Thanks for subscribing! This is the first issue of the Google Ads Change History email. This will go out weekly on Monday and is built directly from the site's dataset: what changed, when it takes effect.

A lot happened on the site itself this week:

• New products. Microsoft Ads, ChatGPT Ads and Search Console now sit alongside Google Ads, Merchant Center, Analytics and the Ads API.
• 26 years of history. Coverage now runs back to the launch of AdWords in October 2000, with thanks to Screaming Frog's timeline for the early years.
• Mobile. The site works properly on phones now and can be added to your home screen.
• Weekly pages. Every week since January 2025 has its own shareable page at gadschangehistory.com/week/.
• Coming up. A new view lists changes with future effective dates, soonest first. It's also the last section of this email.

For now I'm only sending medium & up impact changes - if you'd like to see low, let me know. Can always jump to the site to get the full picture!

If you ever have an idea or suggestion, feel free to shoot me an email @ [email protected]

Here’s the week:

13 changes were logged across Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Merchant Center, Analytics, Search Console, ChatGPT Ads and the Ads API this period. 1 is categorized as high impact.

Google Ads

• Google Ads revoked promotional credits after advertisers spent them; Google escalated the incident — PPC consultant David Melamed reported that Google Ads invalidated $3,200 promotional credits on at least two client accounts more than a month after the credits had been fully spent, leaving the advertisers liable for spend they believed was covered. Google Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin acknowledged the reports and said she had passed them to the team. Details
• Meridian GeoX became generally available globally and Meridian added agentic auditing and brand signals — Meridian GeoX, Google's open-source library for causal geo-experiments, left beta and became generally available globally. It can be run for standalone incrementality experiments or fed into Meridian's marketing mix model, which also gained agentic capabilities that audit data quality and give real-time guidance while a model is built, support for brand signals such as Branded Google Query Volume, and backend speed improvements. Details
• Data Strength Uplift metric launched in Google Ads to quantify first-party data gains — Google added a Data Strength Uplift metric to Google Ads that calculates the additional conversions recovered by an advertiser's first-party data setup. Google says advertisers who build data strength with Google tag gateway see an average 14% conversion uplift, rising above 20% for Demand Gen campaigns. Details
• Data Manager expanded into Google Analytics and DV360 with a universal API and built-in diagnostics — Google built Data Manager directly into Google Analytics and Display & Video 360 so first-party data connections can be managed across platforms from one place. The Data Manager API became universal and is now based on IAB Tech Lab standards, and Data Manager gained built-in diagnostics that identify and resolve data issues before they affect campaign performance. Details
• 'Budget or bidding targets' experiments appeared as a beta for Search campaigns — A new experiment variable labelled 'Budget or bidding targets for Search campaigns' started showing in the Google Ads experiments area as a beta. Google's in-product description says it tests different budget, target CPA or target ROAS amounts to find the optimal level of spending for a campaign. Details
• Online gambling ads disallowed in Croatia from October 7, 2026; existing certifications revoked — Google announced that from October 7, 2026 its Gambling and games policy will disallow all promotion of online gambling content targeting Croatia. Existing gambling certifications for advertisers targeting Croatia will be revoked and no new applications will be accepted. Details
• Store sales measurement moved into Data Manager with direct CRM and Google Sheets connections — Google announced that advertisers will be able to connect a CRM or Google Sheets directly inside Data Manager to share offline sales data for store sales measurement and optimization, instead of building a separate upload process. Google said it is coming in the following weeks. Details
• AI Dashboards started appearing in advertiser accounts a month after being announced — Advertisers began seeing the Gemini-powered dashboards Google previewed in August: a text prompt describes the analysis wanted and Google builds the visual report, with AI summaries explaining what moved in the data. Details

Merchant Center

• Merchant Center added an 'Add videos' page for uploading product videos — A Product videos section with a dedicated 'Add videos' page started appearing in Merchant Center, letting merchants upload product videos directly rather than submit them through the video_link feed attribute. Google's in-product copy says videos give customers a more engaging and immersive experience by showing products from multiple angles. Details
• Merchant Center AI performance insights added AI Search intent, AI Search terms and AI attributes — Google expanded the AI performance insights report in Merchant Center with three new sections. AI Search intent shows the context behind conversational queries, AI Search terms surfaces the terms shoppers prioritise within a product category, and AI attributes flags structured specifications such as size, colour or material that are missing from a merchant's product data. Details

Google Ads API & Scripts

• Google Ads API developer tokens sunset; API access levels moved to Google Cloud projects (high impact) — Google sunset developer tokens on September 9, 2026 and now ties Google Ads API access levels to the calling Google Cloud project instead. Developers sign up for API access from the Google Ads API Overview page in the Google Cloud Console, with no Google Ads manager account required, and the API Center page in manager accounts is deprecated pending removal. Details

ChatGPT Ads

• OpenAI stopped approving ChatGPT ads for standalone image and audio generation products — OpenAI told advertising partners that campaigns promoting standalone image- and audio-generation products would no longer be approved to run in ChatGPT, according to reporting by The Information. Video-generation tools can still advertise. The change was communicated privately to partners rather than published as a policy update. Details
• Amazon Ads began piloting ChatGPT Ads inventory through Amazon DSP for select U.S. advertisers — Amazon Ads and OpenAI launched a pilot letting select U.S. advertisers extend Amazon DSP campaigns into ChatGPT, with Delta Vacations among the first. Amazon manages setup and optimization while OpenAI's system controls delivery and placement; inventory is available on CPC and CPM bases, including product feed ads. Details

Took effect this period

• Sep 8, 2026: Age and gender include/exclude targeting added to Performance Max Details

Coming up

• Sep 14, 2026: 'Good policy health' certification requirement extended to all gambling and games categories Details
• Sep 15, 2026: Financial services verification extended to 13 more EEA countries; enforcement from September 15, 2026 Details
• Sep 23, 2026: Creation of new Smart Campaigns via the Google Ads API ends September 23, 2026 Details
• Sep 30, 2026: Alcohol policy rewritten as a unified global framework effective September 30, 2026 Details
• Sep 30, 2026: Campaign-level language targeting removed for Search and AI Max campaigns from late September 2026 Details
• Sep 30, 2026: Third-party rates for hotel ads to be retired after September 30, 2026; affected Hotel campaigns stop serving Details
• Sep 30, 2026: pickup_cost and minimum_order_value made mandatory for in-store pickup products in the UK, Switzerland and EEA Details
• Oct 1, 2026: Local Services Ads to charge for missed calls over 20 seconds and follow-up calls from October 1, 2026 Details
• Oct 1, 2026: Max CPC removed for new non-portfolio conversion, value and clicks campaigns from October 1, 2026 Details
• Oct 2, 2026: gtm.js snippets to stop honoring gtag('config') commands from October 2, 2026; sites must use gtag.js Details
• Oct 5, 2026: Government documents and services ads limited to authorized providers from October 5, 2026 Details
• Oct 7, 2026: Online gambling ads disallowed in Croatia from October 7, 2026; existing certifications revoked Details
• Oct 7, 2026: Google Ads API v22 sunset confirmed for October 7, 2026 Details

See every change with filters and sources at https://gadschangehistory.com

From Google Ads Change History by Brandon Mangan. Not affiliated with Google.