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Adopt a campaign you built in the Google Ads UI

Some campaigns can’t be created by bidsmith. Video campaigns are the big one: the Google Ads API is read-only for that channel, so they have to be built in the Google Ads UI and then handed over. Others you simply built in the UI before you started using bidsmith.

Either way the move is the same — write the .bid block, mark it adopt-only, and let bidsmith take over the live campaign instead of making a second one.

The block

resource "google_ads_campaign" "gh_video_fr" {
  name                     = "GH_YouTube_FR Instream 11.08.2026"
  advertising_channel_type = "VIDEO"
  campaign_budget          = google_ads_campaign_budget.video_fr.id


  lifecycle {
    create = false
  }
}

create = false says: this campaign already exists — find it, don’t make it.

What bidsmith matches on

  1. The bidsmith label, if the campaign has one. Once a campaign has been adopted it carries a bidsmith:address label, and from then on the match is by label — you can rename the campaign freely.

  2. The name, for a campaign bidsmith has never seen. It has to be exactly the live name, spaces and dates included.

So the first adoption is the fragile one, and only the first. Copy the name out of the Google Ads UI rather than retyping it.

When it can’t find a match

Without lifecycle, a name that doesn’t match is silently a new campaign. For a Video campaign Google then rejects the create — and since the batch is all-or-nothing, that rejection takes every unrelated change in the same plan down with it.

With lifecycle { create = false }, the plan stops and tells you what it was looking for:

plan: error: video_fr.google_ads_campaign.gh_video_fr is declared adopt-only
  (lifecycle { create = false }) but no live campaign matched it, so there is
  nothing to adopt. bidsmith looks for its bidsmith:address label first, then
  by name "GH_YouTube_FR Instream 11.08.2026". Create it in the Google Ads UI
  to match, or drop the lifecycle block to let bidsmith create it

Nothing is sent. Fix the name (in the file or in the UI), re-plan, and the campaign adopts.

Confirming the adoption

A successful adoption shows up as an adopt row, not a create:

google_ads_campaign.gh_video_fr           ~ adopt (label only)


Plan: 0 to create, 0 to update, 0 to destroy, 1 to adopt, 1 unchanged.

~ adopt (label only) means bidsmith found the live campaign and will write its bidsmith:address label — and nothing else. Every field the file declares already matches the live campaign, which is why the row is an adoption rather than an update: no budget, targeting, or status is written. After that apply, the campaign is bidsmith’s to manage — drift in any field you declared shows up as a ~ update row on every plan, spelling out what the value is now and what it would become.

An adoption may also list the criterion categories it starts managing, which is still a label write and still changes nothing about the live campaign:

google_ads_campaign.gh_video_fr           ~ adopt (label only; claims frequency caps, languages, locations)

What it doesn’t do

create = false only governs creation. It does not stop updates or removals — an adopted Video campaign that drifts still reports the drift, and the API still refuses to apply it:

plan: error: video_fr.google_ads_campaign.gh_video_fr has drift on status.
  Nothing in the batch can be sent while it is there, because the Google Ads
  API cannot create or update VIDEO campaigns

Make that change in the Google Ads UI and let bidsmith read it back.

Where you can use it

lifecycle works on any resource except keywords and targeting criteria (google_ads_ad_group_criterion, google_ads_campaign_criterion, google_ads_shared_criterion) — Google creates those freely, so there is no adopt-only workflow to declare and bidsmith rejects the block rather than ignoring it.

See also