If you’ve spent any time programming in the Google Ads Scripts browser IDE over the past nine months, you will have noticed a conspicuous toggle button temptingly labelled “New scripts experience (beta)”. The intrepid among you may have switched this on and been treated to lightning-fast speeds, ES6 support, and maybe a handful of bugs… Well, as of 14 March 2022 the bugs are gone, and the New Google Ads Scripts Experience has fully arrived - and what an experience it is!

YES! Google has said that all scripts will soon default to the new experience, stating that from September they will be migrating existing scripts. Google are trying to implement backwards compatibility but “can't guarantee every script will work without changes”.

At iCrossing, we have noticed a small number of features that do not work as expected. The biggest source of error stems from the fact that Ad Words Query Language (AWQL) is now deprecated in favour of Google Ads Query Language (GAQL). In the new experience, when you query Google Ads with AWQL, the query will be converted to GAQL which can sometimes lead to limitations and incompatibilities.

This means if you are still using an old script you found floating around online years ago, it may stop working. If your agency or Google Account Manager applied a critical script to your account last year, it may stop working also. Even Google’s own scripts like the ‘Larger-scale Link Checker’ which is the top result on Google for “google ads link checker” and is still labelled as “New” (as of 21/03/2022) uses the old AWQL syntax and as a result will not run optimally.

If your account relies on Google Ads Scripts to run, audit, or report on your campaigns, it would be prudent to ensure that any crucial scripts work in the new experience before they are switched over automatically in September. Thankfully, Google have provided useful tools and guides to help you do this smoothly.