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Three Google ads updates landed quietly. One of them goes live on August 17 and will affect your campaigns whether you act on it or not. Here's a clear breakdown of what changed, what it actually means, and what you should do before the deadline.
When I saw the update, I went straight into the accounts we manage to understand what this actually means in practice. Two of these updates are new tools you can choose to test. The third is not optional. It is a backend change rolling out on August 17 that will affect your campaigns whether you touch anything or not.
I want to walk you through all three, share what I found when I looked at our own campaigns, and tell you exactly what needs to happen before August 17.
Smart Bidding Exploration (SBE) was announced ahead of Google Marketing Live 2025. The idea behind it is straightforward: your campaign gets access to a wider range of converting traffic without you having to loosen your ROAS or CPA targets to get there. Google tries to find incremental conversion opportunities while still optimizing toward your existing goals. You are not trading efficiency for volume, at least that is what Google says.
What changed this month is availability. SBE is now live globally across all languages for Search campaigns and Performance Max campaigns without a product feed. Google has also opened a Shopping beta covering both standard Shopping campaigns and Performance Max campaigns running product feeds.
When I looked at accounts where we had been hitting volume ceilings, this is one I am genuinely curious to test. The reason we have not loosened ROAS targets on those campaigns is that clients are not comfortable with the tradeoff. SBE is worth exploring precisely because it is designed to sidestep that conversation.
SBE is an optional feature. You choose to enable it. If conversion volume is not a constraint and your campaigns are running efficiently, there is no urgency here. But if you have been trying to grow volume without handing Google a blank cheque on ROAS targets, I would put this on the testing list.
If you are managing e-commerce accounts or Search campaigns where volume is the constraint and you have been hesitant to loosen ROAS targets, this is the most relevant of the three updates for you. The Shopping beta in particular is worth getting into early if you can get access.
Anyone who manages Google Ads accounts with regular promotional windows knows the drill. A sale is coming, so you go in, bump the budget, adjust ROAS tolerance, monitor performance for a few days, then dial everything back down when it is over. Multiply that across several campaigns or clients and it becomes a meaningful time sink with plenty of room for things to go sideways.
Promotion mode is Google's way of automating that process. You set it up around a specific event with a defined start and end, and Google temporarily adjusts budget flexibility and ROAS tolerance for that window. According to Marvin, it can also be used alongside campaign total budgets, which is useful for accounts that work on overall spend caps rather than daily limits.
Honestly, I like where this is going. The manual approach works, but it takes attention and it is easy to forget to reset things after a promotion ends. If Promotion mode does what Google says it does, it would save meaningful time across accounts we manage on a recurring basis.
Do take note that this is still in beta and Google has not released eligibility details or a broader rollout timeline. Do not build your next promotional campaign plan around Promotion mode until you can confirm it is available in your account. Check first, then plan.
If you run regular promotional periods and currently handle them through manual budget and bid adjustments, this one is for you. E-commerce, retail, service businesses with seasonal peaks. Once it is out of beta, I expect this to become a standard part of campaign setup for promotional-driven accounts.
This is the one I want to spend the most time on, because it is the only update that will change campaign behavior regardless of what you do.
Starting August 17, Google is making backend bidding target optimization changes to campaigns that are limited by budget. The stated goal is to make performance more predictable and more closely tied to the CPA and ROAS targets you have configured, particularly when budgets increase or shift.
Here is the dynamic that is actually in play. A campaign running on a Target CPA of $10 might be consistently delivering conversions at $5. That happens because Google has been optimizing aggressively within the budget constraint, and the campaign has been outperforming its stated target. After August 17, Google will start pulling performance back toward that $10 target. Not below it, but closer to it.
When I went through the accounts we manage, I found a few campaigns sitting in exactly this situation. Target CPA set months ago, performance running well ahead of it, nobody had flagged the gap because results looked great. That is precisely the scenario this change disrupts.
Say your campaign has a Target CPA of $10 and has been consistently delivering at $5. After August 17, Google optimizes toward $10, not $5. If you want to keep the $5 CPA, you need to update the target before the rollout. This is the platform doing exactly what you told it to do, just finally meaning it.
Google has confirmed there will be a brief calibration period after rollout where some accounts will see minor performance fluctuations. They have not been specific about how long that window lasts or how significant the swings could be. I will be watching this closely across the accounts I manage and will share what I see in a follow-up once the dust settles.
The reasoning Google has given is about predictability. When you increase budget on a constrained campaign, the current system can behave inconsistently. The new approach is meant to make performance scale in a more predictable way relative to your configured targets.
That is a reasonable goal. The issue is that a lot of campaigns have been quietly outperforming their targets, and if those targets have not been reviewed recently, the August 17 change can look like a sudden efficiency drop with no obvious cause. What actually happened is that Google stopped doing more than you asked for. The fix is not complicated, but you have to catch it before the deadline.
Go through every campaign using target-based bidding and check whether the configured target still reflects what you actually want. If your campaign is delivering a $5 CPA against a $10 target, update it to $5. If your ROAS target is 200% and you are consistently hitting 400%, update it. Do this before July 6 if you can, or at minimum the moment the account notifications land.
Google will surface the most affected campaigns in those July 6 notifications, along with historical data to help you decide what to change. Use the Bid Target Adjustment Tool to make those updates before August 17. If you are managing a large portfolio, prioritize the campaigns that are budget-constrained and consistently beating their targets. Those carry the most risk going into this rollout.
The August 17 rollout is not the kind of change that announces itself loudly. Campaigns quietly start performing differently, targets start meaning what they say, and if your CPA or ROAS goals have not been reviewed in months, you can be looking at a real efficiency hit with no obvious trigger.
I went through all the accounts we manage the moment this update was announced. That is what proactive paid campaign management looks like. We review bidding targets as part of regular account maintenance, monitor performance through rollout windows, and make sure our clients are not the ones scrambling after a backend change they did not know was coming.
If you are running Google Ads without a dedicated expert tracking platform changes, account health, and performance gaps on a consistent basis, let's talk.
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Taken individually, these look like three separate announcements. Taken together, they point in a clear direction. Google is pushing Smart Bidding toward more automation, tighter adherence to stated targets, and less need for manual management around promotions and budget changes.
Smart Bidding Exploration is about finding more converting traffic without breaking ROAS discipline. Promotion mode is about removing the manual work around promotional periods. The August 17 change is about making sure that when you configure a target, that target actually drives campaign behavior rather than sitting there as an aspirational number nobody revisits.
All three push toward a model where clean inputs matter more than ever. You set targets carefully, configure parameters clearly, and Google handles more of the execution. That works well when your account is set up correctly and your targets reflect reality. It works poorly when targets are stale, set during the early cautious days of a campaign and never updated, or based on assumptions that no longer hold.
The more Google automates, the more expensive it gets to have the wrong numbers in your account. Garbage in, garbage out does not disappear because the bidding is smart. It just gets harder to see until something goes wrong.
Sources: Google Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin via LinkedIn Google announcement
With over 15 years at the forefront of strategic business growth, Sanjay Bhattacharya collaborates with CEOs and founders to reshape market positioning and drive sustainable success. Throughout his journey, he has worn many hats—from Fractional CMO for fast-growing startups to serving as Head of Marketing & Business Strategy at PRIMOTECH. He has been Featured in Under30CEO, American Marketing Association, CMO Times, CTOsync, DesignRush, Earned, HubSpot, MarketerInterview, and more.
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27 May 2026
