Do you have complex advertising needs like automated account
management and reporting but don't want the overhead
of manual maintenance?
I'm Xerxes, a developer advocate at Google.
And I want you to understand how the AdWords API may
help you to increase your operating
efficiency and your return on advertising investment.
This video series is designed to help you get going with the API
starting from the very beginning.
So, let's get down to it.
With the AdWords API, you can build
software that manages accounts from the customer level
down to the keyword level.
The API can do almost everything that the average web site
does, but programmatically.
Some types of companies that have benefited from the AdWords
API are advertising agencies, SEM companies, and big brands
managing multiple AdWords accounts with needs
beyond what is possible within the AdWords web interface.
There's an entire suite of applications and tools
around AdWords.
So how do you know if the API is the right route
for your organization to take?
This matrix summarizes the available approaches.
Whether you have dedicated engineering resources, or none
at all, we have the right tool for you.
Click the link below to have a closer look
and decide which approach is best for your business.
In short, the AdWords API is used
by companies that are looking to build custom account management
and reporting automation beyond what
is offered by the AdWords web interface, AdWords words
editor, and AdWords scripts.
The API allows ad words to be deeply integrated
with your own systems, thereby removing
the need for human intervention, increasing your efficiency,
and automating AdWords logic based on your business needs.
A few common use cases are custom reporting, ad management
based on inventory, bid management
based on business data, and other synchronizations
with your internal systems.
So let's take each use case in detail.
The AdWords API allows you to programmatically retrieve
report data and store it in your own databases.
You could then create custom dashboards
for monitoring the performance of accounts, including
fine-grained details such as per keyword statistics.
Powerful segmentation and filtering options
allow you to slice and dice data without extra client side
logic.
With the AdWords API, your software
can pause and add when stock is depleted,
then unpause when stock becomes available.
So visitors to your site will never be taken to a page only
to find that an advertised item is of stock.
No more wondering if your ad budget is well spent.
And you'll see conversion rates climb.
The AdWords API allows you to incorporate your own business
data into bid decisions.
For example, you could adjust bids
based on your inventory, cost changes, or sales.
Some clients use the API to integrate information
from AdWords with their internal systems such as billing
or conversion tracking.
For instance, they may want offline access
to data such as campaign and ad group listings, or performance
statistics, such as impressions, clicks, cost, click
through rate, et cetera.
They may also want to programmatically create
AdWords accounts for their clients
based on data from a CRM system.
So the API can do a lot of powerful stuff.
But it should be noted that using the API
is a serious commitment.
Several versions are released in [? sunset ?] each year.
So before deciding to develop with the API,
ensure that you have the engineering resources
and that you have a business need that
is not met by the AdWords website or AdWords scripts.
If you think that the API is the best
route for your organization, keep watching the videos
in this series to build your very first AdWords API
application.
If you'd like to brush up on AdWords words
basics before continuing, here's a useful resource.
Thanks for watching.
I hope to see you in future episodes.
And don't forget to subscribe to the Google Developers YouTube
channel.
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