A Google Ads campaign is a set of one or more ad groups (ads, keywords, and bids) that share a budget, location targeting, and other settings. Campaigns are typically used to organize categories of products or services offered by an advertiser.
Items that can be set at the campaign level include bids, budget, language, location, distribution for the Google Network, and more. Large advertisers typically create separate ad campaigns to run ads in different locations or using different budgets.
Campaign types
Campaign types are centered around Google’s advertising networks: the Google Search Network, the Google Display Network, and the YouTube Network.
These networks make up all the places where your ads can appear, including Google sites, websites that show relevant Google ads, and mobile sites.
You choose a network setting by selecting a campaign type for your campaign. The API supports the following campaign types:
You can use the API to create and manage campaigns optimized for different marketing objectives:
Differences from the Google Ads UI
The following campaign types are available in the UI but are not currently supported in the API:
Campaign subtypes
Campaign subtypes in the Google Ads UI, such as Standard and All features, help UI users find relevant campaign options, but there is no corresponding attribute in the API’s Campaign object. This UI column is similar to the AdvertisingChannelType and AdvertisingChannelSubType fields in the API, but there is not a one-to-one mapping between these fields and Campaign subtype in the UI.
For example, a Search-only campaign created via the API will always be an All features campaign from the UI perspective.
Setting up a campaign
The best way to set up new campaigns in the API is to use the Add Campaigns code example in the Basic Operations folder of your client library. The sample handles all the background authentication tasks for you, and walks you through the settings required for establishing a new campaign, including the budget, bidding strategy, campaign type, start and end dates, and more.
Next steps
See the guides below to get started with the following campaign-related tasks:
Code examples
The Basic Operations and Campaign Management folders in the client libraries contain code examples for adding, configuring, and managing campaigns. The code examples take care of a lot of the background tasks for you, and are the easiest way to get your campaigns up and running.
