The changes that matter to advertisers, with the sources behind them and a practical next step. Pick a topic and catch up at your own pace.
Google Ads
Performance Max campaigns now support data exclusions for Website Visitor Lists and Customer Match Lists. The feature allows excluding remarketing audiences rather than just using them as signals.
Apple Ads
Apple will make Search Results campaigns eligible for multiple ad positions starting in March 2026, with the rollout worldwide by month's end. Ads can appear at any position, but you can't choose or bid for specific spots.
Google Ads
Google Ads has updated its Gambling and games policy to disallow all promotion of online gambling content targeting Ethiopia, effective immediately. All existing online gambling certifications in Ethiopia have been revoked, and applications for certification will no longer be accepted.
Microsoft Advertising
A new preview hub lets advertisers see how ads appear across the Microsoft Advertising Network. You can preview ads on specific publishers (currently MSN and Outlook, with more coming), select individual assets, toggle between device views, and switch between full-page context and isolated ad view.
Google Ads
Google's Campaign Mix Experiments let you test multiple campaign types, budgets, and settings in one experiment. You can create up to five experiment arms with any campaigns (Search, Performance Max, Shopping, Demand Gen, Video, and App), with campaigns appearing in multiple arms and traffic split.
Google Ads
Google Ads has expanded its text guidelines feature to support all available languages. The feature was initially English-only, then extended to Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, German, Japanese, and Dutch, and is now globally available.
Google Ads
Google has released campaign total budgets in open beta for Search, Performance Max, and Shopping campaigns. The feature allows setting a total budget over a specific time period, from a few days to a few weeks, rather than managing daily budgets manually.
Meta Ads
Meta Ads adds five new features, including Threads integration and new breakdowns
Meta Ads
Meta is removing the Instagram Explore ad placement starting January 2026. When users tap tiles in the Instagram Explore grid, a new immersive Reels viewer opens instead of the Explore feed.
Pinterest Ads
Pinterest has launched Media Planner in Ads Manager, a tool for campaign planning and audience analysis based on demographics, interests, and keywords. It estimates metrics like impressions, reach, frequency, CPM, clicks, and CPC, with country-specific data.
Meta Ads
Meta is launching ads on Threads globally next week after the initial rollout last spring, with over 400 million monthly users. Ads extend existing Meta campaigns, adding Threads as a placement.
TikTok Ads
TikTok announced major upgrades to Smart+, its automated campaign solution. New features include Creative for Smart+ with Auto-select, which scans existing ads and eligible creator content from TikTok One to suggest top-performing creatives for your goals.
Microsoft Clarity
Microsoft Clarity has released AI Bot Activity, a new feature showing which AI systems and bots access your content. The dashboard reveals how often and at what scale bots are crawling, and which pages attract the most automated attention.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics 4 has restored Assisted Conversions reporting. To view: go to Advertising > Conversion Attribution Analytics Report and change the model to Last Click.
Looker Studio
Google has rolled out three new features in Looker Studio. Cross-data-source filtering enables filters to apply across multiple data sources.
Industry
Shopify has changed the default behaviour for sharing marketing pixel data. The platform now monitors attribution signals and may automatically suspend data sharing for pixels that don't show active signals, without warning.
Google Tag
Google Ads Data Manager will now suggest relevant product connections based on the user's login email. The update aims to reduce manual tool searching and to provide guidance on which integrations are missing from your setup.
Anthropic
Claude in Excel is now available for Pro plan subscribers. New capabilities include accepting multiple files via drag-and-drop, avoiding overwriting existing cells, and supporting longer sessions with auto-compaction.
Display & Video 360
Google will sunset Campaign and Insertion Order targeting in the Display & Video 360 API and Structured Data Files on February 23, 2026, aligning with the DV360 UI removal. After this date, API requests for AssignedTargetingOption resources under Campaign or InsertionOrder will return 404 errors, as will requests to advertisers.lineItems.generateDefault.
OpenAI
OpenAI has published technical documentation on the Codex CLI agent loop, their local, cross-platform agent for making code changes. The documentation covers how Codex builds and manages context, queries models, and applies patterns useful for anyone building agents on the Responses API.
OpenAI
OpenAI is charging a 4% fee on every sale made through ChatGPT's instant checkout. Starting January 26, Shopify merchants can opt in to sell directly through ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot.
Anthropic
Claude Code can now run for free using Ollama's Anthropic API compatibility. Developers can run Claude Code locally with open-source models while maintaining full agent and tool workflows.
Industry
Microsoft has launched the Agent Architecture Guidance Hub on Microsoft Learn. The guidance outlines principles and patterns for building secure, reliable agent solutions with a focus on Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Industry
Google's Ads Product Liaison Ginny Marvin has officially launched Season 1 of Ads Decoded podcast. The show moves past headlines into the mechanics of how Google Ads products actually work.
ChatGPT Ads
OpenAI is lining up advertisers for ChatGPT ads launching in early February. The company is asking for commitments of under $1 million over a several-week trial period.
Anthropic
Anthropic has launched health data integrations for Claude in beta. Four integrations are available: Apple Health (iOS), Health Connect (Android), HealthEx, and Function.
Industry
Google has filed an affidavit asking a federal judge to pause DOJ antitrust remedies, warning that court-ordered search and ad syndication would permanently expose its proprietary ad technology. Director of Product Management Jesse Adkins argues that large-scale syndication would allow competitors to reverse-engineer ad targeting, relevance signals, and auction mechanics developed over decades of R&D.
Amazon Ads
Amazon's AI shopping assistant Rufus is displaying advertising within its responses, marking the beginning of monetisation for Amazon's conversational AI. Additionally, Rufus has been spotted directing users to websites outside of Amazon, a shift from keeping users within Amazon's ecosystem.
Amazon Ads
Starting February 25, TikTok Shop requires US sellers to use only TikTok logistics: FBT, Upgraded TikTok Shipping, or Collections by TikTok. Seller fulfillment ends, stopping manual label printing and routing through unapproved 3PLs.
Amazon Ads
Amazon now shows all Vine-eligible listings in one Seller Central tab, replacing manual checks across reports and listings for large catalogs. It highlights eligible ASINs without custom tracking.
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