Google Ads news
Independent analysis of every meaningful Google Ads release, deadline and policy change — written by the people who run the accounts, not by a press-release summariser.
12 articles
Bidding & budget · · 9 min read
On 15 June 2026 Google announced three changes to its bidding and budgeting infrastructure. Two are opportunities you opt into. The third switched itself on for everyone on 17 August and moved the delivery curve of every budget-limited campaign. Here is what actually changed in the accounts.
Performance Max · · 10 min read
The standing criticism of Performance Max was that it was a black box. In 2026 the box opened considerably: channel reporting, search terms, campaign-level negatives, audience exclusions. The problem now is a different one — knowing which decisions that data actually licenses.
Measurement · · 11 min read
There is a technical deadline that will pass unnoticed in a lot of accounts until something quietly stops working: offline conversion uploads have moved to the Data Manager API. It is the right moment to fix the thing that matters more in lead generation than any bidding tweak.
Ecommerce · · 10 min read
If an agent can complete a purchase on the user’s behalf, the storefront stops being where the decision happens. UCP and Universal Cart are the infrastructure Google is using to make that scenario ordinary. Here is what it means for people who sell.
Search & AI Max · · 11 min read
AI Max is not a new campaign type. It is a switch that changes three things at once in your Search campaigns — how you get matched to queries, how your ad text is written, and which page the click lands on. Here is what you still control, what you no longer control, and how to measure it without fooling yourself.
Search & AI Max · · 9 min read
The automatic Dynamic Search Ads migration slipped from September 2026 to February 2027, so accounts are not forced through a structural change in the middle of Q4. It is a reprieve, not a cancellation — and two September deadlines have not moved.
AI Search · · 10 min read
For twenty years a search ad was a block of text placed next to the results. In the formats shown at Google Marketing Live 2026 the ad lives inside the generated answer, and Gemini composes the copy from your assets. Here is what that means for the people running campaigns.
Ecommerce · · 10 min read
Merchant Center changes never make headlines the way product launches do — but they are the only ones that can pull half your catalogue out of circulation. Here are the 2026-2027 deadlines and the order of work to meet them without surprises.
Privacy & compliance · · 11 min read
Consent Mode is not a banner: it is how your site tells Google what it may do with each visitor’s data. Misconfigured, it silently switches off remarketing and conversions. Configured properly, it recovers a meaningful share of what consent refusal takes away.
AI Search · · 10 min read
The figure everyone quotes is blunt: with an AI Overview on the page, ad CTR drops from 19.70% to 6.34%. It is true, and it is incomplete. During 2026 the curve stabilised and in some segments started climbing back. Here is how to read it without making the wrong call.
Formats & assets · · 8 min read
For plumbers, clinics, garages and emergency services, the call is the conversion. Google is retiring the format built for exactly that, in two steps: creation blocked from February 2026, serving stopped from February 2027.
Market & regulation · · 9 min read
It is easy to file antitrust proceedings under "matters for lawyers". But a court found that Google charged supracompetitive prices for general search text ads: that is a statement about what you paid, not an abstract principle.
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