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 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.
Meta Ads
Meta is rolling out a Value Rules redesign that consolidates the feature into three distinct criteria groups: Placement, Audience, and Conversion location: and surfaces them contextually in Ads Manager rather than only in the legacy Advertising settings interface. Bram Van der Hallen has surfaced the change with a screenshot showing the new "Placement value rules" section appearing directly in the Placements selection step.
Meta Ads
David Vargas has surfaced what appears to be a new WhatsApp placement option in Meta Ads, which appears in a pop-up during web-to-app campaign group creation. Messaging requires user consent, but for brands that have invested in conversational-commerce flows, the reach is material.
Meta Ads
Meta has updated the audience retention window for Purchase events from 180 days to 730 days, letting advertisers keep historical buyers in custom audiences for up to 2 years. Bram Van der Hallen has flagged the launch with its strategic implications.
ChatGPT Ads
Utku Gülden has built and released a Google Tag Manager template for the OpenAI Ads Measurement Pixel, closing the gap left by OpenAI's pixel launch. Unlike Meta Pixel and TikTok Pixel, the OpenAI pixel shipped without an official GTM template, leaving practitioners to handle custom HTML tags and event schemas manually.
Google Tag
Google has confirmed that Google Tag Manager is moving inside Google Ads as part of a tagging system overhaul that Simo Ahava calls the most significant GTM update in years. The integration arrives in two waves.
Amazon Ads
Shopify has begun rolling out AI-powered insights inside the Analytics dashboard. Vivek Gupta has flagged the rollout: the new insights surface quick performance summaries and automatically highlight trends, giving merchants a high-level view of store performance without having to dig into individual reports.
ChatGPT Ads
OpenAI officially launched the ChatGPT Self-Serve Ads Manager (beta) on 6 May, enabling direct campaign creation in ChatGPT for any business that signs up via ads.openai.com. Thomas Eccel has flagged the launch with the most detailed structural breakdown; Bram Van der Hallen has provided the practitioner walkthrough.
Google Merchant Center
Google has updated product landing page requirements for Google Shopping, walking back the strict "grey out the add-to-cart button" rule for out-of-stock products. Emmanuel Flossie has flagged the change in its practical scope: the requirement is no longer strict; advertisers are not categorically required to use the greyed-out option; and other compliant treatments of the out-of-stock state are now acceptable.
ChatGPT Ads
OpenAI has confirmed that the ChatGPT Ads pilot will expand to the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, and Mexico in the coming weeks. Benji Shomair (OpenAI) has flagged the geographic expansion alongside a hiring announcement for Client Partner and Customer Success Manager roles in each new market; David Dugan (OpenAI) has confirmed the same expansion with additional team-building context.
Google Merchant Center
Emmanuel Flossie has flagged that Google Customer Reviews can now be installed natively and free of charge inside Shopify, removing the third-party connector requirement that has historically been the friction point for Shopify merchants. Google Customer Reviews provides seller ratings that appear on Shopping ads and free listings: a meaningful trust signal that Shopify merchants often leave unconfigured because the installation path is cumbersome.
OpenAI
OpenAI has rolled out Codex integration directly inside Chrome on macOS and Windows. Codex can now use browser context: the current tab, the page content, and the active workflow: to execute coding tasks in-place, rather than requiring the user to switch to a separate environment.
Anthropic
Microsoft has added Anthropic's Claude to Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, allowing users to choose the underlying model for chat interactions. The integration sits alongside Microsoft's existing GPT-based Copilot experience and adds Claude as a sanctioned alternative for users whose workflows have benefited from Claude's reasoning, document analysis, and writing capabilities.
Amazon Ads
Microsoft has announced a visual workflow designer for Copilot Studio, replacing the previous logic-rigid workflow construction with a drag-and-drop canvas that integrates Copilot Studio agents and AI actions as steps in the flow. Jack Rowbotham has flagged the launch with its three structural advances.
Amazon Ads
Chris Long has surfaced an aggregated analysis of the top AI citation ranking factors: Cyrus S.'s synthesis across studies and research from Kevin Indig, Lily Ray, Michael King, Dan Petrovic, Rand Fishkin, Metehan Yeşilyurt, and others. The output: 54 distinct ranking factors around which the assembled expert opinions form a consensus.
Amazon Ads
Amazon has added two new sections to the Subscribe & Save dashboard: a Reorder Performance section showing brand and SKU reorder rates plus Subscribe & Save share of total sales; and an AI Insights panel that ties specific coupons to specific lift: subscriber jumps, revenue jumps, glance views, named ASINs. Mansour Norouzi has flagged the launch's strategic significance: reorder rate is the most honest CPG metric: people only resubscribe to products that actually work.
Amazon Ads
Amazon has rolled out Premium A+ content access to all Seller Central accounts, removing the previous eligibility requirements that limited Premium A+ to brands meeting specific thresholds. Anna Mai has flagged the rollout and frames the strategic significance: with the majority of Amazon shoppers on mobile, Premium A+ content optimised for both desktop and mobile audiences was always going to win on engagement and conversion.
Anthropic
Anthropic has released the Claude Financial Services Suite: a set of pre-built, deployable Claude agents for financial services workflows. Charly Wargnier has flagged the launch with its practical scope: ready-to-run agents that navigate analytical workflows from signal to decision, integrated natively with Microsoft 365 so finance teams can delegate manual work through Claude Cowork.
Google Business Profile
Darren Shaw has flagged a new "About this place" section appearing in Google Business Profiles on desktop: primarily for food and drink businesses: that pulls Reddit threads directly into the profile. Valentina Vasileva first spotted the section, and Darren confirmed it shows Reddit content alongside the standard GBP information.
Amazon Ads
Amazon Ads has launched Sponsored Brands Auto Product Collection ads: a new auto-product-selection format for Sponsored Brands. Akshay Tarpara has flagged the launch with its mechanics: a single SB ad unit promotes multiple related products, with Amazon's AI dynamically grouping relevant ASINs based on campaign targets and shopper search queries.
Amazon Ads
Amazon Ads and LinkedIn have announced a partnership bringing LinkedIn's CTV Ads inventory to Amazon DSP, combining LinkedIn's professional-audience targeting with connected-TV inventory delivered through Amazon's DSP. Alan Moss has flagged the partnership and its strategic relevance to B2B advertisers, particularly as we head into the upfront commitment season.
OpenAI
OpenAI has launched GPT-Realtime-2 in the API: its most intelligent voice model yet, bringing the GPT-5.5 reasoning architecture into the real-time voice surface. The model is positioned as the new foundation for voice-driven interfaces, voice agents, and conversational commerce applications built on the OpenAI API.
Amazon Ads
Amazon has opened up its Marketing Mix Modelling API to all advertisers: previously a restricted-access surface that required negotiation through Amazon account teams. Oleksandr Kovalov has flagged the launch's practical significance: getting Amazon ad and retail data into custom measurement models used to be operationally messy, requiring manual exports, reconciliation, and gap-filled estimation.
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