Google Adwords Errors

 

Google – “GOOGLE, CANNOT_ATTACH_BIDDING_STRATEGY_TO_CAMPAIGN”

WHAT IS THE ISSUE?

When altering bidding settings for new Google campaigns, you may come across the following error message:

Error: GOOGLE, CANNOT_ATTACH_BIDDING_STRATEGY_TO_CAMPAIGN
This issue will occur when you attempt to push campaign changes to the publisher having edited certain bidding options, including Budget Optimizer and Enhanced CPC.

WHAT CAUSES THE ISSUE?

This error message occurs because Google no longer supports several advanced bidding options for new campaigns; however it still allows them for existing campaigns. This means that if you select either Budget Optimizer or Enhanced CPC for a new campaign or a cloned campaign, you will see the error message above when campaign is pushed to the publisher.

HOW TO FIX THE ISSUE

If you have copied an existing campaign with Budget Optimizer or Enhanced CPC, simply go into the newly copied campaign’s advanced settings, and change the budget settings from: “budget optimizer”/”enhanced CPC” to “Use Max CPC Bids“. This should resend the campaign creation job and any child objects (groups, keywords, creatives) to process successfully.

Google – “No Data Available in Google Analytics”

WHAT IS THE ISSUE?

Google analytics data does not download into the application for one or more profiles. When you click into the Activity Log ID for the corresponding Google Analytics Data Download and see the following error:

Error: No data available in Google Analytics for profiles [xxxxxxxx] for [xxxx-xx-xx-xxxx-xx-xx].

WHAT CAUSES THE ISSUE?

For free, standard accounts, Google Analytics processing latency is 24-48 hours.

Standard accounts that send more than 200,000 visits per day to Google Analytics will result in the reports being refreshed only once a day. This can delay updates to reports and metrics for up to two days. For more information on processing latency, please see this Google Help article.

HOW TO FIX THE ISSUE

We suggest moving your publisher client accounts to a timezone that is 2-3 hours behind to see if data pulled later in the morning is more accurate. This may not fully resolve the issue as the data displayed is dependent on when GA finishes processing. Please reach out to your account team to discuss this resolution option as it may have an impact on your bidding.

WHAT IS THE ISSUE?

When trying to sync or upload campaigns, creatives, or keywords the following error occurs:

Google Error: Customer is fraudulent

WHAT CAUSES THE ISSUE?

This error is a result of an API connection error between Google AdWords and Marin.

HOW TO FIX THE ISSUE

This issue is typically resolved quickly. If you receive this error, please try your sync or upload again in 30 minutes to an hour.

Google – “Must Specify One of Search CPC, Placement CPC, or Placement CPM.”

WHAT IS THE ISSUE?

During a bulk upload, an object or objects fail and return this error message:

Error: Must specify one of Search CPC, Placement CPC, or Placement CPM.

WHAT CAUSES THE ISSUE?

Possible reasons for this error:

  1. You are attempting to edit or split a group or campaign that is using Google’s Conversion Optimizer.
  2. Bid amounts are set to zero

HOW TO FIX THE ISSUE

Just follow these steps:

  1. If using Google’s Conversion Optimizer, you will need to implement a workaround in order for our system to sync with Google. This workaround is needed since our system requires a minimum bid to be made and currently does not sync with Google Optimizer bids.To do this, upload a temporary search bid and re-upload your bulksheet. The search bid will be posted to the publisher where Google will change the bid back to 0 and the change will sync back to the platform.
  2. Specify a bid amount and re-upload.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

  • For more information on Bulk Upload requirements, visit our Help article.
  • For more information on Bulk Upload editing and adding, visit our Help article.
  • For more information on Google Conversions Optimizer and Marin Bidding, visit our Help article.

Google – “GOOGLE, OPERATION_NOT_PERMITTED_FOR_CAMPAIGN_TYPE” and “GOOGLE, TARGET_ERROR”

WHAT IS THE ISSUE?

These error messages occur when setting Google Search Network campaigns.

Error: “GOOGLE, OPERATION_NOT_PERMITTED_FOR_CAMPAIGN_TYPE”

Error: “GOOGLE, TARGET_ERROR”


WHAT CAUSES THE ISSUE?

