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
Product feeds in Demand Gen are expanding across three structural dimensions. New verticals: Vehicle feeds become eligible for Demand Gen product feeds in Q3 2026, extending the format beyond traditional ecommerce.
Google Ads
Demand Gen Uplift Experiments is a new automated A/B testing framework that measures the statistically significant uplift of adding Demand Gen to an existing campaign mix (PMax, App, Video, Display). The mechanic provides a turnkey way to isolate Demand Gen's impact on conversions, sales, CPA, or ROAS: answering the long-standing question of whether Demand Gen is incremental or cannibalising.
Google Ads
Ask Advisor in Google Ads is upgraded with five 2026 additions: Gemini 3 model upgrade, mobile app availability, instant certifications that replace weeks of manual paperwork with instant approvals (Anthony Higman flagged the certification surface this week appearing inside the Google Ads account), 24/7 security monitoring with personalised dashboards (flagged domains, dormant user review), and a revamped homepage with intelligent reporting and AI-powered data visualisation. The visualisation surface lets advertisers transform complex data into clear visualisations with a single prompt.
Google Ads
Demand Gen campaigns are now generally available within Commerce Media Suite: letting brands use retailers' first-party data to reach high-intent shoppers across YouTube, Discover, and Gmail. The integration enables brand-retailer collaboration on YouTube and Demand Gen surfaces, with conversion and sales optimisation powered by retailer first-party data flowing through Google AI.
Meta Ads
Matias Axel Ramayo has flagged that, after long providing only "budget scheduling," Meta has finally added ad scheduling: letting advertisers show ads only within business hours, which is particularly relevant for messaging campaigns to avoid low-quality 3am messages. Previously possible only via total budget configuration (tedious to set up), the new ad scheduling provides a simpler, modifiable schedule based on the fan page's operating hours.
Google Ads
Campaign Type Attribution is a structural shift for Demand Gen reporting: moving beyond Platform Comparable Conversions (a reporting-only view) into an active attribution model where Demand Gen campaigns can be optimised against the full conversion value they drive, independent of other Google campaign types. Georgi Zayakov flagged it as the most interesting Demand Gen update from GML, noting it makes Demand Gen results "more directly comparable to social platforms": which is clearly where Google wants Demand Gen to sit in the marketing mix.
YouTube
Attributed Branded Searches (ABS) is now generally available globally as the "always-on" metric that connects YouTube ad exposure to subsequent branded searches. The metric counts users who saw a YouTube ad and subsequently performed a branded search, serving as a rapid leading indicator for campaigns aimed at driving brand interest and market share.
Industry
Store Sales measurement: which connects digital ad investments to offline sales: is expanding eligibility to advertisers of all sizes through AI-modelled, privacy-safe insights. Previously, Store Sales required high traffic volumes and complex data setups; the new eligibility pilot uses Google AI to generate high-fidelity reporting even for accounts that didn't previously meet eligibility requirements.
Google Meridian
Meridian GeoX is Google's new open-source geo incrementality measurement framework, designed to power transparent, cost-effective geo experiments and calibrate Marketing Mix Models. The structural features include Native Multi-Cell Execution (comparing multiple treatments against a common control group in a single study, reducing total cost and time-to-insight), Time-Based Regression with Stratified Sampling for budget-efficient lift detection (with Synthetic Control and Synthetic Difference-in-Differences coming), a Flexible Design Wrapper for choosing methodologies, and integration with Meridian MMM for calibrated prior generation.
Google Tag
Govind Singh has flagged a small but consequential Google Ads update: conversion tags can now be pushed directly into Google Tag Manager from the Conversions setup screen. The new workflow: create the conversion action in Google Ads, choose "Use Google Tag Manager," click "Set up in Google Tag Manager", and the conversion tag arrives in GTM automatically with Conversion ID, Conversion Label, and tag type pre-filled.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics 360 is integrating Meridian: Google's open-source marketing mix modelling solution: bringing advanced cross-channel budget forecasting into the GA360 surface. Luka Cempre, Brais Calvo Vázquez, Mehdi Oudjida, and Google Analytics all flagged the launch as a structurally significant move.
Industry
Chris Long has flagged a significant Chrome documentation update: Chrome released documentation on its new Agentic Browsing audits, and buried in the spec is a reference to how the audit will check for the LLMs.txt file at the domain root. Crystal Carter was credited as the original finder.
Gemini
Click-to-call ads are getting a structural upgrade: Gemini now analyses what was actually said on each call to score leads more precisely, rather than relying solely on call duration as a proxy for lead quality. The system filters out misdials and low-intent calls from reporting, traces each qualified call back to the originating campaign, and feeds the lead-quality signals back into Smart Bidding so the algorithm bids for high-value callers rather than just call volume.
