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Google Meridian

MeasurementNewsletter archive1 min

Meridian Studio pilots a Cloud-based UI for MMM at enterprise scale

Meridian Studio is a new Google Cloud-built enterprise platform that empowers measurement teams to build, manage, and customise Meridian models at scale through a UI-based workflow. The platform offers faster compute, enterprise-level model deployment, and the ability to run hundreds of models simultaneously: maintaining the open-source Meridian methodology while adding data security, automation, and ease-of-use features.

SourceGoogle blog · Meridian Studio
Official SourceGoogle

YouTube

CreativeNewsletter archive1 min

Multimodal Video Creation in Asset Studio: from prompt to storyboard to final production

Multimodal Video Creation lands inside Asset Studio, letting advertisers go from creative brief to storyboard to final video production in a single workflow: powered by Gemini, Veo, and Nano Banana. The capability streamlines Google's AI models into a single workspace for ideating, storyboarding, and generating video campaigns.

SourceGoogle blog · Multimodal Video Creation in Asset Studio
Official SourceGoogle

Amazon Ads

Retail mediaNewsletter archive1 min

Amazon Benchmark Report rolls out globally

Florian Nottorf has flagged that the Amazon Benchmark Report is now live globally, including Germany, after launching as a US-only beta in February. The report provides detailed competitor CPC and CTR benchmarks by campaign type and category: with up to 90 days of data available via the Ads Console at daily granularity.

SourceFlorian Nottorf
First ContributorFlorian Nottorf

Industry

StrategyNewsletter archive2 min

AI Max for Search exits beta and goes generally available globally

AI Max for Search Campaigns is officially out of beta and generally available globally as of GML 2026. Helen Gietmann shared practitioner experience from running AI Max across multiple clients: text customisation and Final URL Expansion (FUE) have delivered strong results, while search-term matching has been the more variable component.

SourceGoogle blog · AI Max GA
First ContributorHelen Gietmann

Reddit Ads

Paid socialNewsletter archive1 min

Facebook launches Forum app to compete with Reddit

Matt Navarra has flagged that Meta has launched Forum: a new standalone iOS app turning Facebook Groups into an AI-powered answer engine to compete with Reddit. Forum heavily pushes questions, recommendations, and "real answers from real people."

SourceMatt Navarra
First ContributorMatt Navarra

Industry

StrategyNewsletter archive1 min

Product value adjustments + new visual-rich Search formats round out the Commerce chapter

Product value adjustments let retailers strategically adjust conversion values for specific products based on business priorities: profit, seasonal sell-through, best-sellers: with the bidding algorithm optimising in real-time. Adjustments apply across products and attributes (brands, categories) without altering campaign structure.

SourceProduct value adjustments
Official SourceGoogle

Industry

Paid searchNewsletter archive1 min

Business Agent for Leads brings conversational lead qualification to Search ads

Business Agent for Leads is a new Search ad format that replaces the static lead form with a conversational AI agent built on Gemini. Instead of filling out a form, a prospect researching, for example, an MBA programme can click "Chat" directly within the ad to ask questions, with answers grounded in the advertiser's website content.

SourceGoogle blog · GML 2026 hub
Official SourceGoogle

YouTube

Paid searchNewsletter archive1 min

Checkout Links expand to 9 new markets and Shorts in-feed placement

Checkout Links: the format that routes Demand Gen viewers directly to a merchant's checkout page: is generally available in the US, CA, GB, DE, JP, IN, with rollout coming to AU, KR, ID, MX, AR, FR, IL, CH, PL. Checkout Links have also expanded to YouTube Shorts and in-feed ads in Demand Gen.

SourceCheckout links
Official SourceGoogle Ads

Industry

StrategyNewsletter archive2 min

Ask Advisor unifies the per-product advisors into a single agentic experience

Ask Advisor is being unified across Google's marketing surfaces: Google Ads, Google Analytics, Merchant Centre, Display & Video 360, Search Ads 360, Campaign Manager 360, and soon more: into a single agentic experience that travels with the user across products. The unified advisor remembers business goals and context, surfaces the right product for each conversation, and proactively suggests next steps.

