Paid Media News (Week 22)
Paid Media News (Week 22)
Explore every update from this edition, with the original reporting and contributor credits.
A digest of the original edition. Updates and availability reflect what was reported at the time.
Ginny Marvin unpacks GML 2026 in a backstage Ads Decoded special
Ginny Marvin, Google Ads Product Liaison, has published a backstage edition of Ads Decoded from Google Marketing Live 2026, sitting down with Google's Head of Ads and Commerce Vidhya Srinivasan and product leaders Chris Monkman, Josh Moser, and Christine Turner to unpack the day's biggest announcements. The piece is organised around four themes.
Read this update in detail →Display campaigns move under Demand Gen as a standalone campaign type
Google has made Display inventory accessible through Demand Gen campaigns, signalling the end of the standalone Display campaign. Thomas Eccel flagged the change, noting that the move had been widely expected and that it follows the earlier migrations of Video Action campaigns and uploaded display banners into Demand Gen.
Read this update in detail →Google's "new prospects" mode appears in live accounts for true cold-audience targeting
The new prospects bidding mode announced at GML is now surfacing in real accounts, and practitioners are testing how strict it actually is. Maggie Humphrey and Arpan Banerjee both dug into the setting this week.
Read this update in detail →AI Max adds a Branded Searches control with three serving options
Google Ads has given AI Max campaigns a dedicated Branded Searches control, surfaced by Thomas Eccel. Advertisers can now choose exactly how AI Max handles brand queries with three settings: show ads on all relevant searches (the default), control branded searches through brand inclusions and exclusions, or show ads only on unbranded searches.
Read this update in detail →Search campaigns for Travel arrive with ad-group-level format toggles
Thomas Eccel has detailed how the new Search campaigns for Travel work in practice, following the GML announcement. Format selection lives at the ad-group level rather than the campaign level: a Formats panel inside ad-group settings lets advertisers independently enable Text ads (now able to pull from a travel feed), Travel Promotion Ads, and Booking Link Ads.
Read this update in detail →Google's AI shopping insights report begins rolling out across five markets
Google's AI shopping insights report: the Merchant Centre reporting suite previewed at GML: is now rolling out, flagged by Arpan Banerjee. The report shows a brand's share of voice on AI surfaces against similar brands across AI Mode, AI Overviews, and Gemini, a shopping funnel breakdown spanning discovery, evaluation, and purchase, product term insights revealing which terms shoppers use in AI conversations and the brand's share of voice for each, and an attribute completeness score that pinpoints which products are missing the specs AI surfaces look for.
Read this update in detail →Business Agent goes live for eligible e-commerce merchants
The Gemini-powered Business Agent previewed at GML is now live for eligible merchants, flagged by Khushboo Aulakh. The agent sits on a brand's profile in search results and answers product questions in the brand's voice before a customer clicks through: handling queries such as sizing or quantity calculations that would otherwise reach the customer service team.
Read this update in detail →Google Merchant Centre sets 18 August deadline for Merchant API migration
VIVEK GUPTA has flagged that Google has announced 18 August 2026 as the final date for migrating Google Merchant Centre integrations to the Merchant API. The Merchant API is becoming the future direction for product data management and integrations within Google's ecosystem, replacing the legacy Content API workflow.
Read this update in detail →ChatGPT Ads roll out conversion-optimised CPA campaigns from early June
OpenAI is rolling out conversion-optimised ads where advertisers only pay when a user buys after clicking, flagged by Juozas Kaziukėnas, with Anthony Higman and Glenn Gabe adding context. ChatGPT Ads launched less than four months ago with CPM ads, added CPC bidding a month ago, introduced a conversion-tracking pixel, and have now started rolling out CPA ads that bid for successful events.
Read this update in detail →Google Ads switches reach metrics to "Total Co-view" from 2 June
Google has confirmed the Google Ads API will move reach metrics to a "Total Co-view" definition starting 2 June 2026. The change aligns Google Ads reporting with offline media and third-party measurement standards across the API, UI, and Editor.
Read this update in detail →Google Ads 37-month data retention policy takes effect today!
