paid-ads

Pop art illustration of a giant Amazon-style cardboard box swallowing TV, phone and speaker icons while a robotic arm turns a budget dial over a blank ROAS report

Amazon Just Folded Its DSP Into an Agent, and Your Channel ROAS Goes With It

At unBoxed in San Francisco on September 29, 2026, Amazon merged its ads console and DSP into one platform called Amazon Ads Agent and made Full-Funnel Campaigns available to every US advertiser. You hand over products, creative and budget; Amazon's AI splits spend across sponsored ads, display, video

Pop art illustration of a giant red price tag ceiling lifting off a search ad auction, with calendar pages marked October 1 and January 12 and an import arrow carrying campaigns

Microsoft Ads Is Dropping Max CPC, and Google Import Is Where It Bites

Microsoft Advertising will remove the Max CPC field from new standalone campaigns using Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize Conversions, Maximize Conversion Value and Maximize Clicks starting October 1, 2026. Existing campaigns keep their caps, but a cap removed after that date can never be added back. A second deadline, January

Pop art illustration of an auction gavel striking shipping boxes, a hidden FIRST PRICE tag behind a SECOND PRICE label, and a CPC-to-bid dial near 0.9

Amazon's $20 Billion Auction Surcharge Is Every DSP Buyer's Problem Now

The FTC and 22 states sued Amazon on August 31, 2026, alleging Sponsored Products advertisers paid their full bid about 80% of the time in 2024 despite Amazon calling the auction second-price. The complaint covers over 1 million advertisers and an estimated $20 billion in extra charges since 2019. For

Pop-art illustration of a crocodile jaw formed by two diverging chart lines: Shopping ad impressions falling while click-through rate rises under AI Overviews

Google Shopping CTR Rose to 1.55% Because AI Overviews Ate the Bad Queries

Smarter Ecommerce analyzed 175 billion Google Shopping ad impressions from mid-2025 to mid-2026 and found median impressions fell from about 1.85 million to 1.4 million while median click-through rate rose from 1.20% to roughly 1.55%. The CTR gain is mostly a shrinking-denominator effect: Google appears to

Pop art storefront window covered in faded 20% OFF and BOGO sale posters, a magnifying glass scanning them, and a Google search ad card above copying the discount text

Google Ads Will Now Scrape Discounts Off Your Landing Page and Run Them as Ads

Google Ads added a new account-level automated asset called Automated promotions, reported by Search Engine Roundtable on September 7, 2026. Google now extracts offer copy such as "20% off" directly from your landing pages and serves it in Search and Performance Max ads on any campaign with location

Pop art illustration of an auction gavel striking a glowing yellow button beside a speedometer, representing ChatGPT Ads' new Maximize results automated bidding default

ChatGPT Ads Turned On Auto-Bidding by Default (Reporting Still Has 2 Buckets)

OpenAI made Maximize results, its automated bid strategy, the preselected default for eligible new ChatGPT Ads ad groups in a product update to beta advertisers the week of August 17, 2026. It chases click or conversion volume within budget and, per OpenAI's documentation, does not guarantee delivery against

Pop art illustration of a Google Ads bidding dial being cranked from 5 dollars to 10 dollars beside an August 17 calendar page and rising cost arrows.

Google Will Stop Beating Your CPA Targets on August 17 (On Purpose)

Starting August 17, 2026, Google Ads will stop letting budget-limited campaigns beat their Target CPA and Target ROAS goals. Google's own example: a campaign with a $10 tCPA that has been delivering conversions at $5 will move back toward an actual $10 CPA. Search, Shopping, Performance Max, and