Hi Oliver, If you include a field such as Impressions, while still making sure none of the other fields prevent zero impression rows from returning, you'll get back your structural data with an impression of 0 (for those with no impressions). I.E. including the Impressions field should not prevent you from obtaining structural data. Since reports are meant to report on the performance of the account, the reporting backend expects some sort of statistic to be included in the response.
Many customers use the CustomerSyncService for keeping accounts in sync. By using the date range from NOW to the last time a sync occurred, you'll get back a list of entity IDs that have changed since then. This greatly narrows the list of entities you need to retrieve to keep in sync. You can then make a SOAP call (if its a small number) or a structural report with the Impressions column (if its a lot) to get a list of all objects that have changed. - Kevin Winter AdWords API Team On Thursday, June 28, 2012 11:09:13 AM UTC-4, Oliver wrote: > > I ran reports specifying only the "attribute" type of fields (as discussed > in this thread) but they all come back blank. No structural data seem to > be included in the reports unless I specify "metric" or "segment" fields as > well. > > David, this seems to not be consistent with the recommendation you made? > > I would have thought getting an account structure and syncing it every day > is a basic and fundamental building block in using the API. Why is it so > hard and ambiguous? > > Can anyone please please help explain how one can get the account > structure using reports without having to get the performance data too? > > mm, if you're read this, do you have any ideas? I don't want to include > any impressions in the report so I'm trying to avoid using predicate > impressions >=0 > > Thanks in advance for any help. > > Oliver > > > On Tuesday, June 19, 2012 1:31:39 AM UTC+1, David Torres wrote: >> >> Hi Oliver, >> >> Your assumptions are correct at the moment, so you can use "attribute" >> type of fields to obtain all structural data including zero impressions. >> But there is no guarantee that we won't introduce "attribute" fields that >> will prevent zero impressions in the future. >> >> Best, >> >> -David Torres - AdWords API Team >> >> On Thursday, June 14, 2012 8:55:57 AM UTC-4, Oliver wrote: >>> >>> mm, thanks for your help. >>> >>> Anash, I went through all the reports types looking for the 'prevents >>> zero impressions' note. Here is my conclusion: >>> >>> - The account structure is defined by fields that have >>> "Behavior=Attribute" in the performance reports. I don't care about other >>> fields when updating the account structure. >>> - None of the 'Attribute' fields in any of the reports has a 'prevents >>> zero impression' note (except for 2 fields, but these look very odd to me >>> and I'm posting a separate question about them). >>> >>> Hence, from the above, am I right in concluding that I can indeed get >>> back the full account structure by specifying ONLY the 'Attribute' fields >>> when requesting the reports? >>> >>> Oliver >>> >>> On Thursday, June 14, 2012 6:09:28 AM UTC+1, Anash P. Oommen wrote: >>>> >>>> Hi Oliver, >>>> >>>> See the report fields listed on >>>> https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/appendix/reports. If >>>> you include certain fields in a report, it prevents zero impression rows >>>> from being returned even if you have set includeZeroImpressions as true. >>>> Such columns are explicitly documented on this page (e.g. Date column >>>> in Campaign Performance Report). Check if your report definition includes >>>> any column that prevents zero impression rows from being returned. >>>> >>>> Cheers, >>>> Anash P. Oommen, >>>> AdWords API Advisor. >>>> >>>> On Tuesday, 12 June 2012 20:40:27 UTC+5:30, Oliver wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Hi, >>>>> >>>>> What is the best way to synchronize our local database record of the >>>>> account structure with that from the API? >>>>> >>>>> We can get the x_performance_report for each entity and compare the >>>>> return result with what we have locally. However, we believe the >>>>> performance reports do NOT return all the entities (that don't have data) >>>>> even when includeZeroImpressions is set to TRUE as confirmed by the >>>>> following: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> http://googleadsdeveloper.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/zero-impression-data-in-adwords-api.html >>>>> "...but be aware that setting it to "true" does not guarantee that >>>>> zero-impression rows will be returned.". >>>>> >>>>> How else can one ensure we're getting back all the account entities >>>>> irrespective of their performance data or statuses, etc. >>>>> >>>>> Oliver >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- =~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~ Also find us on our blog and discussion group: http://adwordsapi.blogspot.com http://groups.google.com/group/adwords-api =~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "AdWords API Forum" group. To post to this group, send email to adwords-api@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to adwords-api+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/adwords-api?hl=en
