What we're asking for: set device bid modifiers, or exclude a device type, on a Google campaign through the API - both on create and afterwards.
Why this matters to us: most of our customers are local service businesses, where the traffic split between mobile and desktop is dramatic and so is the conversion rate. We already show them the device breakdown in our reporting, which puts us in the awkward position of showing a customer that desktop costs them money and then having no
way to act on it from our product.
What happens today: neither your create nor your update endpoints expose device targeting. The Google Ads API supports it fully through a CampaignCriterion with a device criterion and a bid_modifier (0.1 to 4.0, or 0 to exclude a device entirely).
What "done" looks like forus: device modifiers or exclusions settable on create, updatable on an existing campaign, and readable back so we can show the customer their current setting.
We've shipped two updates for Google device targeting:
Bid modifiers: You can now pass a bidModifier (0.1–4.0) per device on create and update. Instead of just picking which devices to target, you can weight them: e.g. bid 1.5x on mobile and 0.8x on desktop. The devices field accepts both plain strings ("MOBILE") and objects ({ "device": "MOBILE", "bidModifier": 1.5 }), so it's fully backward compatible.
Device update on existing campaigns: PUT /v1/ads/:adId now accepts devices in the targeting spec. It diffs against the campaign's current device criteria and creates/updates/removes only what changed (including bid modifier changes on devices that were already targeted).
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Comments1
Miquel Palet López
Sep 3
We've shipped two updates for Google device targeting:
Bid modifiers: You can now pass a
bidModifier(0.1–4.0) per device on create and update. Instead of just picking which devices to target, you can weight them: e.g. bid 1.5x on mobile and 0.8x on desktop. Thedevicesfield accepts both plain strings ("MOBILE") and objects ({ "device": "MOBILE", "bidModifier": 1.5 }), so it's fully backward compatible.Device update on existing campaigns:
PUT /v1/ads/:adIdnow acceptsdevicesin the targeting spec. It diffs against the campaign's current device criteria and creates/updates/removes only what changed (including bid modifier changes on devices that were already targeted).Both are live on the API.