This issue occurs when you upload a new campaign and try to switch between Search Network only, Display Network only, or Search Network with Display Select.

Google has disabled the ability to switch between certain networks to avoid negative affects on campaign performance and ad serving, or the removal or deactivation of certain features.

HOW TO FIX THE ISSUE

  1. Read the Google articleon selecting and setting your campaign type. Be certain you’ve made the correct choice for your campaign before finalizing a new campaign.
  2. Take a look at the campaign types that can be changed.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

For more information on setting campaign types, read this Google article.

Google – “The specified id referred to an entity which either doesn’t exist or is not accessible to the customer. e.g. campaign belongs to another customer”

WHAT IS THE ISSUE?

When uploading new sitelinks to your Adwords account through the platform, you may encounter the following error message.

 

Google Error: The specified id referred to an entity which either doesn’t exist or is not accessible to the customer. e.g. campaign belongs to another customer

 

 

WHAT CAUSES THE ISSUE?

This problem most commonly occurs when some sitelinks are in “Pending review” status in your AdWords account.

HOW TO FIX THE ISSUE

Please check if you have any sitelinks which are not yet approved in your AdWords account. Once they are approved, you can fix this problem by triggering a Manual Sync of the campaigns you are trying to upload the sitelinks to. If that’s not the case or you have more questions, please contact our Support Services team, who will be happy to help.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Synchronizing Data With The Publishers

Google – “Do Not Set the ID Field While Creating New Entities”

WHAT IS THE ISSUE?

When editing and/or copying Sitelinks and other ad extensions (Location Extensions etc.), you may encounter this error message:

Google Error: Do not set the id field while creating new entities
The problem can also occur in a number of other scenarios, for example if a sitelink is linked to one campaign and you attempt to link it to another. Whatever the cause, the solution outlined at the bottom of this article should help.

WHAT CAUSES THE ISSUE?

This problem is caused by the change in Google’s API functionality, so you are not able to copy ad extensions as you used to be.  That means if the ad extension is linked to a campaign and you try to link it to a different campaign, it won’t work.

HOW TO FIX THE ISSUE

The workaround is to create new sitelinks, or create them outside the platform (i.e. within the publisher interface), and sync them in immediately.

Google – “Deleted Ads May Not Be Modified”

WHAT IS THE ISSUE?

When editing creatives in the platform, you may sometimes encounter the following error message:

Google error: deleted ads may not be modified

WHAT CAUSES THE ISSUE?

This problem most commonly occurs when you edit the creatives outside the platform but you don’t sync the changes. Please also note the following:

  • When the creatives do not receive any impressions, automatic nightly sync won’t occur.
  • Editing an ad in Google will delete the existing ad and create a new one with the needed changes in the platform.

HOW TO FIX THE ISSUE

When making changes outside the platform, make sure to do a manual sync to avoid this issue.

If you would like to make changes to deleted object for Google from the Platform, you can un-delete the object in AdWords and the perform a manual sync for the campaign from the Platform. This will allow you to make changes to the object.

If the above does not work or you have more questions, please contact our Support Services team, who will be happy to help investigate.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

You can read more on synchronizing data with publishers in the following article: Campaign Management – Synchronizing Data With The Publishers

Google – “Error GOOGLE, line_overflow”

WHAT IS THE ISSUE?

When uploading new creatives to the platform, you may encounter a variation of the following error messages within the Activity Log:

Error: GOOGLE, line_overflow, operations[136].operand.ad.description2,, en_GB

 

Google Error: After substituting replacement strings, the line is too wide.

 

Additionally, the creatives that display this error will be rejected and will not be posted to the publisher successfully.

WHAT CAUSES THE ISSUE?

This error message means that some part of the affected creative is too long. There are maximum character limits for headlines and description lines.

  • This error message is from Google
  • line_overflowmeans your description is too long
  • What comes after ad(in this case description2) tells you where the offending part of the creative is
  • en_GBis the current language targeting setting

There are some countries you can target which will allow more than the allotted character limits, but if you are not targeting these, the creative will be rejected with the line_overflow error above.

