Ads API - MediaObject - howto?

Question

The Facebook Ads API has a call for the posting of ads - and it requires attaching images to the post, and setting the filename in a creative_spec and then attaching the image with that name in the multipart.

The FacebookMedia object seems right for this, but then I see in the code that only 1 media object can be attached per post. Is there a reason for this?

Here's some (crappy, first-pass) code:

        dynamic adgroup = new ExpandoObject();
        adgroup.method = "ads.createAdGroups";
        adgroup.account_id = AdAccount.FbAdAccountId;
        adgroup.adgroup_specs = new List<dynamic>();


            dynamic adgroup_specs = new ExpandoObject();
            adgroup_specs.campaign_id = campaignid;
            adgroup_specs.name = ad.campaign_name;
            adgroup_specs.status = 1;
            adgroup_specs.bid_type = 1;
            adgroup_specs.max_bid = ad.max_bid;
            adgroup_specs.targeting = (dynamic)(new ExpandoObject());
            adgroup_specs.targeting.countries = new List<string>();
            adgroup_specs.targeting.countries.Add("US");

            adgroup_specs.creative = (dynamic)(new ExpandoObject());
            adgroup_specs.creative.title = ad.AdTitleText;
            adgroup_specs.creative.body = ad.AdCopyText;
            adgroup_specs.creative.link_url = ad.url; // TODO: ASk Bill
            adgroup_specs.creative.file_name = ad.ImageId + "_" + ad.ImageName;

            var image = dc.Images.Where(r => r.ImageId == ad.ImageId).FirstOrDefault();

            adgroup.adgroup_specs.Add(adgroup_specs);

Then I need to attach all the images, not sure how to do this. They have to be in the post with their name, so I figure I can attach them anywhere:

        var images = (from image in dc.Images
                      where image_ids.Contains(image.ImageId)
                      select image).Distinct();


        var p = adgroups as IDictionary<String, object>;

        foreach (var i in images)
        {
            FacebookMediaObject fmo = new FacebookMediaObject();
            fmo.FileName = i.ImageId + "_" + i.Name;
            fmo.SetValue(i.ImageData);
            fmo.ContentType = "image/png";
            p.Add(i.ImageId + "_" + i.Name, fmo);
        }

        dynamic dresult = FbApp.Post(adgroup);

EDIT: So this wasn't even working with one image, I have a list of creatives and when posted without the image, it posts correct data, when posted with an image, it looks like this (look at adgroup_specs):

Host: api.facebook.com Content-Length: 5945 Expect: 100-continue

--8cdad9aeb95b79c Content-Disposition: form-data; name="method"

ads.createAdGroups --8cdad9aeb95b79c Content-Disposition: form-data; name="account_id"

106925396 --8cdad9aeb95b79c Content-Disposition: form-data; name="adgroup_specs"

System.Collections.Generic.List`1[System.Object] --8cdad9aeb95b79c Content-Disposition: form-data; name="api_key"

--8cdad9aeb95b79c Content-Disposition: form-data; name="format"

json-strings --8cdad9aeb95b79c Content-Disposition: form-data; filename="667_Screen shot 2011-02-24 at 3.46.29 PM.png" Content-Type: image/png

It's converting the List<> incorrectly. This works in the normal post without multipart. Is this a bug?

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 14 '11 at 19:15

1

This looks like it is a bug. Please file it in the issue tracker on codeplex. http://facebooksdk.codeplex.com/workitem/list/basic

answered Mar 14 '11 at 19:15

Nate Totten

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okay, i've reported this bug as well as an issue with multipart and filenames. – Kurt Koller Mar 21 '11 at 04:12

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 16 '11 at 20:31

In general this does work with the Facebook Ads API. It can be a little confusing though because the JSON for each adgroup has to reference the name of the image that it is using for its creative like this:

[
  {
    "campaign_id": 12345,
    "bid_type": 1,                                                                                                                                                                               
    "max_bid": 150,                                                                                                                                                 
    "name": "My New Ad",
    "adgroup_status": 2,                                                                                                                                                                      
    "creative": {
      "title": "My New Ad",
      "body": "Body text for my new ad",
      "link_url": "http://www.example.com/",
      "image_file": "sample.gif"
    },
    "targeting": {
      "country": ["US"],
      "age_min": 25,
      "age_max": 66,
      "genders": [1],
    }
  }
]

The spot where it says "sample.gif" tells Facebook too look into this POST for a file attachment with filename = "sample.gif". To include multiple images, attach them all with different names, and specify them in each of the ad groups.

I hope this is helpful for people trying to create multiple ad groups at once using different images.

At the time of original posting, there was code in there that specifically only allowed one image attachment. The bug that was pointed out in the accepted answer was fixed a few days ago. — Kurt Koller, Jun 17 '11 at 07:40

Ads API - MediaObject - howto?

2 Answers2