Paid Media News (Week 24)
Paid Media News (Week 24)
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.
Google delays the forced DSA migration to February 2027 and makes AI Max the default
Google has pushed back the automatic migration of Dynamic Search Ads to AI Max from September 2026 to February 2027, as confirmed by Google Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin in response to advertiser feedback requesting more time. The ability to create new DSA campaigns is being restored from 15 June, reversing an earlier phase-out, and Google is adding account-level reporting for final URL expansion alongside a fuller slate of metrics.
Read this update in detail →Google lets Text Guidelines be copied between campaigns
Google has added the ability to copy Text Guidelines from one campaign and paste them directly into another, flagged by Thomas Eccel. Term exclusions (up to 25) and messaging restrictions (up to 40) now carry across with one click inside the Text Guidelines beta section.
Read this update in detail →Performance Max gains asset experiments (Week 23)
Google has rolled out asset experiments in Performance Max, allowing advertisers to test new assets and measure success against multiple metrics, as confirmed on the Google Ads & Commerce announcements hub and via the PPC News Feed. Rather than swapping assets and hoping, advertisers can now run a structured experiment to quantify the lift a new asset delivers before committing to it.
Read this update in detail →Google changes the budget "warning buttons" again.
Anthony Higman noted that Google Ads has again redesigned the budget-warning buttons in their interface. This has elicited an amused response from the community: it seems the solution to flat budgets is more about redesigning the buttons rather than addressing the core issue.
Read this update in detail →Google tests image sitelink assets in Search ads
Anthony Higman has flagged a new Google Ads test placing image sitelink assets within Search ads. The format pairs sitelinks with images rather than the usual text-only links, giving the sponsored unit a more visual presentation beneath the main ad.
Read this update in detail →Google tests a sponsored card carousel in the Images tab
Google is testing a sponsored card-style carousel in the Images tab of Search. The format presents sponsored products as a swipeable card carousel within image results, extending where ads appear beyond the standard text and Shopping placements and into image-led browsing.
Read this update in detail →Google tests "Good Price" labels on Shopping ads
Google is testing a "Good Price" annotation appearing beneath prices on Shopping ads, flagged by Sachin Patel on X. The label adds a value signal to the listing, telling shoppers the price compares well, alongside related tests including a light-grey background for the "Sponsored results" label and a dotted-underline format for sitelink assets on mobile.
Read this update in detail →Google's "Top Pages" sitelink appears in Search results
Arpan Banerjee has spotted a new "Top Pages" sitelink surfacing in Google Search ads. The format groups an advertiser's most relevant pages into a single sitelink-style unit, expanding the ways Google can present those sitelinks beneath the main ad.
Read this update in detail →Google expands its Limited Ad Serving policy across Search
Google has expanded its Limited Ad Serving policy to cover more Search scenarios. Rolling out from June 2026 and fully implemented by 2028, the policy lets Google throttle impressions on searches it judges likely to create negative user experiences, targeting unqualified advertisers.
Read this update in detail →Google Ads will allow online lottery ads in Vietnam from 24 June
Google has announced an update to its Gambling and Games policy that, as of 24 June 2026, will allow online gambling advertisements in Vietnam by entities authorised by Vietlott to promote online lotteries. Advertisers must be an authorised agent of Vietlott and complete Google's country-specific certification before running ads.
Read this update in detail →Google releases Ads API Developer Assistant v3.0.0
Google has released version 3.0.0 of its Google Ads API Developer Assistant, announced on the Google Ads Developer Blog. The major release builds on the assistant's shift from code generation toward automated diagnostics and structured troubleshooting, helping developers query and manage campaigns in natural language, generate production-ready code, and identify failure states without manual log-diving.
Read this update in detail →Microsoft Ads launches Product Explorer for catalogue health
Microsoft Advertising has launched Product Explorer, a reporting tool that gives advertisers a centralised, searchable view of their entire product catalogue, as announced by Microsoft Product Liaison Navah Hopkins.
Read this update in detail →GA4 adds a conversion attribution models report with selectable timing
Thomas Eccel has flagged a new GA4 Conversion Attribution Models report in beta. It shows how conversion credit is attributed across paid and organic channels and lets advertisers compare attribution models side by side.
