Google Ads Developer Blog

Announcing the Merchant API Beta, the new version of the Content API for Shopping

2024-07-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

Today we're announcing the release of the Merchant API Beta. This is the newest version of the Content API for Shopping which comes with exciting new features. The Merchant API is a redesign of the Content API for Shopping which can help you showcase your products with new features, modular design with isolated sub-API updates, and improved alignment with Google's API improvement proposals. We invite you to try out the Merchant API Beta to provide early feedback so we can improve the Merchant API for you.

For more information, we highly recommend reviewing the launch status for Merchant API Beta expectations and see the following sections.

Highlights:
You can find a complete list of features in the release notes in the GRPC/REST reference sections and accompanying compatibility guides, but here are the highlights:

Sub APIs with new features at launch: We are excited to announce an initial set of sub apis which comes with new features:
- Data Sources: Allows multiple API feed creation and management, improved management of supplemental feeds via creation with linking to primary feeds, and support for other shopping feeds such as promotions.
- Notifications: Receive push notifications for changes to a given account and product data.
- Products: Unifying Product & ProductStatuses resources to streamline your workflow, new functionality to support inserting products into non API data sources.
- Inventory: Improved management with the ability to remove in-store or regional inventories for your products.
- Accounts: New terms of signing (ToS) functionality via the API and accessing account issues with multi-language support.
- Local Feeds Partnership: For Point-of-sale data providers, more granular inventory management with availability status submissions and feed labels for inventory.
- Promotions: Simplified promotion statuses with improved details and support for custom promotion attributes for faster iterations on new features.
- Quota: Additional fields such as version, sub-api, and adjustments visible through the API to manage your quotas more efficiently.
- Reports: A new NonProductPerformanceView table which provides insights into non-product performance data such as data on links leading to merchants’ homepage.
Merchant API is the future. Going forward, we will start launching new features primarily for the Merchant API which will have the newest Merchant Center features. We recommend you start using the Merchant API and would love to hear your feedback to help shape the future.
More features are on the way! Today's release contains many new improvements. Currently, there isn’t feature completeness between the Content API and Merchant API. We will have more features upcoming which are based on establishing parity, your feedback, and completely new features such as creation of file feeds with the Data source Merchant API.

Learn more and check out the following resources:

Access our Merchant API developer website to discover the Merchant API.
Review our Quickstart guide and Compatibility guides: to ramp up your understanding with how to start your integration with the Merchant API.
Learn more with our Merchant API release notes in the GRPC/REST reference sections to view our launched and future new features.
Check out our new Client Libraries and Samples to help speed up your implementations.
Contact our API support team for any issues or questions.
Help shape the future by providing feedback: Submit any feedback or suggestions.

Benji Rothman, on behalf of the Content API for Shopping Team

Changes to how you contact “Content API for Shopping” Support

2024-06-10T06:41:00.000-07:00

What's Happening?

As we continue to improve our support experience, we are making changes to how you contact the Content API for Shopping support team.

What's Changing?

How you contact “Content API for Shopping” Support:

Shutting down current support path: Effective June 10, 2024, the support email address (shopping-api-support) and the Developer Forum will no longer accept support questions.
New support paths:
- To reach our “Content API for Shopping” support team, please use our new Contact Us Form: link here
- To reach our "Comparison Shopping Services API" support team, please use this Contact Us Form: link here
- Going forward, these will be the only support paths available.

This change will help us better understand user needs and provide quicker solutions. We appreciate your partnership.

In the meantime, please reference the following sites for integration/API information:

Your Content API for Shopping Team

Content API for Shopping: Automatic Quota

2024-04-02T11:17:00.000-07:00

The Content API for Shopping now automatically increases your products and accounts quotas as your account grows.

Because your API quota now changes dynamically, we have removed the static chart from our published limits guide. To check your current daily quota and usage, and current per minute quota, you can call the quotas.list service.

The following errors are not API quota errors and can’t be resolved by automatic quota increases. They require you to request a quota increase.

too_many_items: Merchant quota exceeded
too_many_subaccounts: Maximum number of subaccounts reached

Automatic quota only applies to the products and accounts services. If you need an increased API quota for any other service, or if you’re hitting your daily API quota for the products or accounts services or need a temporary increase for the accounts or products services, contact us with the following information:

Your Merchant Center ID
Which methods you’ve reached your quota limits on
An estimation of how many calls per day you need for those methods
The reason why you need an increased quota

Note that our general quota policy is you should not update your products more than twice per day, and that you should check your accounts and account statuses not more than once per day.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us via the forum.

Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Deprecating Content API Easy Onboarding In Merchant Center

2023-12-13T11:24:00.000-08:00

The Content API for Shopping easy onboarding authentication method and tab, which create a service account for you, will not be available in Merchant Center Next. Easy onboarding is still available in Merchant Center Classic.

You can still use existing service accounts that you created using Merchant Center Classic. To set up a service account without using easy onboarding in Merchant Center Classic, follow these steps:

Ensure you have an existing cloud project or create a new one in the Google Cloud Console.
Generate or access your service account credentials.
Download the JSON private key from Google API Console. This JSON private key can be used in the same way as the one downloaded from Merchant Center previously.
Add the new service account as a user to your Merchant Center account. If you’re a third-party developer (and don’t have access to the Merchant Center UI for the account), your client will need to complete this step for you.

For more details, see the API documentation.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us via the forum.

Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Buy on Google For Search and Shopping Deprecation

2023-09-20T07:17:00.000-07:00

Buy on Google for Search and Shopping will no longer be available starting September 26, 2023. All Merchant and Consumer support will end for Buy on Google on Search on November 25, 2023. The only exception is that the orders.get and orders.list methods will remain available for Search and Shopping until October 30, 2024, so that merchants can download their historical order data.

See below for the specific timeline of when Buy on Google methods will no longer be available for the Search and Shopping program.

June 28, 2023 onwards:

September 30, 2023:

October 31, 2023:

All the orders related resources (orders, orderinvoices, orderreports, orderreturns, ordertrackingsignals) and all their underlying methods. The only exception is that the orders.get and orders.list methods will remain available for Search and Shopping until October 30, 2024, so that merchants can download their historical order data.

If you are currently using the Buy on Google endpoints for Search and Shopping via the Content API, you will need to stop using these services for Search and Shopping before the dates listed above, as your requests will start to fail after that date.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us via the forum.

Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Planned Content API maintenance from 15:00 UTC to 17:00 UTC on September 28, 2023

2023-09-14T08:45:00.001-07:00

The Content API for Shopping will undergo planned maintenance on September 28, 2023, from 15:00 to 17:00 UTC.

During this time, you will not be able to make any changes to your account such as updates to users, business information, feeds, shipping details, or linking your Google Ads accounts.

You can still upload products to your existing feeds or data sources and run ads as usual.

Note that the Google Ads API is also affected by this outage, as you will not be able to link MC accounts and Google Ads accounts together via the Google Ads API during this time period.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us via the forum.
Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Launching the Merchant Support Service

2023-08-24T11:14:00.000-07:00

On August 23rd, 2023, we introduced new features in the Content API for Shopping to help you display detailed information about product and account issues to your merchants, and enable those merchants to request re-review or perform other actions. The new MerchantSupport service provides more transparency about our policy-related requirements to your merchants. These methods should be used for merchants based in the EEA, but can be used globally.

Here are the 2 new methods (developer guide):

Render account issues: provides UI elements with text in the language you select to display account issues to your merchants and redirect link to Merchant Center for merchants to request a re-review or perform other actions
Render product issues: provides UI elements with text in the language you select to display product issues to your merchants and redirect link to Merchant Center for merchants to request a re-review or perform other actions

All issue texts returned from MerchantSupport methods above are localized. Clients can request texts in any Merchant Center supported language. Please note that merchants need to have access to their Merchant Center account in order to perform the actions.

If you are based in EEA, we highly recommend implementing MerchantSupport methods by the end of the year, so that your merchants will have more information regarding our policy-related requirements, and have access to our new features. In the future we will expand the MerchantSupport service to let you request re-review or perform other actions directly with the Content API for Shopping. With this future addition, your merchants will not have to be redirected to Merchant Center, they will be able to request the action directly in your UI.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us via the forum.
Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

New Merchant IDs are now 64-bit in Content API for Shopping

2023-04-24T09:01:00.000-07:00

In the Content API for Shopping, we informed you last June that new Merchant IDs were migrating from 32 bit to 64-bit signed integers.

