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
A new banner in the LSA platform flags changes to LSA verification. It suggests verification is being simplified, which had been a barrier for local advertisers.
Walmart Connect
Walmart is adding negative keywords to its ad platform. The long-requested control lets advertisers exclude irrelevant queries.
Google Ads
An SE Ranking study of 50,032 keywords found ads showing on 29.45% of commercial queries in Google AI Mode. Greg Sterling notes Google sees AI Mode as a way to expand the number of SERPs carrying ads.
ChatGPT Ads
Three ChatGPT Ads changes landed together. For you, this means the platform is maturing fast while shifting spend control, so recheck budget pacing under the weekly model.
Google Ads
Household exclusions were spotted inside a Performance Max campaign, in a European account. The setting had not been seen in PMax before.
Microsoft Advertising
Bing is showing ads that visually pop out during scrolling. The animated treatment appeared for multiple observers this week.
BigQuery
Scheduled BigQuery queries set exactly on the hour can execute twice. Scheduling a few minutes before or after the hour avoids the double run.
Google Ads
Google logged two more changes in its policy change log. For you, this means regulated verticals face fresh requirements, so check each policy against your markets.
YouTube
Version 25 of the Google Ads API landed on 22 July. It adds YouTube ad sub-format breakdowns by duration, Shorts social metrics for comments, likes, and shares, a loyalty retention goal, and a revamped new customer acquisition goal.
Amazon Ads
FBA sellers can now configure which products qualify for refunds without a physical return. Shipping back a $5 item can cost $8 to $12, so skipping the return saves money on cheap products.
Industry
The European Commission fined Google €890m on 23 July across two Digital Markets Act decisions: €460m for self-preferencing its shopping, hotels, transport, and sports services in Search, and €430m for blocking Play developers from steering users to cheaper channels. Google has 60 days to comply or faces periodic penalties of up to 5% of worldwide turnover, and is weighing an appeal, while the US President criticised the decision as unjustified.
Google Ads
Google says its AI now matches Shopping ads to natural-language, long-tail searches, not just exact product terms. Ad copy is tailored using Merchant Center feed details, confirmed in updated PMax documentation.
OpenAI
OpenAI Presence helps enterprises test agents before launch and monitor them in production, treating launch as a milestone rather than the finish line.
Google Ads
Google has extended the Content API for Shopping timeline, reported by Search Engine Roundtable. Developers gain more time to migrate to the Merchant API.
Industry
Smarter Ecommerce analysed 383 million Search impressions with AI Max activated. Over 25% of exact match keyword impressions were served on AI Max's expanded matching rather than the keyword as written.
Anthropic
Claude Opus 5 approaches Fable 5's frontier intelligence at half the price, with state-of-the-art results on several coding and knowledge-work evaluations. It is positioned as thoughtful, proactive, and efficient.
OpenAI
A new bid strategy removes manual bid prices entirely. OpenAI's algorithms decide which auctions to enter to get the most results from your budget.
ChatGPT Ads
You can now manage which actions third-party AI agents take in your ad accounts and catalogues, from a new MCP section under Integrations in Business Suite. This continues the MCP server opening covered in Week 29.
OpenAI
OpenAI is licensing Yelp's reviews, ratings, photos, and business data to power real-time local recommendations in ChatGPT, per Axios. Human experience data becomes a key input for AI search.
ChatGPT Ads
ChatGPT Ads now offers Conversions as a campaign objective, currently for Standard campaigns only, not Product feed campaigns.
ChatGPT Ads
Hovering the Conversions column now shows a tooltip with three segments, including conversion value and view-through attribution.
Google Merchant Center
Google is changing how Manufacturer Centre handles manual updates, with brand product data surfacing in Merchant Centre. Practitioners will see how their products perform there instead.
Amazon Ads
Amazon expanded location-based video ads into three new locations in the Americas, with customisation for store locations, local offers, and clickthrough. A new console checkbox lets advertisers block demographic signals, limiting them to audiences without age or gender data, and applies only to first-party Amazon Studios video creative.
Amazon Ads
Amazon disclosed that Amazon Business now generates $60bn, up from $35bn in 2022. The B2B marketplace grows quietly inside the consumer one.
Anthropic
Record your screen while doing a task, talking through it, and Claude turns the recording into a reusable skill. Next time, you run the skill instead of repeating the steps.
Google Ads
From 21 July, you cannot appeal a policy decision made more than six months ago from your account. Older decisions fall outside the in-account appeal route entirely.
Microsoft Clarity
Clarity's AI Citations dashboard now clusters citation queries into automatically generated topics. As AI search cites more sites, the grouping shows which themes drive citations.
Amazon Ads
Amazon caps most product titles at 75 characters from 27 July, with media categories exempt. A new searchable Item Highlights field of up to 125 characters holds overflow specifications.
Google Ads
The Brand report announced months ago is appearing in accounts. It shows branded searches generated per Demand Gen campaign and cost against branded-search trends over time.
Google Ads
Google's tightened verification for financial services advertisers began rolling out across the EU this week. Identities are verified before campaigns launch, not after.
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