Google Ads News
Renaming
Google Ads has renamed the YouTube campaign objective group from “Awareness and consideration” to “YouTube reach, views, and engagements”.
Thanks for sharing Aditya shrivastava.
Moving section
Google Ads is moving payment verification into the central “Account” section (previously Advertiser Verification).The “Confirm your payment method” step will now appear under Admin > Policy > Account, alongside other verification and compliance tasks.This consolidates where advertisers manage payment verification and related checks in the Google Ads interface.
Thanks for sharing Hana Kobzová & Aditya shrivastava.
IOS V13.0.0
Google has released Google Mobile Ads SDK for iOS v13.0.0, raising the minimum iOS target to iOS 13 and introducing the new large anchored adaptive banner API for improved banner performance.
Older anchored banner APIs are deprecated, Swift 6 concurrency support is improved, and stricter type checks are enforced. SDK 11.x is now deprecated and 10.x will sunset on 30 June 2026.
Thanks for sharing Arpan Banerjee.
Delay
Google confirms delays in Google Ads API developer token reviews due to high demand following the launch of Explorer Access and new API tools. Extra reviewers have been added, and some applications are being fast-tracked. Advertisers and developers are advised to stay on Explorer Access unless they are hitting quotas, missing features, or clearly planning scale.
ChatGPT has started testing ads inside ChatGPT
ChatGPT will show sponsored results for logged-in users on the Free and Go tiers in the US.
But:
• ads are clearly separated from answers
• ads do not influence the generated responses
• advertisers never see conversations, memory or personal data
• targeting is based on the topic of the conversation and past interactions only in aggregated form
• sensitive areas (health, mental health, politics) are excluded
• users can fully control, hide and delete ad data
From a performance marketing perspective, this is a very different surface than search or social.
The intent signal is not a keyword. It’s a live problem someone is trying to solve.
That makes this potentially one of the highest-intent environments we’ve seen so far if (and only if) relevance and trust are protected.
What’s also important for advertisers: This is clearly not a “paid answers” model.
It’s a parallel, labeled commercial layer next to organic assistance.
Strategically, this feels closer to:
→ discovery + consideration support than to classic demand capture.
If OpenAI gets the guardrails right, this could become a new category in the media mix:
– conversational intent media.
Very early days but one to watch closely if you work in PPC and growth.
AI Performance dashboard
Microsoft has introduced a new AI Performance report inside Bing Webmaster Tools.
This is the first official dashboard from a search platform that shows how your content is surfaced inside AI-powered answers, including Microsoft Copilot, AI summaries in Bing and selected partner experiences.
In the new report you can see:Total citationsThe total number of times your pages are cited as sources in AI-generated answers.
Average cited pages
The average number of unique URLs from your site that appear as sources per day.
Grounding queries
The queries and phrases the AI system used when retrieving and grounding your content.
Page-level citation activity
Citation counts per URL, so you can identify which specific pages are being referenced most often in AI answers.
What’s not included (yet):
No intent or sentiment classification
No visibility into the generated answers themselves
No competitive or cross-domain benchmarking, only your own site.
Experiments
Hana Kobzová discovered that Google Ads is now showing recommended experiments in the Experiments page, based on your account setup and performance data.
Product Eligibility
Hana Kobzová discovered that Product Eligibility Per Campaign is now Live in Products Sections!
Google just announced 7 real updates that will reshape how ads and commerce work in 2026
Short version ↓
Based on Google’s new roadmap, AI Mode gets its own native Shopping ad format.
Ads appear inside the AI shopping conversation, next to AI product recommendations.
AI Mode ads expand beyond retail (starting with travel)Same conversational ad format, now for services and complex decisions.
Direct Offers in AI Mode Brands can show tailored offers only when users are ready to buy → including bundles and loyalty benefits (not just discounts).
Native checkout inside AI experiences
Users can complete purchases directly in AI Mode and the Gemini app.
Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)
New infrastructure that connects merchants to AI agents for product access, identity and payments.Automated creator–brand matching on YouTube
Google will match brands to creator communities using AI.
Gemini 3 becomes the engine behind AdsGemini 3 now powers creative, AI Max and Performance Max.
ROAS
According to Andrew Lolk you can now suggest a new-customer conversion value based on your chosen target ROAS, instead of requiring a manually set value.
He sees this as an improvement, but still believes the better way to prioritize new customers is by using a lower ROAS target for new-customer bidding, rather than relying on static value adjustments.
Policy change
Google will update its crypto advertising policy for Indonesia in February 2026: only licensed crypto exchanges and software wallets approved by Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK) and certified by Google will be allowed to run ads. Violations will first receive a warning at least seven days before any account suspension.
Looker Studio update – February 12, 2026
Two practical improvements rolled out:Pro users can now change the Google Cloud billing account linked to a Looker Studio Pro subscription without losing access to Pro assets.
No downtime, no migration headaches. Especially useful for agencies, restructures, or finance clean-ups.Improved search filters.
You can now filter reports and data sources by:
– Type
– Owner
– Location
– Date modified
Small update, big impact for teams managing dozens (or hundreds) of dashboards.
Week 7 finished