Existing Merchant IDs haven’t changed. Beginning on March 13, 2023 new Merchant IDs created could be in the 64-bit signed range. Through a slow rollout over the next few months, a higher percentage of new Merchant IDs will be in the 64-bit signed range. By June 2023, all new Merchant IDs created will be in the 64-bit signed range.

To avoid any issues, please make sure your applications are fully compliant with IDs within a range of 64-bit signed integer values.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us via the forum.
Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Issues from all destinations to be included in Productstatuses Service by default in the Content API for Shopping

2023-04-19T11:08:00.000-07:00

Starting on April 24, 2023, the Content API for Shopping methods productstatuses.list and productstatuses.get will include issues from all eligible destinations by default. This will likely increase the size of the response you get back from the same call.

Currently, the responses you get when using the productstatuses.list and productstatuses.get methods only include issues from Shopping Ads and don’t include issues from other destinations, for example free listings issues.

Including issues from all eligible destinations will let you provide your users with an overall better experience. This change will improve your issue visibility across all destinations. In turn, you will see an increase in the number of results, or the size of responses you’ll receive.

No action is needed from you as the free listing issues will now be included by default when using the Content API for Shopping methods productstatuses.list and productstatuses.get.

However, if you want to keep the calls to only display issues from Shopping Ads, we suggest setting the query parameter destinations[] in the productstatuses methods to Shopping.

Learn more about the changes to the product statuses methods in the Content API for Shopping Product statuses documentation.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us via the forum.
Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Request Account Reviews with the Content API

2022-12-07T11:33:00.000-08:00

In the Content API for Shopping, your Merchant Center account and the products in it might be disapproved for various reasons. Historically, you have been able to see the status of your merchant center account for free listings and Shopping ads with the accountstatuses service. In Q1 2022 we introduced the freelistingsprogram and shoppingadsprogram services to provide more granular detail. You can now use the requestreview method on the freelistingsprogram and shoppingadsprogram services to request your account to be re-reviewed after making changes to fix your product and account data.

For an in-depth explanation of how to use the freelistingsprogram and shoppingadsprogram services, please refer to the Free listings and Shopping ads guides.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us via the forum.

Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Feed label support added to datafeeds service in Content API for Shopping

2022-11-10T09:20:00.002-08:00

On September 22, 2022, we updated you on changes to country targeting for shopping products, and how to use the feedLabel field. We’ve made additional changes to help you integrate feedLabel. Here are our previous announcements:

What’s new
Merchant Center & Content API
As of November 8th, 2022 we’ve added the ability to manage feedLabel for datafeeds. The feedLabel field is now available in the following resources:

products
datafeeds
DatafeedStatus

You can now see which countries a datafeed explicitly targets in datafeedtarget. This applies when you use feedLabel instead of country in the datafeedtarget configuration.

We’ve also added the targetCountries field for datafeeds, so you can configure targeting for datafeeds directly. You can still configure targeting outside the feed, for example, by setting the shipping attribute of the products resource.

Note: You can’t manage Primary and Supplemental API feeds with the datafeeds service. You need to use the Merchant Center UI.

Behavior changes
Here’s a clarification of new API behavior for feedLabel:

Insert and update
You can now call Products.insert and Products.update with a feedLabel set to any valid string, for example “WINTERPRODUCTS”.

You can now use feedLabel without setting targetCountry during insertion and updates. Errors that used to warn of this requirement have been removed.

If you use both feedLabel and targetCountry in these calls, their values must be the same.

See Use feed labels to advertise products from specific feeds for the definition of a valid string for feedLabel.

Targeting
If you don’t use targetCountry for products, you must either set the shipping attribute of the products resource, or use the targetCountries field for the datafeeds resource to ensure your products target the chosen countries.

Opt out of receiving products and datafeeds without a country
If you’re concerned your codebase cannot handle products and datafeeds without a country, and you want to opt out of receiving them via the Content API for Shopping, fill out the following form: Feed label replaces target country in the Content API for Shopping - temporary exemption.

When you’re ready to support feedLabel, you can opt back in to receiving these offers.