HOW TO FIX THE ISSUE

The only solution to this error is to reduce the length of your ad copy in the appropriate areas so that it abides by the character length limitations imposed by Google.

You can learn more about this error from Google’s Help section.

Google – “Cannot Target Any Syndicatable Types”

WHAT IS THE ISSUE?

When creating new campaigns with only Mobile Device Targeting set in the Devices field, you may encounter the following error message:

Google Error: Cannot target any syndicatable types

WHAT CAUSES THE ISSUE?

There are a number of things that can cause this error message. We’ll describe these below to help you diagnose the cause.

  1. When a client attempts to create new campaigns through the user interface and unchecked ‘Desktop and Laptop Computers,’ to only target Mobile devices. The campaigns appear in the activity log with a failed status and Google error ‘cannot target any syndicatable types.’ However when we check at the publisher end the campaigns have gone through and the user needs to log into AdWords and edit the targeting settings. We can then sync back the changes into Marin via a manual synchronisation.
  2. This error is also seen when in the bulk upload sheet Devices column in left blank. When using the bulk upload tool, it is best practice to remove blank columns from the bulksheet prior to uploading/editing.

THE GOOGLE GRANTS PROGRAM

If your account is part of the Google Grants program, there are a number of specific restrictions in place that could result in this error message. If you are part of the program, use the following list of restrictions to troubleshoot your error.

Campaign

  • Networks/Devices: Google Grants accounts are only allowed to run on Google, so it’s important that you only opt in to Google Searchand opt out of Search partners (seen as Search Network in the platform) and the entire Content Network (including Managed Placements).
  • Bidding: Do not select Use Google Enhanced CPC.
  • All bids for Google Grants account should be at the maximum CPC bid of no more than US$1.00.
  • Daily Budget: You can designate a daily budget of no more than $329 USD (or less if you plan to have more than one campaign).
  • Placements: No placements.

Groups

  • Please set the Default Bidto no more than US$1.00. Do not enter any bids for Content or Placements.

Ads

  • Creative Type can only be a Text

Find our more about these restrictions at the Google for nonprofits site.

HOW TO FIX THE ISSUE

For the first case listed above, you can upload the campaigns directly through the publisher interface and pull back changes into the platform via a manual synchronisation. In the second case, you should remove all empty columns and try to re-upload the campaigns.

If you have violated a Google Grants restriction, you should fix the issue then try to re-upload the campaigns.

Google – “Failed to Do Client Auth with Gaia Server. Response code = 403tresponse body =CaptchaToken= xxxxxxxxxxxxx”

WHAT IS THE ERROR?

Failed to do client auth with Gaia server – Google specific error message

Error Examples: 

Error: GOOGLE, , [Failed to do client auth with Gaia server. Response code = 403tresponse body =CaptchaToken= xxxxxxxxxxxxx

WHEN DOES THIS ERROR APPEAR?

This problem occurs when a user tries to link an AdWords publisher account into the application by following these steps:

 

  1. Navigate to the Channels tab.
  2. Click Create.
  3. Select a Publisher.
  4. Enter Nickname for Account.
  5. Click Next Step.
  6. Enter Google Customer ID, Email, and Password.
  7. Click Next step.
  8. The UI returns the above error.

WHY THIS ERROR OCCURRED

This error message means the publisher account cannot be authenticated with the login details in the application. In other words, the username or password details are incorrect or outdated. As a result, any attempts to linking or editing the publisher account via the API will fail.

FIXING THE ERROR

  1. Confirm your AdWords publisher credentials are entered into the application correctly and then try to re-link the account.
  2. If system returns the error again, please reach out to our team by using the “Contact Us” link to the right.

oogle – “GOOGLE, unacceptable_phrases, operations_operand.ad.description1, en_US”

WHAT IS THE ISSUE?

When uploading keywords or creatives into the platform, you may notice that the upload fails in the Activity Log. When clicking into the Activity ID for that job, you may see this error message:

GOOGLE, unacceptable_phrases, operations_operand.ad.description1, en_US
You will also see this error displayed in the Result column of the file that you can download from the Activity Log.

