Adwords Keyword Performance data pull

If you are handling multiple accounts or a large account at Adwords center managing few tens of thousand of keywords to millions of keywords, you would be interested in tracking the keyword performance over a period of time. You can do so by pulling daily summary report from Google through Adwords API and storing the data in your data mart or data warehouse for further analysis.

Pulling the data through API involves 6 steps:
   1. definedReportJob object - Specifies the type of report you want.
   2. validateReportJob - Validate the report that you would like to get. Returns nothing.
   3. scheduleReportJob - Now schedule the job for above object. This request returns an ID.
   4. getReportJobStatus - Get status of the report. If "Completed" go to next.
   5. getReportDownloadUrl - Retrieve the URL where your report is stored. The returned URL is valid for five minutes. If the URL expires, just call getReportDownloadUrl again. Keep this URL private, since anyone can use it to access your report.
   6. getGzipReportDownloadUrl - Download your report by sending an HTTP GET request.

Following pseudo code and code explains each step execution in more detail.  I use Perl SOAP calls to generate Adwords requests. Also, note the following code works well with API version v13 and Google is transitioning many of its Adwords API to v2009. As of Dec.2009 ReportService was still available only in v13.

Google Analytics Data Retriever (API) - SEM, SEO

Google Analytics should be an integral part of any company's marketing data analysis strategy that plays in SEM, SEO field. Not too long ago Google released API for their Analytics and one can use this data or reports to compliment their in-house data analysis.

Here I have provided a small utility program that can be used to retrieve most popular six (6) reports and have used similar utilities that I have built to dump the data into MySQL data warehouse for much bigger data sets.

The application has two Perl modules (GAProfile.pm and GAReport.pm) and a main program (ga_report_retriever.pl). GAProfile.pm module is used to authenticate your account and get the auth_code that will be used in the subsequent calls to GA to get reports. GAReport.pm module is used to pull the report and dump important dimension and metrics to standard output.  Put both these modules in the same directory (or copy them to directory in the path of PERL5LIB) as the main program and run it. To get different report, make a change in "ga_report_retriever.pl" passing the name of the report.

Before you start using the GA API, you may want to go through the documentation.

At command prompt> ./ga_report_retriever.pl

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Beauty of 99 Bottles of Beer in Perl

Perl is well known for allowing a software developer to express the solution in more than one way. And it can be harnessed to be as creative or cryptic as one likes to be. Here is one example I saw sometime back on http://99-bottles-of-beer.net/language-perl-737.html

Run the program as:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl


    ''=~(        '(?{'        .('`'        |'%')        .('['        ^'-')
    .('`'        |'!')        .('`'        |',')        .'"'.        '\\$'
    .'=='        .('['        ^'+')        .('`'        |'/')        .('['
    ^'+')        .'||'        .(';'        &'=')        .(';'        &'=')
    .';-'        .'-'.        '\\$'        .'=;'        .('['        ^'(')
    .('['        ^'.')        .('`'        |'"')        .('!'        ^'+')
   .'_\\{'      .'(\\$'      .';=('.      '\\$=|'      ."\|".(      '`'^'.'
  ).(('`')|    '/').').'    .'\\"'.+(    '{'^'[').    ('`'|'"')    .('`'|'/'
 ).('['^'/')  .('['^'/').  ('`'|',').(  '`'|('%')).  '\\".\\"'.(  '['^('(')).
 '\\"'.('['^  '#').'!!--'  .'\\$=.\\"'  .('{'^'[').  ('`'|'/').(  '`'|"\&").(
 '{'^"\[").(  '`'|"\"").(  '`'|"\%").(  '`'|"\%").(  '['^(')')).  '\\").\\"'.
 ('{'^'[').(  '`'|"\/").(  '`'|"\.").(  '{'^"\[").(  '['^"\/").(  '`'|"\(").(
 '`'|"\%").(  '{'^"\[").(  '['^"\,").(  '`'|"\!").(  '`'|"\,").(  '`'|(',')).
 '\\"\\}'.+(  '['^"\+").(  '['^"\)").(  '`'|"\)").(  '`'|"\.").(  '['^('/')).
 '+_,\\",'.(  '{'^('[')).  ('\\$;!').(  '!'^"\+").(  '{'^"\/").(  '`'|"\!").(
 '`'|"\+").(  '`'|"\%").(  '{'^"\[").(  '`'|"\/").(  '`'|"\.").(  '`'|"\%").(
 '{'^"\[").(  '`'|"\$").(  '`'|"\/").(  '['^"\,").(  '`'|('.')).  ','.(('{')^
 '[').("\["^  '+').("\`"|  '!').("\["^  '(').("\["^  '(').("\{"^  '[').("\`"|
 ')').("\["^  '/').("\{"^  '[').("\`"|  '!').("\["^  ')').("\`"|  '/').("\["^
 '.').("\`"|  '.').("\`"|  '$')."\,".(  '!'^('+')).  '\\",_,\\"'  .'!'.("\!"^
 '+').("\!"^  '+').'\\"'.  ('['^',').(  '`'|"\(").(  '`'|"\)").(  '`'|"\,").(
 '`'|('%')).  '++\\$="})'  );$:=('.')^  '~';$~='@'|  '(';$^=')'^  '[';$/='`';