Label Countdown for Ignoring New Elements

Robert asked on one of my scripts how to ignore keywords that were recently added to his account. Unfortunately, the API doesn't give you a good way to do this although I figured there was a way to do it using labels.

So I put together the following script that you can use to automatically create a label-based countdown for elements that you want to ignore in your scripts. Each time you add new elements to your account, you can apply a label to it using the format LABEL_PREFIX_. So, if you want your scripts to ignore a new element for 30 days, apply the label "days_left_30" to that element. If you schedule the script to run every day, the number of days left on the label will be reduced by one each day. Once the number of days reaches zero, the label will be removed from the entity.

In the scripts that you want to ignore new elements, add the following function to the bottom of the script (before the last curly brace):

  function _build_label_list() {
    //Build a list of labels to exclude in your .withCondition()
    var LABEL_PREFIX = 'days_left_'; 
    var label_iter = AdWordsApp.labels().withCondition("Name STARTS_WITH '"+LABEL_PREFIX+"'").get();
    var label_array = [];
    while(label_iter.hasNext()) { label_array.push(label_iter.next().getName()); }
    return "'"+label_array.join("','")+"'"
  }

And then add the following

.withCondition("LabelNames CONTAINS_NONE ["+_build_label_list()+"]")

to any iterators you have in your other scripts. Good luck, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Thanks,
Russ

//-----------------------------------
// Label Countdown
// Created By: Russ Savage
// FreeAdWordsScripts.com
//-----------------------------------
function main() {
  var LABEL_PREFIX = "days_left_"; // you can change this if you want
  
  // First lets build a list of labels to work with
  var label_iter = AdWordsApp.labels().withCondition("Name STARTS_WITH '"+LABEL_PREFIX+"'").get();
  var labels_array = [];
  while(label_iter.hasNext()) {
    labels_array.push(label_iter.next().getName());
  }
  if(labels_array.length > 0) { 
    var labels_str = "['" + labels_array.join("','") + "']";
    // grab all the keywords with the labels we want to countdown
    var kw_iter = AdWordsApp.keywords().withCondition("LabelNames CONTAINS_ANY "+labels_str).get();
    
    while(kw_iter.hasNext()) {
      var kw = kw_iter.next();
      var l_iter = kw.labels().withCondition("Name STARTS_WITH '"+LABEL_PREFIX+"'").get();
      var label = l_iter.next(); // lazy here because we know this keyword has a label
      var days_left = parseInt(label.getName().substr(LABEL_PREFIX.length)) - 1;
      kw.removeLabel(label.getName());
      if(days_left != 0) {
        var new_label_name = LABEL_PREFIX+days_left;
        // Create a new label if it doesn't exist
        if(labels_array.indexOf(new_label_name) == -1) {
          AdWordsApp.createLabel(new_label_name);
          labels_array.push(new_label_name);
        }
        kw.applyLabel(new_label_name);
      }
    }
  }
}