WHAT CAUSES THE ISSUE?

In many cases, Google rejects the ad because the ad violates AdWords policy guidelines. For example, using the text Click Here is a misleading call-to-action phrase. Learn more about acceptable words and phrases from Google’s Help section.

HOW TO FIX THE ISSUE

  1. You can review the guidelines via the link above to ensure the ad text and keyword text is not violating any policies.
  2. Modify the ad text and re-upload through the application. Then push your new changes to the publisher. Please perform a manual sync to ensure any temporary items in an invalid status are removed from the application before processing new upload.Please read our Help article for instructions on how to upload your policy exemption requests in bulk.

Google – “GOOGLE, INVALID_INSERTION_TEXT_FORMAT”

WHAT IS THE ISSUE?

The Google error below occurs when a user performs a bulk keyword upload for Google and the system fails to post these items to the publisher. The issue is due to invalid values in the Param 1 or Param 2 fields of a keyword.

Error: GOOGLE, INVALID_INSERTION_TEXT_FORMAT, operations[73].operand.insertionText

HOW TO FIX THE ISSUE

Open the error file in the failed job ID. Under the Results column filter for the above message. Next pick a keyword from this filtered list and search for this keyword in the application.

Under the Edit Keyword Settings page for the selected item, check the Param 1 and Param 2 fields. Per AdWords guidelines, only specified formats can be entered in this field and any exceptions won’t be allowed.

In the below example we see there is a ‘.’ which is an invalid entry and causes this keyword to fail. User will need to remove the invalid character or replace with a number and re-post items to publisher.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Sometimes it is helpful to see the details of error message since Google returns the cause of the error after [0]operand.insertionText.

For example, if you received the error message: Error: GOOGLE, INVALID_INSERTION_TEXT_FORMAT, operations[1].operand.insertionText,56 %, which tells that there are extra space between 56 and %, and is causing the issue.

USEFUL LINKS

Google – “Your Account Does Not Have Any Currency Associated with it.”

WHAT IS THE ISSUE?

When attempting to link a new Google AdWords account into the platform, you may encounter the following error:

Error: “Your account does not have any currency associated with it. Please update your account information at the publisher with a currency and try to link this account again.”
This error usually appears upon entering the account details on the Edit Google Account Settings page and clicking Next Step button.

 

There are also two additional scenarios which may present the error above:

  • If incorrect account credentials are supplied. The solution is to enter valid credentials for the account.
  • If the Google account email address has not been verified. The solution is to verify the email via AdWords before linking.
  • No active campaign has been created or exists under the account you are trying to link.

WHAT CAUSES THE ISSUE?

When linking an AdWords account into the platform, we need the account’s currency and timezone settings to be set up beforehand, which is why you must create at least one campaign in order to successfully sync all campaigns within that account into our application. Due to an interim change on Google’s end, the timezone and currency information is not available at the AdWords account level for now; so we need to pull these settings from campaign(s) within the account.

If the AdWords account is brand new and there are active campaigns set up, our system will not be able to find the currency and timezone information, and the linking attempt will fail.

HOW TO FIX THE ISSUE

To fix the problem, you can create a dummy/new campaign within AdWords and then return to the application and complete the linking process.

Note: Please do not delete the dummy campaign once the linking process is completed.

  1. From the Channelstab, open the Linking Wizard and then edit the Google publisher account that is invalid due to the earlier error message above.
  2. When you edit the campaign’s settings, it will automatically refresh and the error message will disappear.
  3. Our system will pull in the newly created campaign and the currency and timezone settings associated with it; and you will see the campaigns listed at the bottom of the page which you can select, then click Linkand finally Save.

Google – “GOOGLE, nonstandard_punctuation, operations”

WHAT IS THE ISSUE?

You upload keywords/creatives in the platform, but the upload fails with Sync errors. In the Activity Log, you see Error File containing a message like this:

GOOGLE, nonstandard_punctuation, operations


WHAT CAUSES THE ISSUE?

When you have these characters in your keywords and/or ad text, Excel cannot handle them, so the upload fails.

