCenter API Version 8 (visit these links to review the release notes on MSDN for each).

Thanks! :)

Tina Kelleher, SMB Community Manager

Follow us on Twitter @adCenter & @MSAdvertising | Find us on Facebook and YouTube | Share your thoughts and ask questions in the Forums | Subscribe to the adCenter API Blog

Microsoft Advertising adCenter API Version 6 Will Sunset on September 30th, 2011

Tina Kelleher - MSFT — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 19:30:00 GMT

As of September 30, 2011, adCenter API Version 6 will no longer be supported in the Sandbox or Production environments. If you are still running adCenter API Version 6, we recommend that you begin upgrading as soon as possible to give yourself time to be code complete before the sunset.

Two upgrade paths are available to you; you can upgrade to adCenter API Version 7 or Version 8.

More Resources

Visit the adCenter API developer portal for the latest updates, recordings of past webcasts and notice of upcoming ones.
Stay up to date on the latest news from adCenter and the adCenter API with the blog posts in the adCenter API Community. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed.

Thanks! :)

Tina Kelleher, SMB Community Manager

Follow us on Twitter @adCenter & @MSAdvertising | Find us on Facebook and YouTube | Share your thoughts and ask questions in the Forums | Subscribe to the adCenter API Blog