Read this update in detail →GA4 gains hostname data filters and source grouping
GA4 has added a hostname data filter and a new source grouping capability, flagged by Nichelle Halstrom and also surfaced by Himanshu Sharma and Michele Pisani. The hostname filter lets teams exclude staging, development, or spam hostnames at the data-filter level in admin settings, restoring a control lost in the move from Universal Analytics; the change is not retroactive and is still rolling out.
Read this update in detail →A Merchant Centre API issue delays feed updates
Bia Camargo has flagged a Google Merchant Centre API issue delaying product submissions and feed updates across integrations. Feeds that suddenly stop updating may be affected by a platform-side issue rather than an advertiser's own setup, leaving teams refreshing diagnostics while submissions lag.
Read this update in detail →BigQuery surfaces recent queries per tab.
Luka Cempre spotted a BigQuery UI update that makes recently run queries easily accessible alongside their results, apparently independent for each tab. A small quality-of-life change that saves jumping into query history to manage jobs across many open tabs.
Read this update in detail →Google Tag Manager details the Google Tag Gateway for advertisers
Google has published documentation on the Google Tag Gateway for advertisers in the Tag Manager help centre on Google Cloud Platform. The gateway routes Google tag requests through an advertiser's own first-party infrastructure on Google Cloud, improving measurement resilience against ad blockers and browser restrictions while keeping data collection first-party.
Read this update in detail →Meta rolls out "Push delivery to this ad" to more accounts
Meta is widening access to a "Push delivery to this ad" feature. At the ad level, when an ad set contains more than one ad, advertisers can select a specific ad, open "Show more options" beneath the multi-advertiser ads setting, and enable a toggle that pushes delivery to that ad.
Read this update in detail →Meta adds branching end pages to instant forms
Matias Axel Ramayo has flagged that Meta now supports two or more end pages for instant forms, branching on the user's answers. Depending on how someone responds to a question, the form can route them to end page 1, end page 2, and so on, including to options that disqualify a lead entirely.
Read this update in detail →Amazon caps product titles at 75 characters from 27 July, with AI rewriting the rest
Amazon has announced that, from 27 July 2026, product titles in all categories except media must be 75 characters or fewer, including spaces, as detailed by Leszek S. A new searchable field, Item Highlights, adds up to 125 characters for comma-separated phrases such as materials and use cases, shown beneath the title in search results and on the detail page.
Read this update in detail →Amazon requires AI disclosure for A+ Content and Brand Story images
Amazon has added a disclosure step for images uploaded to A+ Content and Brand Stories, requiring sellers to indicate whether an image is AI-generated and whether it features photorealistic AI-generated people, flagged by Ivan Marynych. The information is collected as metadata during upload, with no shopper-facing AI label at this stage, and the requirement applies only to A+ Content and Brand Stories, not the standard product image stack.
Read this update in detail →Amazon tests brand logos above the product title on detail pages
Vanessa Hung has flagged that Amazon is testing brand logos above the product title on select detail pages, replacing the small "Visit the Store" text link most buyers ignored. Placed before a shopper reads the title or price, the logo becomes an early trust cue: tapping it lets the buyer verify whether the current seller is authorised.
Read this update in detail →Amazon adds a bulk-sheet feature for off-Amazon spend control
Alexander Swade has flagged a new Amazon Ads bulk-sheet feature for off-Amazon spend control, which he traces to a direct exchange with Amazon staff after he posted feedback on the bulk-sheet section. An Amazon team member responded, took a follow-up feature request, and shipped it within a few weeks.
Read this update in detail →Virtual Multipacks appear automatically in Ads.
Christian Otto Kelm flagged that Amazon's Virtual Multipacks (VMP), which bundle units automatically and require sellers to opt out rather than in, are now also surfacing automatically inside Ads. Worth a check for sellers who never deliberately set up multipacks but may now be advertising them.
Read this update in detail →Walmart Connect audiences arrive in Google Display & Video 360
Walmart Connect audiences are launching in Google Display & Video 360, announced by Google Marketing Platform. The collaboration lets brands combine YouTube's reach with Walmart Connect's omnichannel audiences, built on real shopping behaviour, to target high-intent shoppers streaming video on YouTube.
