10 Hard Truths About PPC: Insights From Last Year’s Best Debates For 2026 via @sejournal, @siliconvallaeys

Hosting my podcast, gives me a front-row seat to the unfiltered reality of our industry, the gritty, “in-the-trenches” reality shared by experts who manage millions in spend.

Last year, my guests, including Greg Finn, Christine “Shep” Zirnheld, Julie Friedman Bacchini, Andrew Lolk and Shawn Walker didn’t hold back. They dismantled “best practices,” called out platform biases, and highlighted exactly where the algorithms fail without human hands.

Here are the 10 most interesting (and sometimes uncomfortable) things my guests shared last year that you can take forward for 2026.

1. Google Is “Shaking The Couch Cushions” (And You’re The Couch)

We need to stop pretending Google’s incentives are perfectly aligned with ours. As Greg Finn and Christine Zirnheld from “Marketing O’Clock” pointed out, Google is, ultimately, a for-profit company, and while it remains an important advertising partner, its objectives don’t always perfectly align with what’s best for advertisers.

Finn put it perfectly: Have you ever noticed that the “Recommendations” tab always suggests raising your budget but never lowering it? That bias is literally built into the UI. With CPCs hitting record highs, “success” for the platform often just means “more revenue” for the shareholder.

And we’ve seen this play out in the data. Optmyzr analyzed more than 17,000 Google Ads accounts and found no consistent correlation between a high Optimization Score and strong performance. In fact, many of the best-performing accounts improved not by accepting Google’s recommendations, but by selectively rejecting them and focusing only on fixes that actually moved CPA, ROAS, or profit.

So, the takeaway is simple: Stop treating recommendations as gospel. Treat them as upsells, because the data shows that blindly following them doesn’t reliably help advertisers, but it does reliably help Google.

2. Automation Without Guardrails Is Just “High-Speed Waste”

The consensus from Shawn Walker from Symphonic Digital, Finn, and Julie Friedman Bacchini, President & Founder of Neptune Moon & Managing Director of PPC Chat, was unanimous: AI can execute, but it cannot strategize.

Walker noted that without strict conversion quality thresholds, Smart Bidding inevitably chases “cheap junk leads” because they are the easiest conversions to get. Meanwhile, Julie warned about “algorithm drift,” where a campaign slowly expands into irrelevant search terms because it thinks it’s being helpful.

Automation is necessary for modern account management, but that doesn’t mean “set it and forget it.” Your job isn’t moving bids anymore, it’s designing the right layers of automation and guardrails so the algorithms work, not the other way around.

I recently tested how well AI could diagnose a drop in conversions, and it confidently identified the campaign’s limited budget as the cause. The reasoning was simple: Some keywords were still receiving impressions while others weren’t, so the budget must be the bottleneck. But that didn’t make sense. Budget constraints usually affect campaigns broadly, reducing visibility across the board rather than selectively shutting off individual keywords.

When only certain keywords go dark, the more plausible explanation is a bidding issue. And if bidding is automated, that often indicates the algorithm deems those keywords as lower quality, resulting in lowered bids and ultimately, disappearing impressions.

The bigger point is this: AI often answers with confidence before it answers with accuracy. It can absolutely help you refine ad copy or strengthen relevance, but it still struggles to understand the nuanced and often counterintuitive interdependencies within a PPC account. In other words, it can assist with execution, but it’s not yet as reliable as a strategist.

3. The “Rule of 30” Is The New Law Of Gravity

One of the most practical takeaways of the year came from Walker. We often debate how much data Smart Bidding needs, but Shawn gave us the math:

You need ~30 conversions per campaign, per 30 days.

Not per account. Not across shared budgets. Per campaign. Below that threshold, the machine is just guessing. If you’re wondering why your small campaigns are volatile, it’s not bad luck; it’s bad math. You are starving the algorithm.

In Optmyzr’s 2024 study on the impact of bidding strategies on performance, we saw the same. 50+ conversions per month are ideal. 30+ is good, and anything less isn’t great. However, I would like to add one refinement to Shawn’s point. The real threshold isn’t “30 conversions per campaign,” but enough volume on the conversion goal/actions Smart Bidding is optimizing toward. Google’s systems can use broader, account-level conversion patterns to reduce data scarcity, and account-default goals and portfolio strategies are designed to expand the learning set beyond a single campaign.

What truly matters is having enough volume for the action you want Smart Bidding to optimize toward. If multiple campaigns are all working toward the same conversion event, they can effectively “pool” their learnings. In other words, campaigns don’t have to hit 30+ conversions individually as long as the underlying conversion action has enough aggregate volume for the system to learn and make reliable decisions.

4. “Soft Conversions” Are The Backbone Of SMB Success

So, what do you do if you can’t hit that magic number of 30? You have to feed the beast something else.

Guests heavily advocated for moving up the funnel. Walker detailed the necessity of “engaged visitor” signals, custom metrics like a user scrolling to a certain depth or spending time on site, fired only once per unique user to prevent inflation.

Whether it’s a PDF download, an add-to-cart, or a pricing page visit, these “soft” signals are no longer optional crutches; for smaller accounts, they are the only way to generate enough data density for Smart Bidding to function.

In other words, micro conversions still matter. They give Smart Bidding a richer sequence of intent signals to learn from: Did the user compare products? Did they view pricing? Did they return within 24 hours? Did they engage with interactive tools? In my experience, these micro-signals are what prevent smaller accounts from starving the algorithm and ultimately help it recognize high-quality users earlier in the journey.

