Service Methods

AI-generated Key Takeaways

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• The Google Ads API uses custom methods like search and mutate instead of traditional REST methods such as list , get , create , update , and delete .

• Custom methods in the API are represented in REST URLs using a : to separate the custom verb.

• The use of custom methods allows the Google Ads API to bundle multiple operations into a single API request, such as batching updates or fetching many objects at once.

• Batch reads in the API are enabled by the custom search method, which uses the SQL-like Google Ads Query Language.

The design of the Google Ads API differs from a traditional REST architecture because it primarily uses custom methods, such as search and mutate, instead of the more traditional list , get , create , update , and delete methods. These actions are expressed in REST URLs by using the HTTP mapping convention of a : to separate the custom verb from the rest of the URL.

For example, a campaign mutate API call uses the following URL:

 https://googleads.googleapis.com/v22/customers/1234567890/campaigns :mutate 

One reason that the API uses custom methods is to enable batching of multiple operations into a single API request. Strict REST semantics would only allow updating one campaign at a time. A traditional REST update to a campaign, for example, would require sending one HTTP PATCH request per campaign resource.

To allow many operations to be bundled together within a single request body, the Google Ads API instead defines a custom mutate method for most resources. Similarly, to enable batch reads (fetching many objects at once) from the API, the API uses a custom search method with a SQL-like Google Ads Query Language .

The Common methods page goes into detail on the most frequently used methods in the Google Ads API.