If you have any questions about this change, please visit the Content API for Shopping forum.
Ian Ballantyne, Content API for Shopping Team

Country targeting update for products in Content API for Shopping and Google Ads API

2022-09-22T11:28:00.000-07:00

On August 10, 2022, we announced a change to country targeting for shopping products with the introduction of the feedLabel field. We’d like to update you on the progress of this change. Here are our previous announcements:

See Feed label replaces target country in Content API for Shopping for the original announcement for the Content API for Shopping.
See Country targeting in Shopping Ads campaigns is changing in August 2022 for the original announcement for the Google Ads API.

What’s already changed

Google Ads:
Any Google Ads account can set the feed_label field in ShoppingSetting for Shopping and Performance Max campaigns. You can set feed_label in the Google Ads UI and the Google Ads API.

Merchant Center & Content API:
As of September 14th, 2022 we‘ve started the gradual rollout of feed labels in the Merchant Center UI. When this feature is enabled in the UI, merchants will be able to create a new feed with feed label set to any valid string. See Use feed labels to advertise products from specific feeds for more information.

In the Content API, you might see the following:

Products that have only feedLabel, and not targetCountry, if they were added in the Merchant Center UI.
Products with feed labels that aren’t two-letter country codes.

You can now use Products.update to update products by feedLabel. For example, if you had a product with offerId of “111111111” and a feedLabel set to “WINTERPRODUCTS”, you can now update attributes such as salePrice for that product by making the following call:
HTTP request:

PATCH https://shoppingcontent.googleapis.com/content/v2.1/{merchantId}/products/online:en:WINTERPRODUCTS:1111111111

Example request body:

{
  "salePrice": {
    "value": "17.99",
    "currency": "USD"
  }
}

Behavior summary:
Here’s a clarification of the current API behavior for feedLabel:

Insertion: You can only call Products.insert on products with a matching feedLabel and targetCountry. Currently, Products.insert might return an error if you don’t provide a matching targetCountry. This behavior hasn’t changed if you continue to use only targetCountry.
Targeting: If you set feedLabel to a valid 2-letter CLDR territory code, you must still set the shipping attribute of the products resource to the same country in order to target that country. For example, if you set a new feedLabel to “US”, you must also set the country field in the shipping attribute to “US”. If you don’t set both fields, the product might not be eligible to serve in that country. You can configure targeting for an entire feed in the Merchant Center UI.
Get/List: When you use Products.list or Products.get, you might see products that only have feedLabel (and not targetCountry) set if they were added in the Merchant Center UI.
Product IDs: Once a feedLabel is set for a product it becomes part of the product Id. This means you can’t modify the feedLabel for that product (this is similar to how language works). If you wish to change the feedLabel you will need to create a new product with a different product Id.

What’s coming next

Products:
Once the gradual rollout of feed labels in the Merchant Center UI is complete, we will accept Products.insert calls with feedLabel set to any string. At this point, including targetCountry will become optional.

Datafeeds:
In late September, we will also update the datafeeds resource to include feedLabel in the Content API for Shopping.

Opt out of receiving products and datafeeds without a country
If you’re concerned your codebase cannot handle products and datafeeds without a country, and you want to opt out of receiving them via the Content API for Shopping, fill out the following form: Feed label replaces target country in the Content API for Shopping - temporary exemption. When you’re ready to support feedLabel, you can opt back in to receiving these offers.
If you have any questions about this change, please visit the Content API for Shopping forum.
Ian Ballantyne, Content API for Shopping Team

Feed label replaces target country in Content API for Shopping

2022-08-10T11:21:00.000-07:00

On August 23, 2022 we will gradually start updating the way country targeting works for shopping products. As a result, the targetCountry field for newly inserted products and the country field for new datafeeds may be empty in the Content API for Shopping. While targetCountry and country are now deprecated, there are no plans to remove these fields from v2.1 to preserve backward compatibility. We recommend using feedLabel to name new products and feeds, and using the shipping field to specify the countries to target.

If you're accessing accounts whose product data you don’t have total control over and you are unsure whether the products or datafeeds will have ONLY a feedLabel field beginning in late August, we recommend you update your code to support the feedLabel field.

This upcoming change might impact or break your API integration if your application cannot handle products without a targetCountry or datafeeds without a country.

