Google Ads and SEM

Google Ads advertisers can mark channels as High or Low priority and cap daily spend on the Low ones. The rollout starts on 15 October.

Google Local Services Ads now charge for unanswered calls during business hours when the caller waits more than 20 seconds.

Google added IP matching and personalised alcohol ads in September, but neither works everywhere in the EU. We checked six changes on the platforms' help pages.

Brands will be able to show their own name in Google ads that lead to a partner's domain. Resellers and booking sites cannot.

Google Ads API v25.2 arrived on 23 September 2026. Percentile metrics now show an account’s position among other advertisers, and Smart campaigns can be turned into Performance Max drafts.

Google Ads now accepts unhashed IP addresses and interaction timestamps in Customer Match files. The feature is unavailable for users in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland.

Microsoft Advertising has added a report to its API that shows a search term, the headline served and the landing page in one row. Search Engine Land covered it on 25 September.

Bipods, sights, slings, mounts and braces can be advertised on US Google Search in a six-month test. Guns and ammunition remain off limits.

Median click prices in budget-limited Google Ads campaigns rose 15.8% after Google changed how Smart Bidding follows targets on 17 August 2026.

A click on a Facebook traffic ad cost 60 cents in the year to June 2026, 14 per cent less than a year earlier.

Advertisers say Google Ads is cancelling promotional credits after the qualifying spend. One $3,200 credit was invalidated more than a month later.

Google Ads has started showing advertisers a beta experiment that compares different budgets and campaign targets. Search Engine Roundtable described the option on 10 September 2026.