Important updates for flexible conversion counting options in v201402 of AdWords API

We recently announced a new flexible conversion counting option feature in AdWords that may affect AdWords API v201309 users. There are a couple of additional changes in the AdWords API v201402 that we want to bring to your attention so you can take full advantage of this offering:

• Record conversion values in conversion report columns based on the flexible conversion counting option
• Retrieve and set flexible conversion counting options in the ConversionTracker
• Adopt new conversion-related column names in the reports

Flexible conversion counting option

Since February 25th, 2014, AdWords users have been able to change the conversion counting option between All Conversions and Unique Conversions. The conversion counting option is defaulted to All Conversions - when left as the default option, your conversion related values in the reports will not change.

If the conversion counting option is changed from All Conversions to Unique Conversions, then the following conversion-related report columns will reflect the counting option selected across all reports:

• ConversionsManyPerClick
• ConversionRateManyPerClick
• CostPerConversionManyPerClick
• ValuePerConvManyPerClick
• ValuePerConversionManyPerClick
• ConversionManyPerClickSignificance
• ConversionRateManyPerClickSignificance
• CostPerConversionManyPerClickSignificance

Please see the help center article for specific examples of how counting Unique Conversions differs from counting All Conversions.

Retrieve and set flexible conversion counting options

In the AdWords API v201402, you will be able to retrieve and set the flexible conversion counting option. Please review the ConversionTracker API documentation to see the new flexible conversion counting options field namedcountingType.

New conversion-related column names

Conversion-related columns will have new names in reports. In AdWords API v201402:

• The selector field names will remain the same
• The display names and XML attribute names will be renamed

If you are downloading XML reports, you will need to update your client application to read the new column names.

Please see the migration guide for a mapping between old and new display names and XML attribute names.

If you have any questions about this upcoming change or anything else related to the AdWords API, please contact us on the AdWords API forum or via the Google Ads Developers Google+ page.

 - Ray Tsang, AdWords API Team