Video campaigns

  • The Google Ads API only supports fetching and reporting on existing Video campaigns and their criteria.

  • You cannot create new Video campaigns or update existing ones using the Google Ads API.

  • Google Ads scripts and Demand Gen campaigns are alternatives for programmatic Video campaign management.

  • You can retrieve performance data for Video campaigns using GoogleAdsService.SearchStream and filtering by campaign.advertising_channel_type = 'VIDEO'.

Video campaigns let you show video ads on YouTube and across websites and apps running on Google video partners.

API limitations

The Google Ads API primarily supports fetching and reporting on existing Video campaigns, ad groups, ads, and criteria. Video campaigns cannot be created or mutated using the Google Ads API, with the following version-specific exceptions and behaviors:

  • VideoResponsiveAdInfo mutability: Starting in v24, VideoResponsiveAdInfo objects are mutable (in earlier versions, they are immutable). When creating or mutating VideoResponsiveAdInfo, the videos, business_name, and logo_images fields are required.
  • Brand safety suitability: Starting in v24, campaign-level campaign.video_brand_safety_suitability is removed. Query brand safety suitability at the account level using customer.video_brand_safety_suitability.
  • Video campaign experiments: Starting in v24, experiment.video_experiment is available for configuring YOUTUBE_CUSTOM experiments consisting of Video campaigns.

Alternatives for campaign management

If you need to create or manage Video campaigns programmatically, consider the following options:

  • Google Ads scripts: You can manage Video campaigns using Google Ads scripts. This allows for automated management within the Google Ads interface.
  • Demand Gen campaigns: If your goal is to serve video ads across Google properties including YouTube, Demand Gen campaigns are fully supported in the Google Ads API for both creation and management.

Get performance data

You can retrieve performance data for your Video campaigns, ad groups, and criteria using GoogleAdsService.SearchStream by filtering for campaign.advertising_channel_type = 'VIDEO'.

Ad group performance

The following query retrieves Video campaign and ad group metrics, including TrueView video views and quartile completion rates, from the ad_group resource:

SELECT
  campaign.id,
  campaign.name,
  campaign.advertising_channel_type,
  ad_group.id,
  ad_group.name,
  metrics.impressions,
  metrics.clicks,
  metrics.ctr,
  metrics.video_trueview_views,
  metrics.video_quartile_p100_rate
FROM ad_group
WHERE campaign.advertising_channel_type = 'VIDEO'

Video placement and criteria reporting

Because ad_group_criterion does not support metrics or segments directly, use criteria view resources such as managed_placement_view to retrieve performance metrics for targeted YouTube videos, YouTube channels, or other managed placements:

SELECT
  campaign.id,
  ad_group.id,
  ad_group_criterion.criterion_id,
  ad_group_criterion.type,
  ad_group_criterion.youtube_video.video_id,
  ad_group_criterion.youtube_channel.channel_id,
  metrics.impressions,
  metrics.video_trueview_views
FROM managed_placement_view
WHERE campaign.advertising_channel_type = 'VIDEO'
  AND ad_group_criterion.type IN ('YOUTUBE_VIDEO', 'YOUTUBE_CHANNEL')
  AND segments.date DURING LAST_30_DAYS