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Introduction
AdWords is Google’s flagship advertising product. AdWords offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for both text and banner ads.
The Google AdWords API lets developers build applications that interact directly with the AdWords platform. With these applications, advertisers and third parties can more efficiently and creatively manage their large or complex AdWords accounts and campaigns.
The key object in AdWords system is Keyword – word that triggers an Ad. Ads and Keywords are grouped underneath parent object – AdGroup. Each keyword in some AdGroup can trigger any of the Ads in that AdGroup.
Example: Let’s say that in AdGroup A are keyword X and Ad Y. When some user enters into Google’s search engine word X, AdWords system will show Ad Y.
This article will explain how to programmatically add Keywords under some AdGroup. Presented is an application that adds all combinations of certain set of keywords under specified AdGroup. For that purpose application can use one of the following libraries:
- Google api-adwords-dotnet
- 3rd party AdWords API for .NET (GemBox.Ppc)
Keywords
Typical application workflow is:
- Generating combinations of words
- Uploading combinations:
- Logging to AdWords platform
- Getting AdGroup
- Adding new Keywords to AdGroup
- Uploading changes to AdWords platform
Generating combinations of words
For Generating combination of words we use class KeywordGenerator. It has method GenerateCombinations that accepts list of source words, makes combinations and returns them in a new list.
Uploading combinations
For uploading combinations we can use two different libraries: google-api-adwords-dotnet (GoogleLibraryUploader class) and 3rd party AdWords .NET API (GemBoxPpcUploader class).
GoogleLibraryUploader
Uploading new keywords using google-api-adwords-dotnet is made of the following steps:
- Logging to AdWords platform
- Downloading all AdGroups
- Selecting specified AdGroup
- Creating new Keywords
- Uploading new keywords
Here’s the complete code:
internal class GoogleLibraryUploader : IUploader
{
// User.
private AdWordsUser user;
// Login.
public void Login(string email, string password, string developerToken, string applicationToken, string userAgent,
bool useSandbox, string clientCustomerIdOrClientEmail)
{
// This can be set in config file.
ApplicationConfiguration.email = email;
ApplicationConfiguration.password = password;
ApplicationConfiguration.developerToken = developerToken;
ApplicationConfiguration.applicationToken = applicationToken;
if (clientCustomerIdOrClientEmail.Contains(‘@’))
ApplicationConfiguration.clientEmail = clientCustomerIdOrClientEmail;
else
ApplicationConfiguration.clientCustomerId = clientCustomerIdOrClientEmail;
ApplicationConfiguration.adWordsApiUrl = useSandbox ? "https://adwords-sandbox.google.com" : "https://adwords.google.com";
this.user = new AdWordsUser();
}
// Upload keywords to AdGroup.
public void UploadKeywordsToAdGroup(string campaignName, string adGroupName, IList<string> keywords)
{
// Get AdGroupService.
AdGroupService adGroupService = (AdGroupService)this.user.GetService(AdWordsService.v200909.AdGroupService);
// Get All AdGroups
AdGroupPage page = adGroupService.get(new AdGroupSelector());
// Select specified AdGroup.
AdGroup adGroup = page == null || page.entries == null ? null :
page.entries.FirstOrDefault(x => x.campaignName == campaignName && x.name == adGroupName);
if (adGroup == null)
throw new System.ApplicationException("AdGroup with name " + adGroupName + " doesn’t exists!");
// Create AdGroupCriterionOperations with new keywords.
List<AdGroupCriterionOperation> operations = new List<AdGroupCriterionOperation>();
foreach (string keyword in keywords)
{
// Create AdGroupCriterion
AdGroupCriterion criterion = new BiddableAdGroupCriterion()
{
adGroupId = adGroup.id,
adGroupIdSpecified = true,
criterion = new Keyword()
{
text = keyword,
matchType = KeywordMatchType.EXACT,
matchTypeSpecified = true
}
};
// Create AdGroupCriterionOperation
AdGroupCriterionOperation keywordOperation = new AdGroupCriterionOperation()
{
@operator = Operator.ADD,
operatorSpecified = true,
operand = criterion
};
// Ad operation to the list.
operations.Add(keywordOperation);
}
// Get AdGroupCriterionService
AdGroupCriterionService adGroupCriterionService =
(AdGroupCriterionService)this.user.GetService(AdWordsService.v200909.AdGroupCriterionService);
// Upload new keywords.
adGroupCriterionService.mutate(operations.ToArray());
}
}
GemBoxPpcUploader
Uploading new keywords using GemBox.Ppc AdWords API is made of the following steps:
- Logging to AdWords platform
- Specifying that component download data on demand
- Selecting specified AdGroup
- Creating new Keywords
- Uploading new keywords
Here’s the complete code:
internal class GemBoxPpcUploader : IUploader
{
// Account (contains user)
private AwAccount account;
static GemBoxPpcUploader()
{
// Set license. We use free version of GemBox.Ppc.
PpcInfo.SetLicense("FREE-LIMITED-KEY");
}
// Login.
public void Login(string email, string password, string developerToken, string applicationToken, string userAgent,
bool useSandbox, string clientCustomerIdOrClientEmail)
{
// Create Account.
this.account = new AwAccount(new AwUser(email, password, developerToken, applicationToken, userAgent, useSandbox, clientCustomerIdOrClientEmail))
{
// This enables automatic downloading so we don’t need to call Download() method.
DownloadLazy = true
};
}
// Upload keywords to AdGroup.
public void UploadKeywordsToAdGroup(string campaignName, string adGroupName, IList<string> keywords)
{
if (this.account == null)
throw new ApplicationException("You haven’t login to account!");
// Get Campaing.
Campaign camp = this.account.Campaigns.SingleOrDefault(x => x.Name == campaignName);
if (camp == null)
throw new ApplicationException("Campaign with name " + campaignName + " doesn’t exists!");
// Get AdGroup.
AdGroup adGroup = camp.AdGroups.SingleOrDefault(y => y.Name == adGroupName);
if (adGroup == null)
throw new ApplicationException("AdGroup with name " + adGroupName + " doesn’t exists!");
// Add new Keywords.
foreach (string keyword in keywords)
adGroup.Criterions.Add(new BiddableAdGroupCriterion()
{
Criterion = new Keyword()
{
Text = keyword,
MatchType = KeywordMatchType.EXACT
}
});
// Upload changes.
this.account.UploadChanges();
}
}
Conclusion
As always in programming, there is more than one method to achieve the same thing.
Google api-adwords-dotnet is a set of proxy classes built from WSDLs plus some extra classes that enables logging to AdWords platform. It is completely free but it is not completely optimized for .NET platform and requires some manual work (casting, setting xxxSpecified properties, different ids, etc).
On the other hand, GemBox.Ppc is optimized for .NET, encapsulates different AdWords services and provides many utilities out of the box. However, Free version has limitations.
Useful links
There are many ways to generate new keywords. GemBoxPpcUploader shows only one way of it, but user can easily extend application and add custom variations. For extending the application, following links could help:
- http://code.google.com/apis/adwords/ – AdWords API
- http://code.google.com/p/google-api-adwords-dotnet/ – Google’s client library
- http://www.gemboxsoftware.com/Ppc/Overview.htm – GemBox.Ppc library
- http://www.gemboxsoftware.com/Ppc/ReferenceApplication.htm – Sandbox Editor
Download links
You can download the latest version of the demo application (together with the C# source code) from here.