Google Ads will enforce its 37-month data retention policy starting 1 June 2026, with Arpan Banerjee reiterating the deadline. Hourly, daily, and weekly data will be available for 37 months; monthly, quarterly, and annual data are retained for 11 years.
Read this update in detail →Data Manager API adds Google Marketing Platform event ingestion and IP support
Google has expanded the Data Manager API to send offline conversion events to Google Marketing Platform products: Campaign Manager 360, Search Ads 360, and Display & Video 360. The AdIdentifiers object now includes dclid, impressionId, matchId, and encrypted user IDs, as well as IP ingestion support for Google Ads Customer Match.
Read this update in detail →Google Tag Manager publishes details on the upcoming container update
Google has released a support page detailing the upcoming Google Tag / Google Tag Manager container update, flagged by Simo Ahava. A GTM container will now function as a fully operational Google Tag in itself, and any additional Google Tags added as destinations will benefit from optimised loading, shared settings, and a mutual permissions model.
Read this update in detail →Microsoft Clarity expands AI Bot Activity with a deeper Bot Analytics dashboard
Microsoft Clarity has updated its AI Bot Activity feature with an enhanced Bot Analytics dashboard, giving teams more detail on how AI crawlers and automated agents interact with their content. The dashboard now measures AI bot requests (total volume from crawlers and automated systems), AI bot traffic share, the proportion of pages crawled, a request status breakdown showing which requests succeed, redirect, or fail, and CDN violations that detect bots accessing paths disallowed by robots.txt.
Read this update in detail →Meta Pixel begins automatically collecting nine new web data signals from 30 May
Felipe Vergara Cediel has flagged that, from 30 May, the Meta Pixel automatically collects nine additional categories of web data: basic page information, multimedia content, business contact and location details, event and journey data, content classification, authorship, product and entity identification, product and entity attributes, and reviews, ratings, and prices. Matias Axel Ramayo added that Meta is also surfacing signals on how much is being wasted due to low-quality events sent through the API and Pixel.
Read this update in detail →Meta removes Page Likes campaigns in favour of profile-visit optimisation
Meta is removing the option to run Page Likes campaigns, flagged by Bram Van der Hallen. Previously, advertisers could run ads with an integrated one-click Follow button, which produced high-volume, low-cost follows.
Read this update in detail →Meta adds Customer Lifecycle Strategy at the ad-set level
Govind Singh has spotted a new Customer Lifecycle Strategy option at the ad-set level in Meta Ads. Advertisers choose between two settings: get conversions from all audiences (Meta optimises for the lowest cost per result across existing and new customers) or acquire new customers (Meta targets people who have never purchased, accepting a potentially higher cost per result to grow the customer base).
Read this update in detail →Meta Ads adds funnel-stage and other table grouping in Ads Manager
Meta has added the ability to group Ads Manager tables by funnel stage and other dimensions, surfaced by Bram Van der Hallen. The option appears in the Breakdown menu via a "Group table by" toggle, available at the campaign and ad-set levels.
Read this update in detail →Meta's creative-feature testing toggle resurfaces account-level audit need
Peter Quadrel has flagged the steps to stop Meta from testing AI creative features on live ads without explicit approval. The path runs through Ads Manager → All Tools → Advertising Settings → "Test new creative features," where advertisers can toggle the setting off and uncheck individual enhancements.
Read this update in detail →Instagram tests opening directly into Reels before the Feed
David Vargas has flagged that Instagram is testing a version that loads Reels first when the app opens, ahead of the Feed. If the change sticks, it would materially shift placement distribution, particularly for Gen Z and Millennial audiences, and change how impressions are allocated across Meta placements.
Read this update in detail →Amazon adds location and radius targeting to Sponsored TV
Amazon has introduced location targeting for Sponsored TV campaigns, including radius-based options in the campaign setup, as Prem Gupta flagged. Sponsored TV targeting previously centred on audiences, demographics, and behavioural signals; advertisers can now narrow delivery geographically, including at the city level and via radius coverage.
