Google has chosen this week to make its automation more literal, and advertisers’ inputs considerably more important.

The largest change takes effect today. When a campaign is limited by budget and uses Target CPA or Target ROAS, Google will now optimise more consistently toward the target entered. That sounds harmless, but a campaign achieving a $60 CPA against a $100 target may begin moving closer to $100. In other words, the budget cap may no longer quietly protect advertisers from an overly generous target. The target now needs to reflect what the business can genuinely afford. Google’s explanation

Google also announced two more automation changes this week.

From September, Search campaigns using campaign-level broad match or Automatically Created Assets will begin migrating to AI Max. Google says the migration will preserve comparable settings, but Search Term Matching will be enabled and Text Customisation will remain active for campaigns migrated from Automatically Created Assets. Dynamic Search Ads get a reprieve until February 2027. Migration details

Later in September, campaign-level language targeting will stop controlling Search campaigns. Google will instead infer the appropriate language from the ad, landing page and user signals. This also applies to the Search portion of Performance Max. That places considerably more importance on clean multilingual campaign structures and properly matched landing pages. Language-targeting announcement

There are also several retail and data deadlines. Google begins processing conversion-based customer lists for eligible accounts on 18 August, so privacy and data-use settings should be reviewed. The old Content API for Shopping shuts down on the same day, making feed-integrity checks essential for retailers. Shopify non-Plus stores have until 26 August to migrate legacy Google tags, and Local Inventory Ads become enabled by default for Shopping campaigns on 31 August.

The pattern is fairly clear: Google is simplifying campaign setup by taking more decisions itself. That can reduce administration, but it also increases the cost of poor targets, weak conversion data and untidy account structures. Automation can execute a strategy very efficiently; it still cannot invent the right strategy.

What we’re checking in your account:

• Budget-limited campaigns where actual CPA or ROAS is materially better than the stated target.
• Campaigns scheduled for AI Max migration.
• Multilingual ads and landing pages.
• Customer-list, product-feed and Shopify measurement settings.
• Local inventory controls for relevant retail campaigns.

We’ll contact you directly if any of these changes require an account adjustment.