Some small tidbits:
The API will allow advertisers to self-administer the delivery, the timing and the price they will pay for their text ads.
The types of sophisticated management tools that will be available from Google and third parties should also help tie advertisers into its ad network.
The Google API is only available to advertisers and not to online publishers carrying Google ads.
Access to the Adwords API will initially likely favor larger companies with the technical skills to optimize their advertising delivery. However, a large third-party services market will grow around the Google API and allow smaller companies to run sophisticated advertising campaigns.
The ability to target specific Web Sites on the content network, weed out the chaff, and analyze detailed statistics on ad performance (time of day clicks occur, etc.) would be a momentous step forward for Adwords.
Google is choosing who to use as beta testers as much by what they can learn (Google does need to check on security issues, wanted features, etc), as by company spend.
The fact that the API is suppose to be released this year is no secret, and has been talked about for quite some months.
Google realized they needed to reach out to the agencies a while ago, and have taken steps to do so. The professional program was just one aspect in a larger goal.
This should be a fun year dealing with G - but then again, isn't it always ;)
Google has had a hard time keeping stuff quiet lately, so I'd think something this big would have leaked out long ago.
Then again...shak is on vacation...hmmm.
We've heard random reports that Google had been bench testing api's related to adwords, but had not heard about a deployment.
I've not heard any confirmation of this story, or the one that they released yesterday. Just stating my facts that I've confirmed from Google.
Finally, I can start automatically re-adjusting all bids to hit target customer aquisition costs.
um, if they're going to let advertisers start picking individual sits, say by URL, why wouldn't they just go directly to the publisher and pay half as much?
oh, I wish AOL would take my money and let me advertise directly with them. If the publishers were accepting advertisements directly, the advertisers need to even wait for this API. The advertisers could do that right now itself.
What Google brings to the table, is the technology to match the keywords to the content and of course the marketplace to link thousands of advertisers to thousands of sites.
That being said, all my screen scraping scripts are not of competitive advantage any more. Atleast, it will be much easier to program from now on and hopefully the functionality of these APIs will be much more richer than the existing interface. Any guesses on what will be the new features? Any one seen the beta yet?
I 2nd eWhisper's comments.
We were on the original beta list, when the API was supposed to be released beginning of 4th quarter.
We were told in September it had been put on hold indefinitely. Then in November, we were told they were moving forward with a very small group of what our rep termed as "Trusted Companies", whatever that means... :)
The rep didn't give us an expanded beta roll out date, but I assumed it would be sometime during the 1st Qtr of '05.
The resource use between hitting Overture's backend via XML, and emulating a browser to administer anything in GAW is huge. Just pulling cost reports for a few hundred accounts is a very resource intensive process. Add editing MaxCPC's on thousands of keywords each day, and you can imagine how many page views we generate to execute functions that could be accomplished with a single XML call. And we're just one of many companies running the same level of automated processes.
um, if they're going to let advertisers start picking individual sits, say by URL, why wouldn't they just go directly to the publisher and pay half as much?
Because, in many if not most cases, individual publishers wouldn't be able to deliver enough impressions for a specific keyphrase.
AdSense isn't just about keyword matching--it's also about aggregation of ad views and referrals from many different sites.
Jan 3, 2005:
Google api soon cometh
Shak
I hope it is a service that becomes available to all users rather than just something that the large agencies can use.
it's also about aggregation of ad views and referrals from many different sites.
AND it's also about trust too. You get Google's anti-click fraud technology and click tracking. Say what you want about their click fraud technology, but it's a great deal better than mine (joe publisher).
Google also finds the sites for you, cutting down the resources you have to spend researching suitable sites. Your time is valuable. You also don't have to waste time negotiating with all of these individual publishers. It would usally take at least 2 e-mails going back and forth to get a campaign going (per publisher). Time is wasted in the writing and waiting.
Also, (in theory) publishers require a lot less effort because they just have to paste one ad code into a page with no further effort required even when advertisers change. IF I had to do it all on my own (even with phpads or some other software), it would still require time on my part to update campaigns, all other things being equal, I would demand more from individual advertisers than I would demand from Google because I have to put a value on my time.
It's the same reason people use banks to lend and borrow money instead of getting a better rate by cutting out the middle man.
Wow, thanks Shak.
Around the time of WebmasterWorld Vegas, Google was talking about beta testers for the API.
Around early December, Google was letting it be known in some circles they were talking directly to beta testers.
Not sure when the first company was invited, but it can't be a rumor when I had an application for beta testing by the end of December.
Agreed...
It was known by many of the 3rd party service companies during the Summer.
I just didn't think it was appropriate to publicly post anything, until it was released through some media channel.
Of course when Overture originally released it's 3rd party API in 2001, it really didn't get any outside press. The link to find the approved 3rd party companies on their site is buried deep in their FAQ.... :)
This is the whole point behind an API. Not really for small fries to automate, but for software companies to program all that functionality people are asking from Google..
I think G is far past the "toying" stage when it comes to an automated API for the various GAW processes. They realize the impact on their system resources, and lack of functionality compared to Overture without an API of some type.