  • Non-standard punctuation such as double-byte characters (�) or other foreign characters such as ä, è, ë.
  • Violations of Google’s Punctuation and symbols policy such as:
    • Exclamation mark in the ad’s headline
    • More than one exclamation mark in the ad text
    • Repeated punctuation or symbols
    • Symbols, numbers, and letters that don’t adhere to their true meaning
    • Bullet points

HOW TO FIX THE ISSUE

You can fix the non-standard punctuation issue by following these steps:

  1. Download the file with the error.
  2. Copy the column you need to edit, and paste it into a Word document.
  3. Click the function button “Show all nonprinting characters” in Word.
  4. Find the non-standard punctuationand replace it with a space.
  5. Copy the edited text and paste it in the file you downloaded in step 1.
  6. Upload it to the platform.

You can fix the special characters for other languages issue by following these steps:

  1. Save your bulk upload file as a Unicode Text 
  2. Change the bulk file’s encoding to UTF-8.
  3. This will ensure the special characters are handled correctly and the upload should be successful.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Google – “Failed to do Client Auth with Gaia Server. Response code = 403 response body =Error=BadAuthentication, en_US”

WHAT IS THE ERROR?

Google error: “Error: GOOGLE, , Failed to do client auth with Gaia server. Response code = 403 response body =Error=BadAuthentication, en_US”    

WHY THIS ERROR OCCURS

Google sometimes requests additional authentication when trying to access an account. This is their standard security protocol and will occur occasionally on all accounts.

SOLUTION

Retry the request after a few minutes. If you encounter the same error again, please submit a ticket to Marin Support.

Google – “Error Processing Items – Could Not Execute JDBC Batch Update”

“Error processing items: Could not execute JDBC batch update”

 

Issue

Unlinking a Google publisher account fails in the activity log. This error is due to a “creative_id cannot be null” issue.

 

Solution

Please submit a ticket to Marin Support, and we can apply a simple fix.

 

Google – “User Doesn’t Have Permission to Access the Customer”

WHAT IS THE ERROR?

Google Error: User doesn’t have permission to access the customer 

Users will receive the above error (usually happens when trying to link publisher accounts in the Channels tab or trying to push updated objects to the publisher) due to a restricted access or connection issue between Marin and AdWords.

HOW TO FIX THE ERROR

Please try the following to fix this error:

  • Check to make sure that the Google account credentials and MCC credentials used to link in the account are correct
  • The AdWords user login does not have administrative-level access. Another user who has administrative access will need to log into the AdWords UI and change the user’s permissions for that user login to be able to link in the accounts.
  • If you had unlinked an account and are trying to re-link it but get the above error, file a ticket requesting a Marin MCC invite to re-establish the link between Google and Marin. Please provide your top level MCC credentials (username, password, MCC account ID)

Google – “Invalid Google URL Character [[ ]]”

WHAT IS THE ISSUE?

You may encounter the following error message(s) within the platform when uploading ad URLs or keyword URLs:

Error: Invalid Google Url character: [[ ]]

Error Error: GOOGLE, INVALID_CHARACTER_FOR_URL, operations[].operand,These characters are not allowed: [space], en_US


WHAT CAUSES THE ISSUE?

The above error is triggered when there are spaces in one of the uploaded URLs, which are rejected by Google. It can also be caused by spaces in the URL tracking parameters.

Typically the error message indicates which URL includes the space. Here is an example:

  • “Error Error: GOOGLE, INVALID_CHARACTER_FOR_URL, operations[56].operand.displayUrl,These characters are not allowed: [space], en_US”
  • The above error message means that the illegal space is in the Display URLof the uploaded creative.

Also remember to check to see if the space is within the tracking parameters in URL builder:

  • Click Admin in the upper-right, then click the Revenue sub-tab, and finally choose URL Builder from the left-hand menu
  • Check the Required Parametersor Redirect URL field for spaces. You can also check the tracking parameters for spaces from this same settings page.

