search

Returns the starting position of the first instance of needle in haystack

Always counts in the natural direction of the advertiser’s locale. For example, if the advertiser’s language is English, this function counts from left to right.

Syntax

search(needle, haystack)

Parameters

haystack and needle can be any of the following:

  • Static text, such as "GDN".
  • A Search Ads 360 variable that is a String, such as Keyword, Campaign, and so on.
  • An expression or formula column that returns a String.

Case insensitive

Text searches are case insensitive.

Empty character

If you include an expression or formula column in this function, the expression or formula column could evaluate to an empty text string.

Be aware that searching for an empty string always returns 1. That is, search("", "GDN") evaluates to 1.

Examples

  • [search("cow","cowabunga")] returns 1.
  • [search("abunga","cowabunga")] returns 4.
  • [search("a","cowabunga")] returns 4, which is the location of the first a.

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