See Country targeting in Shopping Ads campaigns is changing in August 2022 for how this change will impact Google Ads.

What’s already changed
On August 8, 2022, the Content API for Shopping added the feedLabel field to the products resource. As of August 8, 2022, feedLabel can only accept and return two-letter CLDR territory codes. Products now require either targetCountry or feedLabel. As long as the feedLabel set is a valid two-letter CLDR code, targetCountry will be backfilled for compatibility.

We have changed the definition of the product identifier (the id, i.e. the REST ID). feedLabel now replaces targetCountry as the third component of the identifier, so it is no longer just a valid two-letter CLDR code. You can find an example shown here.

This change to product identifier is backwards compatible, so existing REST IDs for existing products will continue to work without change.

Important: feedLabel doesn’t impact targeting. This means if you use feedLabel instead of targetCountry, you need to specify all countries you want to target in the shipping attribute.

What’s coming next
We’re starting a gradual rollout to all users on August 23, 2022. When the upcoming change reaches you, you’ll be able to create a product or datafeed with any string (not just a two-letter CLDR code) as the feedLabel via the API or the Merchant Center. You’ll still be able to use a two-letter country code in targetCountry for backwards compatibility.

After the upcoming change, if you submit a feedLabel that isn’t a CLDR territory code, the API will return those products without a targetCountry or those datafeeds without a country. Instead, only their feedLabel will be populated. This may break your codebase if your implementation expects a value in targetCountry for products or a value in country for datafeeds.

How you’re impacted
Products
If you continue inserting your products with a targetCountry, you are not required to make any changes at this time, as the feedLabel value in the products REST ID will be identical to the targetCountry you inserted.

However, if you use a feedLabel in Merchant Center or the API that is not a CLDR territory code, we highly recommend you update your codebase to use feedLabels on all product insertions instead of targetCountry to avoid issues with your API integration.

All products inserted with a feedLabel instead of targetCountry, even if the feedLabel is a CLDR territory code, will not automatically target that country. You must explicitly set the countries you want to target via the shipping field.

Datafeeds
Note that starting August 23, 2022, feed label will replace the current country of sale value in the Merchant Center UI. The Content API will be expected to support this change via the datafeeds service starting mid-September. These new datafeeds will only have the feedLabel field set, not the country field, unless you explicitly set the feedLabel to a CLDR territory code.

To support new users, we highly recommend you update your codebase to use feedLabels on all datafeeds instead of country to avoid issues with your API integration.

Recommendation for third party integrations
If you’re a third party or agency that manages your customers' accounts for them, we highly recommend you check your codebase is able handle products without a targetCountry and datafeeds without a country before August 23, 2022.

After the gradual rollout starting in late August, your merchants will be able to modify products directly in Merchant Center to create a product with a feedLabel that is not a valid two-letter CLDR territory code. When this product is returned via products.list, you could encounter issues if your implementation expects a value in targetCountry.

As well, after the gradual rollout in late August, new users will create datafeeds that by default have a feedLabel and no country field. When this datafeed is returned via datafeeds.list, you could encounter issues if your implementation expects a value in country.

How to detect if you have offers without a country in your Merchant Center account

Make a request to products.list.
Filter your products to search for products where the targetCountry field does not exist on the product.
If any products appear, you have offers without a country in your Merchant Center.

Detailed Changes
To view a detailed breakdown of the changes to the Content API by this feature launch, see the guide here.

Datafeeds Service
Starting mid-September the datafeeds service will begin to return feedLabel on all datafeeds, which will be the country value if that is how the datafeed was created. The datafeeds service will also return the country field if the feedLabel is a valid country code for backwards compatibility.

Opt out of receiving products and datafeeds without a country
If you’re concerned your codebase cannot handle products and datafeeds without a country, and you want to opt out of receiving them via the Content API after August 23, then please fill out the following form: Feed label replaces target country in the Content API for Shopping - temporary exemption. Once you have fully supported feedLabel, you will be able to opt back in to receiving these offers.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us via the forum.
Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Merchant IDs as 64-bit in Content API for Shopping

2022-06-21T07:02:00.000-07:00

In the Content API for Shopping, Merchant IDs are now 64-bit signed integers. Applications that integrate with the Content API must be able to handle ID values in that range.