SourceGoogle blog · Ask Advisor
Official SourceGoogle

Industry

StrategyNewsletter archive1 min

Google Search box gets its biggest upgrade in 25 years

Google announced what it calls the biggest upgrade to the Search box in more than 25 years at Google I/O. The new AI-powered Search box dynamically expands so users can describe what they need in more detail, suggests better ways to formulate questions (beyond traditional autocomplete), supports multimodal inputs (text, images, files, videos, Chrome tabs), and preserves context as users explore through AI Overviews and AI Mode follow-up questions.

SourceGoogle blog · Search at I/O 2026
Official SourceGoogle

BigQuery

StrategyNewsletter archive1 min

BigQuery launches "chat with your data" at the dataset level

Balazs Vajna has flagged that BigQuery is rolling out "chat with your data" at the dataset level: a shortcut to Conversational Analytics (the Agents feature) that's spreading across the BigQuery interface. The capability lets analysts launch a chat-based exploration on entire datasets rather than only query results.

SourceBalazs Vajna
First ContributorBalazs Vajna

Industry

StrategyNewsletter archive2 min

AI Brief launches as the new way to steer AI Max in your own words

AI Brief is the structural new layer in AI Max that lets advertisers steer Gemini's targeting and creative customisation through natural-language guidelines: Messaging Guidelines (what your ads should and shouldn't say, e.g., "never mention prices" or "focus on my fall collection"), Matching Guidelines (which searches to capture or avoid, e.g., "avoid searches for in-person degrees"), and Audience Guidelines (how to tailor messaging for different segments, e.g., "for people who are health conscious, highlight our clean products"). The interface previews sample assets and searches; advertisers iterate the brief until the previewed output matches the intended direction.

SourceGoogle blog · AI Max New Feautes
Official SourceGoogle

Google Ads

Paid searchNewsletter archive1 min

Affiliate partnerships boost lets merchants amplify organic creator videos in Demand Gen

Affiliate partnerships boost is a new advertising solution that lets merchants discover and boost organic YouTube Shopping affiliate videos within Demand Gen campaigns. The structural value: merchants leverage existing creator trust at scale, with the licensing and discovery workflow streamlined inside Google Ads.

SourceGoogle blog · Affiliate Partnership Boost
Official SourceGoogle

Google Merchant Center

StrategyNewsletter archive1 min

Conversational Attributes in Merchant Centre: the new product data layer for AI surfaces

Conversational Attributes are a new set of Merchant Centre product data fields designed specifically for discovery in AI Mode and conversational commerce surfaces. The new attributes include Question & Answer, Additional Variants, Popularity Rank, Related Products, Document Link, and Item Group.

SourceGoogle blog · Conversational Attributes
Official SourceGoogle

Google Ads

Paid searchNewsletter archive1 min

Demand Gen gets AI-assisted campaign creation from existing PMax campaigns

AI-assisted Demand Gen campaign creation is a new workflow that uses account-level intelligence to pre-fill Demand Gen campaigns with optimal budget, bidding, and audience settings based on existing Performance Max campaigns. The system uses historical performance to recommend campaign best practices, provides a clear rationale for each setting, and reduces manual entry errors.

SourceGoogle blog · AI Assisted Demand Gen Creation
Official SourceGoogle

Gemini

Paid searchNewsletter archive1 min

AI-powered Shopping ads land with Gemini-generated explainers

AI-powered Shopping ads use Gemini to identify the most relevant products for a shopper's query and instantly write a custom explainer highlighting why each product is the right answer. The mechanic transforms Shopping ads from product-only listings into product + expert summary results, replacing standard product results with a Gemini-powered shopping experience for considered purchases such as espresso machines, fridges, or TVs.

