Follow Google Ads changes with dated source evidence, contributor credits and practical context for campaign decisions.
Google Ads
Vivek Gupta has flagged that Google Ads will require Passkeys for certain sensitive actions starting 15 July 2026, as part of the broader Security Agent/authentication overhaul covered in Week 18. The requirement applies to specific high-risk operations rather than to all account access.
Google Ads
Ahead of Google Marketing Live, Google has published practitioner guidance on getting more value from ad creatives inside Google Ads, surfaced by Ginny Marvin (Product Liaison). The four recommendations cover the full creative lifecycle.
Google Ads
Google has officially introduced the Site Visits asset for Google Ads. You can see visit metrics in Search, Performance Max, and AI Max ads: boosting both ad performance and credibility by showing past visit volume to the advertised location or website.
Google Ads
Google has extended Demand Gen campaigns to accept uploaded GIF, JPG and PNG banners directly, with the banners serving on the Google Display Network from within the same Demand Gen campaign. Thomas Eccel has flagged the rollout (with Dario Zannoni credited for the initial sighting) and frames the strategic significance: this is the latest signal of an ongoing Display-to-Demand-Gen migration, with a formal "upgrade" path no longer looking far-fetched.
Google Ads
Google has confirmed Google I/O 2026 for 19–20 May, with livestreamed keynotes, technical sessions, and the standard set of product announcements that frame the year's developer roadmap. The event sits one day before Google Marketing Live on 21 May, creating a three-day window for major Google product announcements that will shape paid-media practice through the rest of 2026.
Google Ads
Google has officially confirmed the new data retention policy via the Google Ads Developer Blog, providing the canonical source URL that was missing when the change was first flagged in Week 18 via advertiser email. Effective 1 June 2026, Google Ads API, Google Ads scripts, Google Analytics Data API, and the BigQuery Data Transfer Service all transition to a 37-month retention window for granular performance statistics (daily, hourly, weekly).
Google Ads
Google Ads has rolled out an Impact Preview for negative keywords inside Performance Max: the first time advertisers can see the estimated conversion impact of a negative before committing it to the campaign. The preview shows the expected "Loss in conversion value" as a percentage at the per-keyword level.
Google Ads
Ginny Marvin (Google Ads Product Liaison) has detailed AI Max's URL-targeting capabilities in reply to Gabriele Benedetti's question about parity with DSA campaigns. The clarification corrects the assumption that AI Max lacks landing-page targeting: AI Max does support a combination of URL rule types: URLs, custom labels in page feeds, and URL combo rules: similar to DSA.
Google Ads
Google Merchant Centre has detailed new requirements for local inventory ads and free local listings. A new pickup_cost attribute lets merchants specify pickup costs for in-store products, enabling accurate total costs to be shown on local inventory ads and free local listings.
Google Ads
Google has launched Search campaigns for Travel, consolidating previously fragmented travel campaign types into a single AI Max-powered workflow. Travel advertisers had been managing different campaign types across separate interfaces: Hotel campaigns, Search ads with travel-specific feeds, and other vertical-specific formats: each with their own setup, reporting and optimisation patterns.
Google Ads
Emirhan Bayutmuş has spotted a new Results tab appearing inside Google Ads Recommendations, surfacing the actual performance impact of changes: budget updates, bid adjustments: that the advertiser has accepted. The tab is rolling out gradually and is not yet available in every account.
Google Ads
Jyll Saskin Gales has announced Inside Google Ads Live: Toronto, a one-day Google Ads conference at the CN Tower on 29 October 2026.
Google Ads
Google has confirmed via direct email to advertisers a new data retention policy for Google Ads, effective 1 June 2026. Hourly, daily and weekly performance reporting will be available for the most recent 37 months only.
Google Ads
Google Ads has improved the precision of urban-rural targeting in India, enabling advertisers to achieve tighter control over delivery across the country's varied geographic and economic segments. The update lets campaigns specifically target urban or rural areas, allowing for sharper segmentation of audiences that previously fell into mixed targeting buckets.
Google Ads
Google has marked AI Max for Search's first anniversary with two practitioner-facing additions. AI Brief is a Gemini-powered control layer that lets advertisers steer AI Max in plain English across three dimensions: Messaging Guidelines (what ads should and should not say, e.g. "never mention prices"), Matching Guidelines (which searches to capture or avoid, e.g. "prioritise searches for healthy pantry staples"), and Audience Guidelines (tailored messages for specific cohorts).