Historically, Merchant IDs in the Content API for Shopping were within the maximum value of a 32-bit signed integer, but have recently exceeded this range. In order to avoid any issues, please make sure your applications are fully compliant with IDs within a range of 64-bit signed integer values.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us via the forum.
Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team

Upcoming enforcement of custom batch limits in Content API for Shopping

2022-04-04T08:01:00.000-07:00

Beginning May 31, 2022 we will enforce the following limits for custom batch methods in the Content API for Shopping:

Maximum entries per request: 10,000
Maximum transfer size per request: 32Mb (The payload received from the client)

We’re introducing these limits to enable the fair and stable use of Content API for Shopping. The limits will apply to the following endpoints:

After May 31, 2022, calls to any of these endpoints that exceed these limits will begin to fail with the following error:

request_too_large

Visit our batching guide to learn more about methods for reducing your batch size. If you are looking for a reasonable batch size to implement, we recommend 1,000 entries per request for each endpoint. Following this means you are unlikely to encounter the limits even if your batch size temporarily increases.

If you have any questions about implementing this change, please visit the Content API for Shopping forum.
Ian Ballantyne, Content API for Shopping Team

Introducing the new Merchant Center Status Dashboard

2022-02-02T11:19:00.002-08:00

At Google, we strive to provide the highest level of service possible to our users. Still, from time to time, unexpected service disruptions do occur. When your team experiences an outage or other technical challenge, one of the first evaluations they need to make is whether the issue is with a third-party service provider or in-house. As part of our commitment to transparency and speed when communicating the status of our products, and incidents when they happen to occur, we’re pleased to roll out the Merchant Center Status Dashboard.

Check the status of a service
A look at the Merchant Center Status Dashboard

If a major incident is identified, we will generally post an outage notice on the Dashboard and provide updates when the issue is resolved. If the dot is green, it means there are no issues. The Merchant Center Status Dashboard provides status information on the Content API for Shopping, Merchant Center, and Feeds.

You can check the dashboard to view the current status of any of those services. All incidents are first verified by our support engineers, so there may be a slight delay from the time they actually occurred. More information can be found on the Merchant Center Help Center.

Subscribe to the Status Dashboard RSS or JSON feeds
To get the fastest outage alerts, we recommend subscribing to the Status Dashboard RSS feed:

Go to the Status Dashboard.
At the bottom, click RSS Feed and copy the feed URL.
In your RSS reader, paste the URL to add the Status Dashboard feed.
If you want programmatic access to the Status Dashboard, for example to integrate it into your monitoring system, at the bottom, click JSON History.

Learn more
More information about the Status dashboard can be found on the Merchant Center Help Center.

To investigate the most common errors regarding the Content API for Shopping, check this page on our Developers site. For other errors or for general Content API support, visit the forum.
Ian Ballantyne, Content API for Shopping Team

Apache Log4j vulnerability

2021-12-12T10:12:00.003-08:00

If you are using an Ads API Client Library and Apache Log4j, please see below.

NIST has announced a recent vulnerability in the Apache Log4j library.

The Apache Log4j utility is a commonly used component for logging requests. On December 9, 2021, a vulnerability was reported that could allow a system running older Apache Log4j versions to be compromised.

What do you need to do?
If you are using an Ads API Client Library and affected Apache Log4j versions, please upgrade to the latest version as indicated in the Apache Log4j Security Vulnerabilities website.

If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us through this forum.
--Stan Grinberg, Ads Developer Relations

Ads API apps must complete OAuth verification

2021-10-28T08:05:00.001-07:00

Last year, the OAuth scopes used by the following Ads APIs were classified as sensitive, requiring developers to complete the OAuth verification process for their Google Cloud projects:

Google Ads API & AdWords API
- https://www.googleapis.com/auth/adwords
Content API for Shopping
- https://www.googleapis.com/auth/content
DoubleClick Bid Manager API
- https://www.googleapis.com/auth/doubleclickbidmanager

Any remaining OAuth clients using the above scopes that remain unverified may have their existing credentials revoked and lose access to the above APIs if they do not complete the OAuth verification process as soon as possible.