SourceGoogle blog · GML 2026 hub
Official SourceGoogle

Google Ads

Paid searchNewsletter archive1 min

Google Ads Ad Certifications application is now in the account

Anthony Higman has flagged that the ability to apply for Google Ads Ad Certifications is now available directly inside Google Ads accounts: what was formerly the standalone Google Ads Advertiser Verification Page. The integration removes a friction point in the certification application workflow, with the certification surface now appearing within the account UI rather than on an external page.

SourceAnthony Higman
First ContributorAnthony Higman

Anthropic

StrategyNewsletter archive1 min

Screaming Frog v24 launches MCP Server for Claude Desktop integration

Gus Pelogia and Ian Ferguson have both flagged the launch of Screaming Frog v24's MCP Server, which lets users run crawls directly inside Claude Desktop. The setup involves grabbing the MCP extension from Screaming Frog's docs, installing it via Claude Desktop settings, and restarting.

SourceGus Pelogia
First ContributorGus Pelogia +1

Industry

StrategyNewsletter archive1 min

Search campaigns for travel unify travel ad formats with AI Max

Search campaigns for travel bring travel ad formats: Travel Promotion Ads, Booking Links, travel feeds: directly into the Search ecosystem with AI Max. The change consolidates what previously required multiple campaign types into a single buying door for all travel formats, with full access to AI Max's targeting and creative automation and a unified performance view across the SERP.

SourceGoogle blog · Search campaigns for Travel
Official SourceGoogle

ChatGPT Ads

Retail mediaNewsletter archive1 min

ChatGPT Ads expand to the UK in the coming weeks

Tariq Mohammed has flagged that ChatGPT Ads are coming to the UK in the next few weeks. OpenAI confirmed on 7 May that UK users on the Free and Go tiers will start seeing ads in the coming weeks: in the shopping, retail, and travel categories first.

SourceTariq Mohammed
First ContributorTariq Mohammed

YouTube

Paid searchNewsletter archive1 min

Brand names appear in YouTube product Ads + Shorts Shopping ads

Arpan Banerjee discovered that brand names are now appearing in YouTube product Ads: including the YouTube Shorts Shopping ad surface: a finding flagged by Adriaan Dekker on LinkedIn. Where YouTube product Ads previously displayed product images, price, and store name, the brand name now appears as an additional surface element.

SourceLinkedIn
First ContributorArpan Banerjee +1

Google Ads

Paid searchNewsletter archive1 min

Product videos at scale unlock the GMC video library inside Demand Gen

Product videos at scale eliminate the previous 5-video upload limit, enabling Demand Gen campaigns to leverage the entire Google Merchant Centre video library. The system dynamically serves product-specific videos based on real-time user intent and interest, reducing creative overhead and improving relevance through AI-driven video-to-user matching.

SourceGoogle blog · Assets Studio at scale
Official SourceGoogle

Google Tag

MeasurementNewsletter archive1 min

Google Tag Gateway expands with new CDN integrations

Google Tag Gateway: the first-party server-side tagging architecture: is expanding with new in-UI integrations to Google Cloud (beta), Fastly, Akamai, Webflow, Duda, and Cloudflare. The integrations enable advertisers to upgrade tags to serve from their site's own server without retagging, improving measurement signal performance and resilience while adding confidential computing by default.

SourceGoogle blog · Google Tag Gateway
Official SourceGoogle

Industry

StrategyNewsletter archive1 min

New Customer Acquisition gets a "new prospects" mode for brand-unaware users

New Customer Acquisition has added a third bidding mode: new prospects mode. Where traditional New Customer Acquisition focused on anyone who hadn't purchased before, new prospects mode goes further: automatically excluding users who have purchased (via Customer Match & Tags), searched for brand terms, visited the website or used the app, or engaged with content or ads across Google and YouTube.

SourceGoogle blog · New Customer Acquisition Model
Official SourceGoogle

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