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google-bigquerygoogle-ads-apigoogle-cloud-data-transfer

Google Ads transfer to BigQuery misses the data from Smart Campaigns

I have a Google Ads account which has a single Smart Campaign and multiple usual campaigns. Also I've set up a data transfer to Google BigQuery. When I try to compare BigQuery data using the query

SELECT sum(Cost) FROM `project.dataset.AccountBasicStats_XXXXXX`  where Date between '2021-12-01' and '2021-12-31'

the query result shows a less cost than I see in the Google Ads interface for the same time period. The difference is equal to the spend of my smart campaign. To check this, I've tried the queries:

SELECT * FROM `project.dataset.CampaignBasicStats_XXXXXX`  where Date between '2021-12-01' and '2021-12-31' AND CampaignId = {ID of my smart campaign}
SELECT * FROM `project.dataset.CampaignStats_XXXXXX`  where Date between '2021-12-01' and '2021-12-31' AND CampaignId = {ID of my smart campaign}

The both give me no results.

Is it true that BigQuery data transfer discards the data of smart campaigns? What are other ways to get statistics for them?

Solution

  • BigQuery Data Transfer service for Google Ads is based on an old API, AdWords API v201809. This version of the API does not support Google Ads features introduced in 2019 or later, and Smart Campaigns is among that.

    To get around this limitation, you could consider a different Data Transfer - for instance, SuperMetrics and FiveTran have Data Transfers for Google Ads too. Note they are paid, and you should make sure that they do support Smart Campaigns. Google is said to be working on a Data Transfer using the newer Google Ads API.