Read this update in detail →OpenAI expands ChatGPT product-feed ads, citing 20% shopping-intent conversations
OpenAI has expanded product-feed ads in the ChatGPT Ads Manager, allowing retail advertisers to upload full product catalogues and auto-generate ads from individual items, rather than building campaigns one by one, as reported by Kat Sale, Todd Piechowski, and Juozas Kaziukėnas. OpenAI says feed-based ads have been among the strongest-performing formats in its beta, and the mechanic mirrors Google Shopping and Performance Max: the platform ingests the catalogue and builds ad units automatically rather than relying on keywords.
Read this update in detail →Apple rebuilds Siri on Google Gemini at WWDC
Apple has rebuilt Siri on Google Gemini, unveiled at WWDC 2026, flagged by Endrit Restelica. The overhauled assistant gains a dedicated app, remembers past conversations, can read what is on screen, and can take actions inside apps, working across Apple devices as one continuous thread.
Read this update in detail →Alphabet raises a record $85bn to fund AI compute
Alphabet has raised roughly $85bn in the largest equity offering in history, priced on 2 June, flagged by Bertrand Seguin. The raise includes a $10bn private placement by Berkshire Hathaway and funds Alphabet's planned 2026 capital expenditure of up to around $190bn, the vast majority going to data centres and AI compute.
Read this update in detail →SpaceX completes the largest IPO in history
SpaceX has gone public on the Nasdaq. The company priced its IPO at $135 a share, raising around $75bn and valuing it at roughly $1.77tn: the largest IPO ever: and now spans Starship, Starlink, xAI, X, and its launch business under one umbrella.
Read this update in detail →Google introduces the Open Knowledge Format for AI agent knowledge
Google has introduced the Open Knowledge Format (OKF), a vendor-neutral open specification for giving AI agents the curated context they need, flagged by Charly Wargnier. Published by Google Cloud on 12 June and available on GitHub, OKF v0.1 represents knowledge as a directory of plain Markdown files with YAML front matter, with no runtime, SDK, or build step: "just markdown, just files."
Read this update in detail →German court rules Google liable for its AI Overviews
A German regional court has ruled that Google is directly liable for false claims in its AI Overviews, treating them as Google's own content rather than a list of search results. The Regional Court of Munich issued a temporary injunction (case 26 O 869/26) barring Google from spreading false claims about two Munich publishers, after its AI wrongly linked them to scams and made claims that appeared in none of the cited sources.
Read this update in detail →Anthropic launches Claude Fable 5 as a new frontier model
Anthropic has released Claude Fable 5, its latest frontier model, now generally available on Google Cloud's Agent Platform, as noted by Google Cloud and discussed by Charly Wargnier in a comparison with Claude Opus 4.8. Fable 5 is part of a higher-capability tier and is positioned for enterprise teams building at scale, and is available across the same surfaces as other Claude models.
Read this update in detail →Anthropic discloses a US export-control directive affecting Fable 5 and Mythos 5
Anthropic has disclosed a US government export-control directive, citing national-security authorities, that suspends access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models for any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign-national Anthropic employees. To comply, Anthropic said it had to abruptly disable both models for all customers as of the evening of 12 June; access to all other Anthropic models remains unaffected.
Read this update in detail →Connect Google Business Profile to Gemini for a Business Notebook
Marie Haynes has flagged that you can now connect a Google Business Profile to Gemini to create a Business Notebook. It has access to customer reviews, questions, and performance data, can surface trends and new market opportunities, and can action profile updates such as changing business hours on request.
Read this update in detail →Bing ships an AI opt-out toggle for search results
Microsoft has shipped a preview extension that lets Bing users turn Copilot-style AI answers on or off with a single click, announced by Microsoft President and Head of Search Jordi Ribas. Users can also append "-ai" to any Bing query to suppress AI-generated responses for that search.
Read this update in detail →Track brand demand with an impressions-per-impression-share custom column
Brad Geddes has shared an underused Google Ads custom column for brand campaigns: impressions divided by impression share, multiplied by 100. Trended over several weeks or months, it shows how many impressions each point of impression share was worth, revealing when brand search volume was rising or falling.
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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