Google Ads
Google Ads will automatically switch call recording to "Yes" on 1 July 2026 for any account that has not actively selected a setting. Accounts that want to keep recording disabled must change the setting to "No" before 30 June; otherwise, the auto-default will apply.
Google Ads
Optmyzr has published its State of Google Ads Q1 2026 report, with Frederick Vallaeys analysing performance data across 21,425 Google Ads accounts. The headline finding: total impressions are down 11% year-on-year, but CTR is up 21%: traffic is becoming materially more intentional rather than higher in volume.
Google Ads
Microsoft Advertising has added conversion and spend metrics to the Performance Max Website Publisher URL report, addressing a transparency gap that had limited the report's usefulness. Navah Hopkins has flagged the change and notes the practical use case: advertisers can now identify which publisher placements are converting and at what spend level, then build Audience Ads campaigns specifically targeting the winning placements.
Google Ads
Google has rolled out two updates to Demand Gen as part of the April Demand Gen Drop. Demand Gen in Commerce Media Suite extends retailer first-party catalogue and conversion data into Demand Gen inventory in Google Ads, building on existing Display & Video 360 and Search Ads 360 support.
Google Ads
Google has simplified the keyword forecast metrics method in the Google Ads API, consolidating previously fragmented forecasting calls into a streamlined GenerateKeywordForecastMetrics method. The change supersedes the prior multi-method approach for keyword and campaign forecasting and aligns the forecasting API with the broader v24 simplification work.
Google Ads
Google has launched AI Max for Shopping, extending the AI Max model from Search into the Shopping campaign type. The system uses Merchant Centre feeds to transform product data into dynamic Shopping ads that answer conversational queries: capturing the long-tail searches that standard Shopping campaigns historically miss because they fall outside literal product keyword matches.
Google Ads
Natasha Kaurra has spotted a new "Connect a data source" option appearing inside Google Ads under Form Submission Conversion Goal, allowing advertisers to feed BigQuery or SQL-level data directly into the Google tag. Govind Singh has confirmed the same option appearing in his accounts.
Google Ads
Google has issued a sunset reminder for Google Ads API v20, prompting teams still running on the older version to migrate to a supported release. v20 will stop accepting requests after the announced sunset date, and integrations that have not been migrated will begin returning errors against the older endpoints.
Google Ads
Google has updated its certification process to allow advertisers to apply for cryptocurrency and complex speculative financial product certifications directly inside their Google Ads account, starting May 2026. The new in-account flow covers four certification categories: cryptocurrency exchanges and software wallets, cryptocurrency hardware wallets, cryptocurrency coin trust, and complex speculative financial products.
Google Ads
The Performance Max Search Partners and Display Network exclusion option flagged by Thomas Eccel as a test in Week 18 has now rolled out to a broader pool of accounts. Jason King has confirmed seeing the option live in his accounts, framing the rollout as a brand-new Google Ads option now widely available.
Google Ads
Thomas Eccel has flagged a new metric appearing in Google Ads Brand Lift Studies, called Association. The metric lets advertisers select a concept, category, or attribute and measure how strongly users associate the brand with that concept after exposure to the campaign: a measurement type previously available only through bespoke brand-tracking research with separate vendors.
Google Ads
Google has detailed product reporting changes in the Google Ads API for advertisers running upgraded Shopping campaigns. The changes affect how product-level data flows through the API once Shopping campaigns are migrated into Performance Max or AI Max, and adjust the resource model for product segmentation in reporting queries.
Google Ads
Google is rolling out a Channel performance over time report for Performance Max, flagged by Aleksejus Podpruginas. Found under the Insights and reports section in a dedicated Channel performance tab, it shows how a campaign distributes budget and delivers across networks over time: the kind of channel-level visibility advertisers have long said Performance Max lacked.
Google Ads
Anthony Higman has spotted Google integrating immersive map view videos into PPC ad units. The functionality builds on a setting that appeared in Location Manager earlier in the year, where advertisers were pre-opted into the feature.
Google Ads
Dario Zannoni has also flagged the appearance of Uploaded Display Ads in Demand Gen campaigns, a new format that allows up to 20 static images in classic display sizes (300×250, 120×600, and others) in GIF, JPG, or PNG format. Ads created in this format will run exclusively on the Google Display Network.