Certain apps may qualify for one of the exceptions for app verification. If your application meets any one of those exceptions, follow the steps listed for the appropriate use case. If not, you must complete OAuth verification to continue using these Ads APIs.

If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us using any of the following support options:

Google Ads API & AdWords API: googleadsapi-support@google.com
Content API for Shopping: support forum
DoubleClick Bid Manager API: support contact form

Adam Ohren, Google Ads API Team

Reminder of upcoming Content API for Shopping v2.0 sunset date

2021-08-31T07:30:00.000-07:00

In March of this year, we announced that beginning September 30, 2021, we will end support for the legacy v2.0 of the Content API for Shopping. We also recommended you migrate to using v2.1, which has been available since March 2019.

As of this announcement, there is now less than 1 month until support for v2.0 will end on September 30, 2021. Following this date, the legacy v2.0 of the Content API is no longer guaranteed to function. We will continue to provide support for your efforts to migrate to v2.1. To avoid disruption we strongly encourage you to migrate to v2.1 imminently.

What do I need to know?
To check your usage of Content API for Shopping, you can look it up:

If your application uses a multi-client account (MCA) to make changes to sub-accounts, you should also check your API usage for that account. Please note that all API usage from Content API for Shopping v2.0, is no longer guaranteed to function after September 30, 2021.

Where do I get support?
We have a comprehensive migration guide to help you migrate your implementation including all the changes and new features available in v2.1.

For support migrating the Inventory.set method, see the release of partial product updates.

For support for Google Apps Script & Google Ads scripts, see the update of the default runtime to v2.1.

If you have any questions or issues during migration, contact your Google representative for Merchant Center programs, or ask questions in the Content API for Shopping forum.
Ian Ballantyne, Content API for Shopping Team

Google Apps Script & Google Ads scripts now support Content API v2.1 by default

2021-07-29T10:01:00.000-07:00

Going forward, if you use Content API for Shopping through Google Apps Script or Google Ads scripts, new scripts will use Content API v2.1 by default. This change is part of the deprecation of Content API for Shopping v2, scheduled for sunset on September 30th, 2021, after which scripts that depend on v2 features won’t work.

If you currently have a Google Apps script or Google Ads script that uses Content API for Shopping v2, then we strongly recommend you migrate to v2.1. Please note that some methods and fields in v2 are no longer supported in v2.1 (for example Inventory.set), so check the availability of methods and fields you use when you migrate. See the migration guide for more detail.

If you need help implementing this change, please visit the Content API for Shopping forum.
Ian Ballantyne, Content API for Shopping Team

Phone Verification in Content API for Shopping

2021-07-28T10:01:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce a new Content API interface developers can use to verify phone numbers for Merchant Center accounts. Phone verification is an important step in providing contact information for an account and can also help address account status issues such as PENDING_PHONE_VERIFICATION, which in some cases can enable the option for an account re-review. Prior to this release, this was only possible in the Merchant Center user interface.

Two new methods are provided in the 2-step verification process:

accounts.requestphonenumberverification - Initializes the verification of a provided phone number via phone call or SMS through issuing a verification code.
accounts.verifyphonenumber - Allows the phone number to be verified with the sent verification code.

Once verified, the phone number will appear in the Accounts.AccountBusinessInformation. The new methods replace the prior approach of setting a phone number directly. We strongly recommend you use these new methods to verify the phone numbers for all Merchant Center accounts to avoid future issues. See the Phone Verification guide for examples and more detail.

If you require further support implementing this change, please visit the Content API for Shopping forum.
Ian Ballantyne, Content API for Shopping Team

Performance reporting now available in the Content API for Shopping

2021-07-12T11:32:00.000-07:00

We're excited to announce that performance reporting is now available in v2.1 of the Content API for Shopping. With the search method of the Reports service, you can programmatically retrieve all of the performance data that's available in the Merchant Center.

Requests to the Reports service use the new Merchant Center Query Language, which gives you control over which metrics to download, how to segment/group your data, and which criteria to apply for selecting the result set. If you also use the reporting features of the Google Ads API, you’ll find that many of these concepts are familiar.

For example, the following query will result in a report of impressions, clicks, and clickthrough rate (CTR) over the last 30 days, summarized by date, brand, and offer ID.

