Customize AdWords ads with ad customizer default values or text ad IF functions

Update December 9, 2016: The previous version of this announcement indicated that this would be rolled out within the next month. This is now going to be rolled out over the next few months. If you would like to check to see if your account has this feature enabled, try editing one of your ads and adding a {. A drop-down should appear. If the option IF function is available, then the feature has been enabled for the account.
Over the next month, AdWords is rolling out to all accounts two new ways to customize your ads.

• Default values in Ad Customizers give you an option of providing a default value when referencing a custom value from a feed. This means that you will no longer be required to provide a static ad in your ad group when using ad customizers. Woohoo!
• IF functions let you insert a customized message in your ad based on who’s searching and what device they’re searching on, all without using a feed.

Default values in Ad Customizers

• What’s changing? The existing syntax for inserting a custom value from a feed is {=FeedName.AttributeName}. The new syntax allows for an optional default value {=FeedName.AttributeName:default value}, but you can still use the existing syntax if you don’t want to specify a default value. Check out the Customizing text ads guide to learn more about setting up an ad with ad customizers.
• How does this affect me? If you have colons in your Feed.name or in your FeedAttribute.name, then add a backslash before the colon to escape the colon. Having a colon without a backslash causes anything after it to be interpreted as a default value when used in an ad customizer. If you no longer want to have a static ad in your ad group, then start adding default values to your ad customizers and delete the static ad.

IF functions

• What’s changing? The new IF function allows text to be specified in a text ad based on device or audience, with the default text being optional. If default text is not specified, then a static ad is required in the ad group. The syntax is:
  • {=IF(device=mobile,text to insert):optional default text}
  • {=IF(audience IN(<userlist1>,<userlist2>),text to insert):optional default text}
• How does this affect me? If you want to add customized text to your ad based on device or audience, start adding the IF functions to your text ads. For examples, check out the Customizing text ads guide.

Questions? Visit us on the AdWords API Forum or our Google+ page.
Nadine Sundquist, AdWords API Team