Google API transition – what it means for your company?

It’s been a good while since Google announced the transition from AdWords API to Google Ads – but many advertising platforms, brands, and software houses have yet to switch to this new programming interface.

How does it work?

On April 27th, 2022, the old Google AdWords Application Programming Interface will be deprecated. In layman's terms, this implies that online advertising tools and applications that used data drawn from AdWords will have to connect with Google services and databases in a totally new way.

This is especially important if you create social media marketing software – most of these apps rely heavily on Google AdWords. The good news is that the upgrade won't be really painful and, in fact, will offer many useful new functionalities. The bad news is that you'll have to do some extra work if you want your apps or dashboards to be functional after that date.

Remake your marketing management software!

We get it – we really do. Most companies dealing in Internet advertising technology or offering SaaS packages for online marketers will have to completely rewrite their dashboard software – and it's tedious but better than the cost of neglecting the switch altogether. The new version must fit the new, REST-based framework offered by Google Ads API. The legacy interface relied on reports generated by the system – while the new Google Ads API instead offers access to resources available for query.

Despite Google's best efforts to make the new interface compatible with the old one, it’s still a more modern, sophisticated system. The changes required building a set of entirely new tools rather than simply updating the old ones – and that’s the key challenge if your product is supposed to assist marketers.

There are no problems, only opportunities

If you’re working on marketing campaign management software, sometimes you’ll have to remake your entire product from scratch. The new API uses a new query language, which means that you must rewrite most of your automated scripts to access the marketing data. You still need to design your custom-tailored solutions from the ground up despite Google's decision to enable AdWords and Ads to run on the same platform during the transition period.

Of course, as someone once said, in business, there are no problems, only opportunities. For many companies providing social media marketing software, this will be an opportunity to increase the capabilities of their platform. The new API relies heavily on smart bidding and allows more dynamic access to the server thanks to streaming RPCs for server-side computation – which puts less strain on the resources of the end-customer.

The new API also offers a robust recommendation feature - an entire section of Google Ads account that's supposed to help the end user improve their campaigns. They can assist them in choosing new features and improve their bidding by refining their ad strategy. 

Among other new features, Google Ads is now integrated with Keyword Planner which can save you or your customers sometime when planning a new ad campaign. If you had an application to boost and monitor keywords, now it will be able to automatically generate them, ad text and even help with choosing the landing pages! 

Another new capability is the Performance Max campaigns – working across the advertising channels, helping the customer increase their overall representation, not only in search engine. There are plenty of people excited about the new features – and you can learn about them on the Google sites.

The right tools for the job

As a result, more and more developers undergo a switch from the old API to this new hotness. Fortunately for them, Google has provided enough resources in their official documentation, and they have a new Query Builder tool that will help you create new scripts for the new API. There’s even a migration tool that will let you automatically convert queries written in the old AWOL language into the new GAOL-based one – but keep in mind that it's 100% effective, though!

There are still many issues software creators might have with the new API. Many people stick to tried and true methods and after many years of relying on AdWords connections, it might be hard to get used to the new system. Sure, it's hard to learn an old dog new tricks. Fortunately, we're here to help! Contact us to learn more about how we can assist you and your firm in making the transition to the new API!