SELECT
  segments.date,
  segments.brand,
  segments.offer_id,
  metrics.impressions,
  metrics.clicks,
  metrics.ctr
FROM MerchantPerformanceView
WHERE segments.date DURING LAST_30_DAYS
  AND segments.category_l2 IN ('Clothing', 'Shoes')

For more details, check out the Reporting guides, which include an overview, a quick example to get you started, and an explanation of key concepts, including how to compose queries in the Merchant Center Query Language.

If you have any questions or need help with the new reporting service, please contact us through the Content API for Shopping forum.

Josh Radcliff, Content API for Shopping Team

Important changes to Google Contact Policy for Merchant Center

2021-06-08T08:03:00.000-07:00

Following feedback from our merchants, we are relaxing our contact policy website requirements for merchants. Currently we require merchants to publicly display on their website at least two methods of contact information (such as an email, business address, or phone number).

To give merchants more flexibility in the information they share with customers, beginning August 2, 2021, we will require merchants to provide on their website a minimum of one form of customer-facing contact information, for example:

A “contact us” form
A link to a social media business profile
An email address
A phone number

In addition to this change, all new merchants will be required to provide their business address and phone number on creation of their Merchant Center account, as well as for any existing accounts that require a review. This private contact information can be entered manually in the Merchant Center user interface or via Content API for Shopping.

To update the private contact information using Content API for Shopping, provide both the address and phoneNumber fields via the AccountBusinessInformation object (nested under the Account object) using the following methods:

Accounts.update (Existing Merchant Center accounts)
Accounts.insert (New Merchant Center accounts)

Important: Take care when updating existing accounts. Any fields that are not provided to Accounts.update will be deleted from the resource.

Note: If you have made contact information changes to an existing Merchant Center account that has an account-level disapproval, you may need to request an account re-review. See the following article on Understanding account-level enforcement for product data quality violations to find the steps to make the request.
If you require further support implementing this change, please visit the Content API for Shopping forum.
Ian Ballantyne, Content API for Shopping Team

Partial product updates now available in v2.1 of the Content API for Shopping

2021-05-18T08:49:00.001-07:00

Today we are launching a new feature in Content API for Shopping v2.1: products.update.
The products.update method allows you to submit a subset of changes for a given product using the Products API. It works similarly to products.insert, but only requires the fields you would like to modify.

Users of inventory.set in Content API v2, will be familiar with the ability to provide updates to price, availability and other limited fields. The products.update method goes one step further and allows you to modify any fields that are mutable with products.insert. Users that are migrating from v2 to v2.1 ahead of the September 30, 2021 sunset date, might find this new functionality useful.

Products.update utilizes the HTTP PATCH method. Here is an example of updating the salePrice using REST:

HTTP request:

PATCH https://shoppingcontent.googleapis.com/content/v2.1/{merchantId}/products/{productId}

Example request body:

{
  "salePrice": {
    "value": "17.99",
    "currency": "USD"
  }
}

You can also provide product update operations as part of a products.custombatch request. For more examples and use-cases, see the products.update guide in the documentation.

If you require further support using this feature, please visit the Content API for Shopping forum.

Ian Ballantyne, Content API for Shopping Team

Reminder: Using v2.0 of the Content API for Shopping with new accounts ends on April 30, 2021

2021-04-20T08:01:00.000-07:00

In March, we announced that beginning April 30, 2021 we will no longer allow new merchant accounts onto v2.0 of the Content API for Shopping as part of the sunset process. With less than two weeks to go until the April deadline, here is a quick reminder of the details.

What do I need to know?

This account restriction will not impact users accessing new sub-accounts via an existing multi-client account (MCA), provided that MCA has been actively making v2.0 requests.
New accounts using v2.1 of the Content API for Shopping will not be affected.
The sunset date for existing merchant accounts actively using v2.0 is September 30, 2021.

What do I need to do?

Migrate to v2.1 of the Content API for Shopping in order to continue interacting with new merchant accounts after April 30, 2021.
If you are concerned you won’t be able to meet the April deadline, please fill out this form to request an exemption.

If you have any questions or issues during migration, contact your Google representative for Merchant Center programs, or ask questions in the Content API for Shopping forum.
Ian Ballantyne, Content API for Shopping Team