HOW TO FIX THE ISSUE

Remove trailing spaces from URLs by deleting the spaces or performing a Find and Replace in Microsoft Excel by following these steps:

  1. Select the URL column
  2. Hold down Control+H
  3. Enter a space in the Find what field
  4. Leave Replace withblank

You can also fix the issue in the following way:

To keep spaces in URLs, encode the URL by replacing the space with “%20”. For example:

www.URLwithspaces.com/example with spaces

would need to change to:

www.URLwithspaces.com/example%20with%20spaces

You can also perform a Find and Replace for encoding the spaces:

  1. Select the URL column.
  2. Hold down Control+H.
  3. Enter a space in the Find what
  4. Enter %20 in the Replace with

Once you take the steps, re-upload the file and it will process successfully.

Note: If Excel is not a viable alternative, you can also make the required changes with an advanced text editor such as Notepad++ or Sublime Text.

 

Google – “The Client Has Tried to Create an Entity that Goes Beyond the Size Limits on AdWords”

INTRODUCTION

The following error occurs when trying to bulk-add a number of keywords, creatives, groups, and campaigns that exceeds the number allowed by AdWords.

Error: [The client has tried to create an entity that goes beyond the size limits on AdWords]


WHY THIS ISSUE OCCURS

Google AdWords has a default limitation on the number of certain entities that can exist in the account (ie. restricted number of campaigns per account, keywords per gorup, etc.). If you are trying to add/upload new objects in Marin and come across the following error: “The client has tried to create an entity that goes beyond the size limits on AdWords”, you have reached this default limitation.

Contacting Your Google Rep

Please reach out to your Google representative to request to have these limits expanded. Once this has been done, adding new entities should no longer produce this error.​

ADWORDS ACCOUNT LIMITS

As of 9/19/2014, these are the limits for an AdWords account:

Campaign and ad group limits

  • 10,000 campaigns (includes active and paused campaigns)
  • 20,000 ad groups per campaign
  • 20,000 ad group targeting items per ad group (such as keywords, placements, and audience lists)

Ad limits

  • 300 image/gallery ads
  • 50 text and non-image/gallery ads per ad group
  • 4 million active or paused ads per account

Targeting limits

  • 5 million ad group targeting items per account (such as keywords, placements, and audience lists)
  • 1 million campaign targeting items per account (such as geo target and campaign-level negative keywords)
  • 10,000 location targets (targeted and excluded) per campaign, including up to 500 proximity targets per campaign
  • 20 shared negative placement lists per account
  • 65,000 placements per negative placement list
  • 11,000 shared budgets per account
  • 20 shared negative keyword lists per account
  • 5,000 keywords per negative keyword list

Ad extension limits

  • 400,000 unique feed items per account. A feed item is a unique piece of data for an extension, such as a sitelink, phone number, review, or location.
  • 250,000 ad group-level extensions per account**
  • 50,000 campaign-level extensions per account**
  • 10,000 ad group-level extensions per campaign**

** For example, let’s say you have 1 campaign with an extension containing 8 sitelinks. Then you add these same sitelinks to another campaign and also to 10 ad groups in a third campaign. Now, your account has 8 feed items, 2 campaign-level extensions, and 10 ad group-level extensions.

 

CREATING A NEW ADWORDS ACCOUNT

Another option is to create an additional AdWords account to which you may add more campaigns, groups, keywords, and creatives. This may be a more efficient option if you have a large account as it may help with organization.

 

Google – “Outstanding Client Invitations Cannot be Greater than 20”

WHAT IS THE ERROR?

When a user navigates to the Channels tab to link their AdWords account into Marin > enters the Account name, Google Customer ID & account email and clicks ‘Next Step.’ System returns the error: “Outstanding Client Invitations Cannot be Greater than 20”.

WHY DOES THIS ERROR OCCUR

This occurs when there are more than 20 pending client invitations waiting to be reviewed or accepted in the Marin AdWords MCC.

HOW TO FIX

The client will need to raise a ticket so that we can login into the Marin MCC and remove some pending invitations to accommodate linking of more AdWords accounts. Just click on the “My Client Center” tab on the top left and then on the left side, you’ll see a link for “Pending Invitations.”  Click on this and you will have over 20 pending invitations.  You will need to revoke at least one of these, maybe possibly more so that you can link your new Google account into Marin.

 

 

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