Are the AdWords / AdGroup / Campaign keywords unique to multiple accounts?

Question

In the Google AdWords API, I believe that keyword identifiers and ad group identifiers (and obviously campaign identifiers) are unique in the account (as opposed to a keyword identifier that is only unique within its ad group), and the ad group identifier is unique within its spanning campaign).

But are they guaranteed unique across multiple accounts?

Answer 1

It may be a little late, but here is what I found by keywords / criteria. Take it with salt, but I think this is not too far from reality:

• A keyword as an object containing text and a match type (or other attributes depending on the type of criteria) has a unique AdWords identifier. This means that whenever you use the keyword "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" with the match type "BROAD", it will always have the same identifier.

• However, only in conjunction with an ad group ID can you define attributes such as cost-per-click, status, approval status, etc. To continue the above example, if you have this keyword in two different AdWords accounts using different CPUs, the keyword IDs themselves are still identical: the CPC information is stored separately from the keyword itself.

• This fits well with the type hierarchy in WSDL: AdGroupCriterionService returns AdGroupCriterion objects that themselves contain Criterion objects. Information about bets, status, etc. Available in the AdGroupCriterion object, and the keyword information itself is inside the Criterion object (which can be used by other AdGroupCriterion objects).

[ update ]. At an Adwords workshop, Google said it was “most likely” that new keywords with the same text and match type as existing ones would use the same criteria identifier, but this is not guaranteed. See @eshwar's answer for an example where the same keywords have different identifiers.

Answer 2

regarding campaign ID, ad group id, ad id and keyword id (criteria id) a clear and precise answer can be found in adwords api docs: https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/guides/working- with-objects

It states that only the campaign ID and ad group ID are unique throughout the world. Because there is no word on accounts, I think that the global should be like "per account". I do not think that there is something unique in different accounts.

Answer 3

I have always considered them unique, but you should not count on this because Google does not really guarantee them. I asked the same question in the official AdWords API forum a few years ago:

http://groups.google.com/group/adwords-api/browse_thread/thread/5383edba772b7b6c/548e04f54b1d4a74?hl=en&q=#548e04f54b1d4a74

Answer 4

To my agony, today I discovered that the keyword identifier is not unique to the keyword type + match even within the account. I manage multiple Adwords accounts, and all of my scenarios were based on the assumption that the keyword identifier uniquely identifies the combination of “word text” and “match type”. I have long confirmed that this is true in several accounts.

But today I found some anomalies in the reports for the same account, and when I burst deep, I found that the same keyword + match type has several keyword identifiers in the same account. In fact, in some cases I found 5 different identifiers for combos.

Attaching a screenshot of one such instance

Answer 5

The answer to Tector is great - adding this because the Tector documentation links have since been updated to clarify the point of confusion.

Globally unique objects:

• CampaignId
• AdGroupId
• Budgetid
• Feedid
• FeedItemId
• FeedMappingId
• Labelid

“Globally”, as documented, means a unique account.

Some of these IDs are globally unique in all AdWords accounts, while others are unique in a limited area.

From: https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/guides/working-with-objects