Google Merchant Center
Ask Advisor in Merchant Centre launched in closed beta in the US in English: a Gemini-powered conversational assistant that diagnoses account and feed issues, surfaces performance and audience insights, and provides a roadmap to improve Store Quality Score. The advisor offers performance reporting and insights tailored to business goals, product listing and issue-resolution guidance for disapprovals, and personalised, actionable recommendations such as promotion opportunities or title optimisations.
OpenAI
OpenAI for Business has launched ChatGPT for PowerPoint in beta. The integration lets teams create, edit, understand, and polish presentations using natural language directly inside PowerPoint: starting from notes, docs, spreadsheets, prompts, or an existing deck.
Google Merchant Center
AI Performance Insights is a new Merchant Centre reporting suite that shows how products are being discovered on AI Mode, Gemini, and AI Overviews. The reporting includes brand Share of Voice vs. similar brands, journey-stage breakdown (discovery, evaluation, purchase), product term popularity, and structured attribute completeness scoring.
Google Ads
If you're joining here directly, Part 1 covered Google Marketing Live 2026 and Google I/O: more than 30 launches reshaping Search, YouTube, Commerce, Measurement, and Creative. Catch up on Part 1 →
Industry
Journey-aware Bidding is a beta upgrade for Search campaigns with Target CPA that lets Google's bidding algorithm learn from every step of the lead journey: not just the biddable conversion: to sharpen predictions and improve performance. The mechanic requires advertisers to import all relevant conversion actions (phone calls, form submissions, newsletter signups, marketing/sales-qualified leads, closed deals) into Google Ads, and then Smart Bidding uses the full sequence to model conversion likelihood.
Industry
Commerce Media Suite is expanding with four new capabilities. SKU-level reporting lets brands see precise campaign impact on retail sales per product, including YouTube, and is available in Google Ads, Display & Video 360, and Search Ads 360.
Gemini
Google introduced Gemini Spark and Gemini Omni at I/O. Gemini Omni is the unified multimodal model that natively handles text, images, and video in a single workflow: flagged by Endrit Restelica as a step change in generative AI capabilities.
Industry
Microsoft launched a dedicated Bid strategy report that shows strategy status and performance metrics (average target ROAS, ROAS, revenue, conversions), with a conversion delay window visualisation, and full bid strategy settings (Target ROAS, Maximum CPC). Paired with this: Cross-account portfolio bidding lets agencies group campaigns across multiple accounts under a single strategy.
Microsoft Clarity
Inside the Activate "What's Next" segment, Microsoft previewed Clarity AI Visibility: a forthcoming Clarity module tracking how AI surfaces engage with a website across three dimensions:
Industry
The Bid Strategy Report gains new metrics: Avg. Target ROAS, Avg.
Industry
Seasonality Adjustments for Portfolio Bidding: previously announced: are now fully available for portfolio bid strategies and shared budgets. It lets us as advertisers signal forthcoming demand spikes (sales events, product launches, seasonal peaks) to Microsoft's bidding algorithm, mirroring the Google Ads seasonality adjustment surface, which has been live for years.
Industry
Three Search-side budget and bidding upgrades land alongside the AI Max GA. Demand-led budget pacing uses Google AI to optimise spend toward consumer demand peaks: capturing more volume on high-demand days and reducing spend on slow days, while respecting daily and monthly limits.
Amazon Ads
The standout structural launch from Activate: Import Centre lets advertisers import campaigns from Google Ads, Meta, Pinterest, and Amazon (plus file upload) into Microsoft Advertising in a single workflow. The interface surfaces insights as imports run: max active campaigns warnings, missing conversion goal issues, CPC mismatches between source and destination accounts: and supports scheduled imports with pause controls.
Amazon Ads
Juozas Kaziukėnas has flagged that Amazon has doubled the number of AI bots it is blocking, adding China's DeepSeek and Musk's xAI/Grok. Amazon now blocks 100 different bots, playing whack-a-mole as new ones emerge.
Amazon Ads
Amazon Ads ran its annual Amazon Upfront on Tuesday, 12 May 2026, in New York, unveiling its 2026–27 content slate, sports rights, ad-product roadmap, and a major measurement and creative push for Prime Video.
Amazon Ads
Andy Jassy confirmed at CEO level this week that Alexa for Shopping has rolled out broadly: bringing Rufus and Alexa+ together as a unified AI shopping assistant across phone, laptop, and Echo devices. In his words: "Alexa for Shopping is like having an expert personal shopper who already knows you and remembers your preferences, past purchases, and conversations, and carries that knowledge and understanding across your phone, laptop, and Echo devices."
Amazon Ads
Juozas Kaziukėnas has surfaced Shopify data showing AI-referred shoppers convert at nearly 50% higher rates than non-AI-referred traffic, with 14% higher average order value. The data is sourced from Shopify's aggregate platform statistics across its 7-million-store base and represents one of the first systematic measurements of AI-referral commercial performance.
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