Read this update in detail →Amazon lowers the Brand Tailored Promotions audience threshold to 500
Christian Otto Kelm has flagged that Amazon's Brand Tailored Promotions are now available from a minimum audience size of 500. The promotions let sellers select audiences based on the shopping behaviour customers have shown with their brand; audiences that fail to meet the 500-member minimum are not eligible.
Read this update in detail →Amazon launches Disburse on Demand for daily seller payouts
Amazon has introduced Disburse on Demand, allowing sellers to request disbursement up to once every 24 hours rather than waiting for the standard pay cycle, as flagged by Nik Hall. Three conditions must be met: a positive available balance at the time of request, an active linked bank account in Seller Central, and at least 24 hours since the last request.
Read this update in detail →Amazon expands AMC MCP tools to all Marketing Cloud instances
Amazon has expanded its AMC workflow MCP tools to all Amazon Marketing Cloud instances, flagged by Ivan Marynych. Previously, the tools required an AWS Clean Rooms-enabled environment, which limited access.
Read this update in detail →Amazon tests "Shop by feature" sponsored placements in search results
Destaney Wishon has spotted a new "Shop by feature" sponsored ad placement appearing in Amazon search results. The format surfaces sponsored products organised by feature rather than strictly by the search term entered, expanding where sponsored products can appear beyond the direct intent of a query.
Read this update in detail →Amazon packages its Alexa for Shopping engine for rival retailers
Amazon has begun selling its conversational shopping assistant technology to retailers it competes with, as Roger Dunn has flagged. The announcement is the AWS Agentic Shopping Assistant (ASA), built by the AWS Generative AI Innovation Centre, which packages the architecture, starter code, and lessons learned from Amazon's own Alexa for Shopping: recently rebranded from Rufus: for external retailers.
Read this update in detail →Google brings Preferred Sources into AI Overviews and AI Mode
Google has expanded its Preferred Sources feature into AI Overviews and AI Mode, as announced by Google Search product manager Duncan Osborn and flagged by Glenn Gabe, Leigh McKenzie, Louisa Frahm, and Barry Schwartz across the community. Links from a user's selected sources now appear with a clear label inside AI responses, mirroring how Top Stories already highlights them.
Read this update in detail →Chrome Lighthouse adds an Agentic Browsing audit category
Google has added an experimental Agentic Browsing category to Chrome's Lighthouse audit tool. Instead of auditing only for human users, the new category tests whether AI agents can read a site, navigate key pages, understand actions and forms, and reliably interact with elements.
Read this update in detail →Google posts official LLMs.txt documentation on the Chrome Developers site
Chris Long has flagged that Google has officially published an LLMs.txt page on the Chrome Developers site, describing how the file helps AI agents understand a site's primary content. The documentation notes that, without the file, agents may spend more time crawling a site to understand its structure and primary content, and also describes LLMs.txt as an emerging protocol.
Read this update in detail →Microsoft redesigns Copilot for a simpler, faster experience
Microsoft has redesigned Copilot to be simpler, faster, and more intuitive, announced by CEO Satya Nadella. The redesign focuses on keeping users in the flow of their work, with a streamlined interface across the Copilot experience.
Read this update in detail →Claude Opus 4.8 arrives in Copilot for PowerPoint on launch day
Microsoft has made Claude Opus 4.8 available in Copilot in PowerPoint on the same day it was released, flagged by Derek Johnson. The model joins OpenAI's GPT-5.5 inside PowerPoint, giving users a choice of frontier models to shape and build presentations directly in the application.
Read this update in detail →OpenAI ships Codex plugin sharing and general-availability Goal mode
OpenAI has shipped a set of Codex updates this week, flagged by Corey Ching. Workspace plugin sharing now lets teams distribute custom plugins, reuse internal tools and workflows, and manage what is available across the organisation: available for Business users, with early access for Enterprise teams on request.
Read this update in detail →The advertiser takeaway
Each update reflects the source reporting at the time. Open an individual update for its full description, original links and media.
Explore the original edition
Every update from this edition is linked above. Explore the original newsletter for its full context, contributor credits and reporting links.
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