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.
ChatGPT Ads
OpenAI says it will test visual ads later in October in the US with an initial group of advertisers. The ads are planned for image-generation moments, are labeled, and are separate from the generated image.
Google Ads
Google’s Demand Gen discussion recommends using asset reporting to guide gradual additions instead of replacing creative on a fixed timetable.
Display & Video 360
Google says Vertical Video Unification will let DV360 advertisers buy and measure vertical video across channels in one place with centralised frequency management.
Pinterest's 9 September Men's Trend Report highlights interests around offline activities, hosting, grooming and workwear. For relevant advertisers, these are leads for creative research and testing rather than population-wide forecasts of what men will buy.
OpenAI
OpenAI has announced ChatGPT Images 2.5, with targeted image comments, sketch references and templates for formats including product photos. The company says it improves reference preservation and consistency across edits, with rollout across ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work and Codex.
Google Ads
Google has documented a way to prefill Performance Max asset groups with material generated in Asset Studio, including headlines, descriptions, images and videos.
YouTube
Google’s video-format documentation now describes bumper ads as non-skippable videos lasting between five and six seconds, replacing the earlier description of six seconds or shorter.
YouTube
YouTube is updating its branded-content disclosure label and adding manual age and location controls when creators declare paid promotion.
Google Ads
A reported Search ad test displays a “What customers love” summary drawn from store-rating reviews beneath the sponsored result.
Google Ads
Arpan Banerjee spotted Google hiding extra ad assets behind a “+2” indicator, and Barry Schwartz independently reproduced the collapsed sitelink treatment.
ChatGPT Ads
As self-service ChatGPT advertising expands, practitioners are highlighting a text customisation setting that can generate personalised and translated headlines and descriptions without individual approval.
Reddit Ads
Reddit is introducing asset groups so advertisers can organise different product lines or use cases within a single Max campaign.
Amazon Ads
Amazon DSP now supports VAST versions 4.0 to 4.3 on third-party publisher inventory worldwide, selecting the highest compatible version for each publisher’s player.
Google Workspace
Google announced Pics, an image creation and editing product built on Nano Banana, with access rolling out over the coming weeks to AI Pro and Ultra subscribers, as well as most Workspace business customers.
Gemini
Google launched agentic video understanding for supported Gemini Flash and Flash-Lite models via the Gemini API, Google AI Studio, and the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform.
Gemini
Google has released Lyria 3.5 in the Gemini app and the Gemini API, adding more flexible options for vocal or instrumental tracks and for shorter or longer output.
Google Ads
Google Ads is rolling out a beta workflow that converts assets from a website, ad, or asset group into short horizontal or vertical videos. Dario Zannoni's account test produced a 12-second, five-scene video with voiceover, while Google's August Demand Gen update describes wider multimodal video creation and editable storyboards.
YouTube
New Google guidance cites Nielsen research attributing 49% of campaign ROI to creative and Ekimetrics analysis finding that stronger creative can more than double YouTube ROI. The recommendations include using human voices, introducing the brand early, designing for the platform, and avoiding misleading interface elements such as fake buttons.
Google Merchant Center
Google has changed lifestyle_image_link from a single-value field to a repeated field, allowing merchants to submit up to 5 lifestyle images for each product. These images are designed for browsable surfaces where showing the product in a natural setting can provide more context than the main packshot.
Google Ads
Google has documented a “Save and Set Experiment” option that turns a Performance Max ad or asset-group edit into an A/B test while retaining the previous version as a holdback. The same release adds creative diagnostics in Ask Advisor and AI-led fixes for issues such as logo placement, video trimming, and aspect-ratio coverage in Demand Gen.
Google Merchant Center
Google has notified advertisers that images supplied via image_link below 500 × 500 pixels will be disapproved as of 31 January 2027, with 1,500 × 1,500 pixels recommended. Hana Kobzová surfaced the notice first, with Thomas Eccel sharing the deadline in the contributor feed.
Meta Ads
Bram Van der Hallen spotted an option to choose age and gender signals for each creative within a single ad set. Meta can still deliver beyond the selected audience when it predicts a better response, so the setting is a signal rather than a strict targeting boundary.
Meta Ads
Meta Ads now offers free Adobe Express access with more than 100 Reels templates, allowing advertisers to create and test Reels creative without additional design resources.
Microsoft Advertising
Microsoft Bing is testing large images in Search ads that would substantially increase the visual footprint of sponsored results, with early coverage suggesting a material upside in CTR.
TikTok Ads
TikTok says Symphony with Seedance 2.5 supports videos up to 30 seconds and up to 50 image, video or audio references. Access is rolling out to selected paid advertisers in selected markets.
Google Ads
The newsletter reports AI video labelling controls, crediting Felix Duerler's observation on 31 July.
Google Ads
Google introduces AI asset labels across Ads, Merchant Center and Ads Editor, including an AI label column in Asset Studio.
Google Ads
The Generated tab in the Google Ads image picker now accepts reference images. You can add products, people, backgrounds, or style references so Google AI matches your intended look, alongside a 1,500-character prompt and new advanced options.
Microsoft Advertising
Bing is testing an enhanced images section within its search results, as spotted by Sachin Patel. The test adds visual content to result pages where it previously showed standard listings.
Google Ads
Google has published an AI-labelling update, effective July 2026, that lets advertisers add text or visual labels to AI-generated or modified image and video creative, with optional automatic labelling for Google AI assets. The labels do not breach overlay or watermark rules and roll out across Google Ads, Display & Video 360, Campaign Manager 360, Merchant Centre, and Ads Editor, in line with EU, India, and New York disclosure requirements.
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