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
Google Ads has rolled out full placement reporting for the Search Partner Network, which is surfaced via the PPC News Feed. Advertisers can now see specific placement-level performance data across the Search Partner Network: closing the long-standing gap where Search Partners delivered traffic with effectively no placement visibility.
Google Ads
Ahead of Google Marketing Live on 21 May, Ginny Marvin has previewed three AI Max updates.
Google Ads
Google Ads will enforce the 37-month data retention policy from 1 June 2026, with VIVEK GUPTA flagging the deadline ahead of enforcement. The policy was officially confirmed in the Google Ads Developer Blog (covered in Week 19) and applies to the Google Ads API, Google Ads scripts, the Google Analytics Data API, and the BigQuery Data Transfer Service.
Google Merchant Center
Barry Schwartz has flagged that Google is testing Merchant Advisor: a Merchant Centre equivalent to Google Ads Advisor, originally spotted by Tamara Hellgren on Momentic and surfaced by Hana Kobzová in her weekly digest. The product mirrors Ads Advisor's design pattern: in-context AI assistance for diagnosing feed issues, troubleshooting disapprovals, surfacing optimisation opportunities, and answering platform questions through natural-language interaction with the Gemini-powered Advisor.
Google Ads
Thomas Eccel and Tamás Geiger have both flagged a wave of phishing emails targeting Google Ads advertisers, using a "synchronisation error in your Google Ads account" pretext to trick recipients into clicking a malicious link that purports to fix the synchronisation issue. The emails are sophisticated enough to bypass standard spam filters and reach advertisers' primary inboxes.
Google Ads
Dario Zannoni has flagged a quiet but consequential update to Google's Help pages: primary conversion actions not used for bidding optimisation may be treated differently than expected. The clarification updates the public documentation to explicitly state how primary conversions feed (or don't feed) into Smart Bidding optimisation when they're not selected as the optimisation goal.
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.
Microsoft Advertising
Microsoft has scheduled Microsoft Advertising Activate for 19 May 2026: sitting between Google I/O and Google Marketing Live in the May product-announcement crunch. Hana Kobzová has surfaced the event in her weekly digest.
Microsoft Advertising
Microsoft Advertising has expanded transparency controls for Performance Max campaigns, detailed in a May 2026 blog post. The update gives advertisers clearer visibility into PMax campaign behaviour, closing the same transparency gaps practitioners have been flagging across Google's Performance Max product for the past year.
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 Merchant Center
Google has rolled out shopping checkout buttons in Google Search results: the first native checkout shopping experience in Search since the original "Buy on Google" surface was killed in 2023. Juozas Kaziukėnas has flagged the launch and traced its mechanics: the checkout flow is powered by Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), the same payment infrastructure that has been running in Gemini and AI Mode for the past two months.
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.
Microsoft Advertising
Joey Bidner has shared a practitioner read on Microsoft Advertising dynamic remarketing: a surface he previously dismissed, assuming Google's market share made Microsoft's inventory irrelevant. The actual results: strong campaign attribution and holistic account lift across multiple test accounts, with dynamic remarketing performing materially better than expected for a non-Google audience surface.
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.
Microsoft Advertising
Microsoft Advertising has expanded custom columns to support all Microsoft Advertising conversion metrics: closing a gap that practitioners had been requesting through community feedback channels. Navah Hopkins has flagged the launch with the practical scope: advertisers can now create custom metrics based on all conversions or primary conversions data, with revenue and ROAS metrics anchored to the values set at the conversion-goal level.
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
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
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.
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