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
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.
Google Ads
Google announced an August migration for selected US home-service categories, placing Local Services Ads within Performance Max with pay-per-lead billing.
Google Ads
Google’s lead-form documentation no longer lists the $50,000 lifetime-spend route. Other eligibility and format-specific requirements remain, so the change does not mean every advertiser can use every lead-form experience.
Google Ads
Google's Missed Opportunities tool moves into Recommendations, where estimates describe activity constrained by bids or budgets.
Industry
Google is testing a "Read more" link in mobile Search ads that expands longer descriptions without sending the user to the site. The test was spotted and shared by Khushal Bherwani, so scope and rollout are unconfirmed.
Google Ads
Google will require a Passkey to authorise sensitive actions in Google Ads, such as changing payment details or user access. The security step mirrors the multi-party approvals added to the API in June.
Google Merchant Center
Google is expanding eligibility for Shopping ads and free listings to 14 additional countries. The change broadens where product inventory can be served across Google surfaces.
Meta Ads
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has rejected both parties' civil penalty estimates ahead of the advisory jury trial in Oakland, now set to begin on 12 August 2026. In a three-hour pretrial hearing, she called the state's $1.4 trillion calculation unreasonable, while describing Meta's $4m counter-proposal as not even a slap on the hand.
Snapchat Ads
Meta has refreshed the Audiences interface with dedicated sections for Customers, Engaged Audiences, Lookalikes, Saved Audiences, and Unlabeled Audiences. The update is still rolling out across accounts.
Industry
Google has begun showing news updates and Top Stories inside AI Overviews for mobile users in the United States. The stories appear in a carousel that also highlights a user's Preferred Sources, with further expansion expected.
Google Ads
Product-level reporting in Performance Max now includes data from all eligible networks, per a Google notice shared by Bia Camargo. Google notes the change can produce a one-time increase in reported metrics.
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.
ChatGPT Ads
ChatGPT has begun showing product ads generated from retailer feeds, displaying a title, price, and star rating in a format resembling sponsored products, with responses now carrying up to two ad units at the bottom. The feed method follows OpenAI's addition of product-feed support in its Ads Manager, and continues the shopping-format iteration covered in Week 27.
Amazon Ads
Some Amazon product pages no longer show the "Other Sellers on Amazon" section beneath the Buy Box, even where multiple offers are active on the SKU. Amazon has not confirmed the change, and results vary across accounts and locations, suggesting a test that follows the Featured Offer eligibility change covered in Week 28.
Meta Ads
Meta has made its ads MCP server available, allowing AI applications to connect to advertising capabilities, including campaign and optimisation, performance insights, and catalogue management, through natural language. The announcement covers developer access rather than changes to Ads Manager itself.
Google Merchant Center
Google has updated the way Merchant Centre handles cases where Googlebot cannot access your website. The changes affect diagnostics for sites with crawl or hosting issues.
Amazon Ads
Bradley Sutton has shared Search Query Performance data suggesting clicks straight after an Amazon keyword search have changed little in two and a half years. Clicks rose through Q1, then dipped in the two months since Alexa for Shopping replaced Rufus, which he says could indicate more shoppers consulting Alexa after searching.
Google Merchant Center
Merchant Centre has introduced rolling out Business Agent in early access, an AI agent that helps your business on Google by answering shopper questions and recommending products customised to match your brand and is rolling out to select accounts.
Industry
Google Ads now offers a High Engagement Ads setting for App campaigns, enabling ad formats that focus on attributed conversions and stronger user engagement. The setting is optional and is at the account level, alongside a new Click to Call Terms item that shows whether communication terms were accepted.
Google Ads
Ahead of the 17 August change for budget-limited campaigns, Google's Ads Liaison, Ginny Marvin, confirmed that the update only affects budget-constrained campaigns using a target and is not a broader Smart Bidding change. She added that it will not result in any changes to spending, and that a campaign whose target is reset to its current achieved average should continue to perform as it does now.
Industry
Shubham Soni has flagged a refreshed AI Max text customisation interface in Search campaign creation. Instead of describing the feature, Google now visually shows how AI rewrites headlines based on the user's query.
Amazon Ads
Amazon is expanding AI analysis of listing images, evaluating visual attributes alongside titles, descriptions, and attribute fields to understand products. Strong, relevant imagery may help Amazon match products to shopper intent across its AI-powered experiences.
Google Ads
Google is bringing business data feeds to Demand Gen, enabling dynamic ads without a Merchant Centrer account. The capability targets non-retail verticals such as travel, real estate, and automotive, and currently applies to Google Display Network inventory within Demand Gen.
Amazon Ads
Amazon has begun notifying 1P vendors that it will reverse tariff-related cost price increases, effective as of August 2026, presenting this as a change rather than a negotiation. Martin Heubel notes that a cost shown on a purchase order form is part of Amazon's contract terms once confirmed.
Google Tag
Google Tag Manager now lets you filter the tag list by tag type, with multiple filters applied at once, such as viewing only GA4 and Microsoft Clarity tags. Search previously acted as a rough filter, but this works by type directly.
Amazon Ads
Amazon's Global Warehousing and Distribution now offers 30 days of free storage for shipments received between 1 July and 31 December 2026, at rates already up to 45% below AWD. Amazon is also opening a Shanghai facility and adding FOB support, allowing exporters to keep separate invoices for tax rebates.
Meta Ads
Meta is starting to integrate its AI assistant into Ads Manager, with new buttons appearing at all three levels: Optimise Budget on campaigns, Analyse Audience Engagement on ad sets, and Analyse Creative Engagement on ads. The buttons are visible in some accounts but not yet clickable.
Industry
Microsoft Copilot Cowork can now run tasks triggered by events across Teams, Outlook, and meetings, described in plain language, such as a specific sender, an @mention, or a keyword. Everything runs on a draft-and-approve model under the user's own permissions, and browser automation is now generally available, building on the general availability of Cowork covered in Week 27.
YouTube
WARC Media's latest Platform Insights report shows YouTube's ad revenue growth decelerating from 14.7% in 2024 to 11.7% in 2025, with a forecast of 7.9% by 2027, putting TikTok on track to overtake it in 2028. Fospha data cited in the report suggests that last-click attribution underreports YouTube's revenue contribution by 15.9x.
Industry
The Autorité de la concurrence has published an opinion on the competition implications of AI agents and agentic commerce, warning that agents could become the next major gateway to the digital economy. It recommends enforcing existing rules, including the AI Act, keeping AI distribution open, and promoting interoperability and data portability rather than drafting regulations.
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