Basic Usage

This guide explains the basics of using the Perl client library for the Google Ads API.

Initialize the client

To start using the library, create an instance of Google::Ads::GoogleAds::Client. The client can be configured in several ways, as detailed in the Configuration guide. A common approach is to use a googleads.properties file:

use Google::Ads::GoogleAds::Client;

my $api_client = Google::Ads::GoogleAds::Client->new();

Create a service

Once the client is initialized, you can create instances of the various API services. For example, to interact with campaigns, you would create a CampaignService instance:

my $campaign_service = $api_client->CampaignService();

Make an API call

Here's an example of how to make an API call to get campaigns. This snippet demonstrates initializing the client, creating a service, and calling a method.

use strict;
use warnings;
use Google::Ads::GoogleAds::Client;
use Google::Ads::GoogleAds::V22::Services::GoogleAdsService::SearchGoogleAdsRequest;

# Initialize the Google Ads client. See the [Configuration guide](configuration) for more options.
my $api_client = Google::Ads::GoogleAds::Client->new();

# Get the GoogleAdsService.
my $google_ads_service = $api_client->GoogleAdsService();

# Specify the customer ID and query.
my $customer_id = "INSERT_CUSTOMER_ID_HERE";
my $query = "SELECT campaign.name, campaign.status FROM campaign";

# Create a search request.
my $search_request = Google::Ads::GoogleAds::V22::Services::GoogleAdsService::SearchGoogleAdsRequest
    ->new({
    customerId => $customer_id,
    query      => $query
});

# Execute the search request.
my $search_response = $google_ads_service->search($search_request);

# Iterate over the results and print campaign names.
foreach my $google_ads_row (@{$search_response->{results}}) {
    printf "Campaign with resource name '%s' and name '%s'.\n",
        $google_ads_row->{campaign}->{resourceName},
        $google_ads_row->{campaign}->{name};
}

Handle errors

API calls can result in exceptions. You should wrap your API calls in eval blocks to catch and handle Google::Ads::GoogleAds::GoogleAdsException.

use strict;
use warnings;
use Google::Ads::GoogleAds::Client;
use Google::Ads::GoogleAds::GoogleAdsException;
use Google::Ads::GoogleAds::V22::Services::GoogleAdsService::SearchGoogleAdsRequest;

my $api_client = Google::Ads::GoogleAds::Client->new();
my $google_ads_service = $api_client->GoogleAdsService();
my $customer_id = "INSERT_CUSTOMER_ID_HERE";
my $query = "SELECT campaign.name, campaign.status FROM campaign";
my $search_request = Google::Ads::GoogleAds::V22::Services::GoogleAdsService::SearchGoogleAdsRequest->new({
    customerId => $customer_id,
    query      => $query
});

eval {
    my $search_response = $google_ads_service->search($search_request);
    # Process successful response.
    foreach my $google_ads_row (@{$search_response->{results}}) {
        printf "Campaign name: %s\n", $google_ads_row->{campaign}->{name};
    }
};
if ($@) {
    if (blessed($@) && $@->isa('Google::Ads::GoogleAds::GoogleAdsException')) {
        my $exception = $@;
        printf "A Google Ads exception occurred:\n";
        printf " Request ID: %s\n", $exception->get_request_id();
        foreach my $error (@{$exception->get_errors()}) {
            printf " Error code: %s\n", $error->{errorCode};
            printf " Message: %s\n", $error->{message};
        }
    } else {
        # Print other types of exceptions.
        print "An error occurred: $@\n";
    }
}

Explore other examples

You can find several useful code samples in the examples. Most of the examples require parameters. You can either pass the parameters as arguments (recommended) or edit the INSERT_XXXXX_HERE values in the source code. To see a usage statement for an example, pass -help as a command-line argument.

perl examples/basic_operations/get_campaigns.pl -help