Google Ads API v19.1 unleashes new features for marketers

The Google Ads API team announced version 19.1 of their API on Wednesday, April 16, 2025, just five days ago. This incremental update builds upon the foundation of version 19, released in February, delivering new functionalities that extend developers' capabilities while maintaining backward compatibility with previous implementations.

The update introduces significant features across multiple areas of the Google Ads ecosystem, with particular emphasis on Demand Gen capabilities, Local Services feedback mechanisms, and video campaign enhancements. According to the official Google Ads Developer Blog, the release "includes no breaking changes and maintains backwards compatibility for those who have already upgraded to v19."

For marketing professionals and agencies managing multiple accounts or complex advertising ecosystems, these improvements offer new programmatic options to enhance campaign management and performance tracking. The update addresses several marketer pain points, particularly for those leveraging newer advertising formats and cross-channel strategies.

Channel Controls empower Demand Gen campaigns

Perhaps most notable among the new features is the addition of AdGroup-level Channel Controls for Demand Gen campaigns. This enhancement gives advertisers greater precision in determining where their ads appear across Google's visual-first surfaces.

According to the Google Ads Help Center documentation, "Channel controls in Demand Gen campaigns allow you to choose where your ads appear across Google's visual-first surfaces, including YouTube, Gmail, Discover, as well as the Google Display Network." The functionality enables marketers to tailor ad experiences to specific channels, such as focusing vertical creator videos exclusively on YouTube Shorts.

The Channel Controls feature supports several specific channels in the current release:

• YouTube In-Stream
• YouTube In-Feed
• YouTube Shorts
• Discover
• Gmail
• Display

This granular control helps marketers extend their social media strategies to Google properties, with particular emphasis on YouTube engagement. The documentation notes that this can help "grow your performance by tapping into the power of YouTube, including YouTube Shorts" and "expand your impact beyond paid social platforms."

In conjunction with these controls, Google has also exposed a new asset type for TALL_PORTRAIT_MARKETING_IMAGE, supporting the trend toward vertical video content that has gained popularity on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.

Planning services bolster strategic capabilities

The update also strengthens the Planning services with multiple new methods designed to support Demand Gen campaigns. Notably, the ReachPlanService now includes a GenerateConversionRates method, allowing advertisers to request suggested conversion rates for supported plannable products.

For forecasting purposes, marketers can now use the DEMAND_GEN_MAX_CONVERSIONS plannable product code to generate Demand Gen reach forecasts. This is complemented by a new conversion_rate field that allows developers to provide conversion rates when requesting these forecasts.

Additionally, the update adds support for Target frequency monthly forecasts in the ReachPlanService.GenerateReachForecast function. This enhancement enables advertisers to set TargetFrequencyTimeUnit.MONTHLY in TargetFrequencySettings when using the TARGET_FREQUENCY plannable product code.

Local Services feedback mechanism debuts

The update introduces new capabilities for Local Services advertisers, who can now submit feedback for LocalServicesLead through a new ProvideLeadFeedback method in the LocalServicesLeadService.

According to the release notes, this addition is accompanied by a new field named lead_feedback_submitted to the LocalServicesLead resource, which confirms if feedback was provided for a specific resource. This enhancement directly addresses the need for local businesses to provide quality feedback on leads received through Google's advertising platform.

Video campaign metrics expansion

Video marketers gain access to new metrics and segments for measuring reach with demographic adjustment. The update adds two metrics columns – coviewed_impressions and primary_impressions – along with two segments – adjusted_age_range and adjusted_gender – that provide more accurate demographic data about video views.

The API now also supports Audio Ads, exposing a new AdvertisingChannelSubType named YOUTUBE_AUDIO, a new AdGroupType named YOUTUBE_AUDIO, and a new ad format enumeration named YOUTUBE_AUDIO_AD with corresponding fields.

Shopping ads refinements in Performance Max

For retailers using Performance Max campaigns, the update adds the ability to override brand exclusions specifically for Shopping ads. This functionality is available through a new pmax_campaign_settings field at the campaign level, though it only works for Performance Max campaigns focused on retail.

This capability addresses a common pain point for retailers who might want to exclude certain brands from their general advertising but ensure their Shopping ads still appear in searches for those brands.

Conversion tracking enhancements

The update introduces two significant improvements to conversion tracking. First, developers can now set a google_ads_conversion_customer field when creating a new customer using the Google Ads API – a field that was previously read-only.

Second, a new session_attributes field has been introduced for ClickConversion, providing more detailed data about conversion events.

Change History refinements

The Change History functionality has been expanded to support three additional resource types:

• CAMPAIGN_BUDGET
• ASSET_SET
• CAMPAIGN_ASSET_SET

These finer-grained types can now be retrieved from the change_status report, giving marketers better visibility into changes made to their campaigns.

Why this matters for the marketing community

This update significantly enhances the toolset available to marketing professionals who use programmatic interfaces to manage Google Ads campaigns. The focus on Channel Controls for Demand Gen campaigns reflects the growing importance of visual-first advertising and the need for more precise targeting across different Google properties.

For agencies and in-house teams managing multiple campaigns or accounts, these API improvements translate to greater efficiency and more strategic campaign management. The ability to programmatically control campaign placement across specific channels – particularly YouTube formats – helps marketers align their Google advertising with broader multi-channel strategies.

The enhancements to Planning services, particularly the addition of conversion rate forecasting for Demand Gen campaigns, provides valuable predictive tools that can inform budget allocations and campaign strategies. This data-driven approach allows marketers to make more informed decisions before launching campaigns.

For local service businesses, the new feedback mechanisms address a critical touchpoint in the customer acquisition process, allowing for better quality assessment of leads generated through the platform.

Implementation considerations

The updated client libraries and code examples for this API release will be published next week, according to the announcement. Developers wishing to implement these new features will need to upgrade their client libraries and client code to access the v19.1 functionality.

According to the documentation, client libraries are available for Java, .NET, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Perl, providing developers with multiple options based on their technology stack.

Timeline of recent Google Ads API developments:

• February 26, 2025: Release of Google Ads API v19, which added support for DemandGenMultiAssetAdInfo.tall_portrait_marketing_images, brand guidelines for Performance Max campaigns, and removed feed-related entities
• April 16, 2025: Release of Google Ads API v19.1, introducing AdGroup-level Channel Controls for Demand Gen, LocalServicesLeadService.ProvideLeadFeedback, new metrics for video campaigns, and brand exclusion overrides for Shopping ads in Performance Max
• April 2025 (upcoming): Expected publication of updated client libraries and code examples for v19.1