Google Ads News
Big Meta Update
Meta is revolutionizing ad measurement with the rollout of incremental attribution, aiming to show the true impact of ads by filtering out conversions that would have happened anyway.
Using conversion lift and geo lift methods, Meta holds back ads from a segment of the audience and compares results to measure incremental lift.
This upgrade addresses the long-standing marketing question: Which conversions were truly driven by ads, and which would have happened regardless?
While incrementality testing isn’t new, Meta is making it easier and automated, helping advertisers make smarter budget decisions. The hope is that Google Ads will follow Meta’s lead and introduce a similar feature.
Update discovered by Frederik Boysen!
Temu stopped advertising
Mike Ryan discovered that Temu has stopped advertising in the US! Good news for other retailers who had to compete with them.
Temu not only quit advertising on Google in the US they also stopped advertising on the other platforms!
New Pattern
Google loves Pmax… and now apparently Shopping & Demand Gen too
That’s all you’ll see in the campaign-type overview for some accounts.
Wanna see more?
You have to hit “See more” to reveal the rest.👀
Spotted by Zeeshan Ali!
BIG NEWS: No Consent mode, No Conversions 🚨
Microsoft Ads just introduced a major shift for advertisers in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland. If you’re using UET tags without valid user consent, your tracking is at risk.
Microsoft is now actively restricting tags that don’t comply with consent requirements. That impacts conversion tracking, retargeting, and campaign optimization.
If you’re seeing “Partial Restriction” warnings, make sure to check your consent mode. If you have not installed UET Consent Mode make sure to do it. You can install this easily with a tool like Cookiebot Web CMP by Usercentrics.
This isn’t just a privacy update it’s a performance update.Make sure your setup is aligned. Otherwise, you’re flying blind.
Optimize Checkout
Google held a very interesting webinar about how autofill can optimize your checkout! You can watch it back and sign up here.
Masthead
Starting April 30, 2025, Google TV Masthead ads in the U.S. will allow content related to Daily Fantasy Sports and Sports betting, provided advertisers comply with Google’s Gambling and games policy.
Product feeds coming to Gmail?
Dario Zannoni discovered that Google is now showing products in Gmail!
Resume shopping tab
First time seeing the resume shopping tab in my search results!
Video Action Campaign
Muhammad S. got a new message that Google Ads is going to automatically update the Video Action campaign into Demand Gen starting in July.
Google Ads Safety Report 2024
Google’s 2024 Ads Safety Report reveals a sharp rise in enforcement efforts, powered by AI and large language models (LLMs).
The company focused on earlier fraud detection and stronger policy enforcement at scale.
Key Stats:
– 5.1 billion ads removed
– 9.1 billion ads restricted
– 39.2 million advertiser accounts suspended (↑ 200% YoY)
– 1.3 billion publisher pages enforced against
– 415 million scam-related ads blocked/removed- 30+ policy updates rolled out
AI’s role:
50+ AI model upgrades enabled faster, smarter detection of fake payment info, impersonation, and other red flags.
97% of publisher violations were caught using AI.
A dedicated team of 100+ tackled impersonation scams, suspending 700,000+ scam accounts and reducing incidents by 90%.
Election-year focus:
With elections in 50+ countries, Google tightened political ad rules.10.7 million unverified election ads removed.
AI-labeling became mandatory for election-related AI content.
Takeaway: Google is using AI to both detect scams faster and enforce policies more strictly.
But concerns remain about transparency and policy clarity for legitimate advertisers.
Google sued
Google is being sued in the UK for allegedly abusing its dominance in search advertising to inflate ad prices over the past 13+ years.
The class action could impact hundreds of thousands of UK businesses.
Key Details:
– £5 billion ($6.6 billion) in potential damages.
– 90%: Google’s share of UK search ad revenue (2020 CMA data).
– 2011–present: Time period covered by the lawsuit.
Claims include:
– Restricting rival search engines.
– Forcing advertisers onto Google’s platform at inflated prices.
– Securing unfair advantages via exclusive deals with device manufacturers.
Why it matters: If successful, the lawsuit could lead to lower ad costs and a shift in how marketers allocate budgets.
It highlights growing concerns over Google’s dominance in digital advertising.
Google’s response: Google called the claim “speculative and opportunistic,” insisting advertisers use its services because they’re effective, not due to lack of alternatives.
Google Guilty of Ad Monopoly: Court Ruling Could Break Up Its Ad Empire
A U.S. judge ruled that Google illegally monopolized the digital advertising market by tying together its ad tech products, harming competition and publishers.
However, Google was not found to have a monopoly in ad networks for advertisers. The company plans to appeal. The next phase could involve breaking up parts of Google’s ad business.
GA4 Changes
Google Analytics is enhancing data quality to help marketers make better decisions in a changing digital landscape.
Key updates include new attribution tools like aggregate identifiers and smart fallback mechanisms, clearer data labels for better insights, and proactive features like quality indicators and system-generated annotations.
These changes aim to ensure more accurate, reliable, and actionable marketing data despite evolving tech and privacy regulations.
Announcement: Google Ads API v19.1 (April 16, 2025)
The latest version of the Google Ads API is here: v19.1.
This release includes no breaking changes and is fully backwards compatible with v19.
To use the new features, you must update your client libraries and code once they’re released next week.
Key highlights:
Demand Gen: Support for ad group-level channel settings, plus new planning service methods.
Local Services Ads: You can now submit lead feedback using the ProvideLeadFeedback() method.
Video campaigns: New metrics and segments for reach (with demo adjustments); Audio Ads can now be retrieved via the API.
Performance Max & Shopping Ads: Brand exclusions can now be overridden specifically for Shopping Ads.Conversions:
You can now set a google_ads_conversion_customer when creating a new customer.
Planning Services: Expanded support for Demand Gen campaigns.
16:9 Horizontal
Thomas Eccel discovered that YouTube Shorts on Desktop now supports horizontal 16:9 video ads, not just vertical ones.
This strategic update by Google allows advertisers to run existing horizontal video creatives in Shorts placements without reformatting them to vertical.
Pmax update
Yash Mandlesha discovered this small update in Performance Max: all 5 descriptions now have a 90-character limit (previously, one was still limited to 60).
Captcha
Captcha, previously only shown during the initial setup of a Google Ads account, has now been spotted at the MCC level.
Vojtěch Audy & Hana Kobzová reported encountering a captcha when creating a new account within his MCC, requiring verification to continue!
Google Ads Update live – Customer List Audiences Change
Google has updated how we manage Customer List Audiences, This update went live on April 7, Yash Mandlesha just reminded me of this change!
Before: You could set customer list entries to “Never Expire” – users stayed on the list indefinitely.
Now: That’s gone. Google replaced it with “Membership Duration” – capped at 540 days.
After that, users are automatically removed.