5. SKAGs Are Finally, Truly Dead

If you are still using single keyword ad groups (SKAGs) in 2025, you are fighting a war that ended years ago. Bacchini was blunt: SKAGs have “run their course.”

The granular control we used to prize is now a liability. It fragments your data, making it harder for the AI to learn. Andrew Lolk, Founder at SavvyRevenue, backed this up, warning that over-segmenting campaigns destroys shared learnings. The winning structure for 2025 is radically simple: Consolidate until the data proves you need to separate.

What does that mean? Well, you should split campaigns when there are business reasons, like different bid targets, different promotions, etc. Put simply, you separate campaigns only when there’s a strategic reason, such as assigning different ROAS targets to products with different margins, or isolating seasonal inventory, like ski jackets, from evergreen categories like swimwear, so each can be optimized on its own performance curve.

And while single-keyword ad groups are outdated, single-theme ad groups (STAGs) have become the modern, more effective alternative. Instead of isolating each keyword, STAGs cluster queries that share the same intent and require the same message, giving Google enough data to learn without sacrificing relevance.

A better way to think about it:

A STAG isn’t just “all running shoes terms,” but it’s “all running shoes for distance training terms,” or “all waterproof trail-running shoes terms.” Each theme represents a specific user intent that warrants a specific ad and landing page combo

So, a more realistic STAG example might look like:

Theme: Long-distance running shoes

• “best long-distance running shoes”
• “marathon training running shoes”
• “long-distance running shoes men”

All different keywords, but they relate to the same core motivation, the same benefits to highlight, and the same landing page experience.

STAGs preserve the messaging control SKAGs once offered, but without the data fragmentation that hinders Smart Bidding from working at its best. They give you messaging precision while still feeding the algorithm enough volume to learn.

6. Stop Splitting Performance Max

Speaking of consolidation, Lolk had some strong words for how we manage Performance Max. A common mistake is splitting PMax campaigns by asset group, brand, or generic themes without a distinct ROAS target.

His take? “Splitting = Starving.”

PMax campaigns don’t share data well. If you split them, you force each new campaign to learn from scratch, requiring double the volume to stabilize. Unless you have a radically different ROAS target for a specific category, keep it together. And for the love of PPC, stop running “feed-only” PMax, he says. Just use Standard Shopping if you need that control.

7. Search Is Making A Quiet Comeback

In a surprising twist, we repeatedly heard that ecommerce brands have overemphasized PMax and Shopping, leaving money on the table in Search.

Lolk argued that Search is reclaiming its role as the high-intent workhorse because it offers what PMax cannot: diagnostic visibility and true messaging control. You can’t capitalize on a weather trend or a specific seasonal moment if you’re waiting for PMax to “learn” about it. Search lets you move fast, and it lets you control the landing page, a lever we’ve severely undervalued lately.

8. Your Competitive Advantage Is Now “Post-Click”

With Google automating bids, targeting, and even the creative process, what is left for us? Bacchini says the answer lies after the click.

Differentiation is the new battleground. If your offer is weak or your landing page is generic, no amount of bid tweaking will save you. Clients often dramatically underestimate their competitors and overestimate their own value propositions. As PPC pros, our value add is shifting from “technical setup” to “business consultancy,” fixing the offer, the positioning, and the user experience.

9. Generative AI Is Your New Junior Strategist

We moved past the “AI will write my ads” hype and got into real use cases.

• Zirnheld explained that AI has become her go-to tool for smoothing the communication gap between complex PPC work and client understanding. She uses it to draft clearer explanations, refine messaging, and spark creative concepts she can develop further. AI helps her accelerate the early stages, allowing her to spend more time on higher-value thinking.
• Walker described how AI has become a true technical force multiplier inside his workflow. He now uses it to write Google Ads scripts, build custom tools, generate and debug code, and automate tasks that previously required days of manual effort. AI effectively turns his ideas into working prototypes, allowing him to iterate faster and push the boundaries of what one PPC manager can build.
• Bacchini shared that AI has transformed how she researches competitors and analyzes positioning. Instead of manually combing through search results and landing pages, she can feed everything into AI and instantly see patterns, themes, and gaps. It gives her a strategic overview in seconds, helping her craft sharper messaging and understand where clients stand in a crowded landscape.

The consensus? AI won’t replace you, but an expert using AI will absolutely replace an expert who refuses to touch it.

In Silicon Valley, we used to lionize the idea of the 10x engineer, the kind of person who could out-code an entire team, see around corners in the architecture, and somehow ship things at a pace that felt almost unfair. But lately, the stories I’m hearing in my own network tell a different tale: Many of those “10x” engineers are starting to fall behind the so-called mediocre ones who are simply pushing the limits of what they can do with AI by their side.

And this no longer applies just to engineering. In every role, those who learn to partner with AI will outperform those who rely solely on talent and hustle.

10. The “Search” We Knew Is Disappearing

Finally, we touched on the existential shift. Shep mentioned she now uses Perplexity.ai for research more than Google. Greg Finn highlighted the instability of AI Overviews.

As I’ve been saying all year, we’re witnessing a dramatic shift from keywords to prompts. Search is no longer just about matching a query to an ad; it’s about connecting users who do complex prompts with solutions, and maybe showing an ad if that would be helpful.

In an AI-driven ecosystem, the “prompt” becomes the new keyword: a richer, more contextual signal that reflects not just what users type, but what they’re trying to accomplish. Advertisers who still think in terms of isolated keywords will fall behind; those who think in prompts, tasks, and intent paths will thrive.

The Bottom Line

The work of the modern PPC marketer continues to shift from pulling levers to thinking critically about the levers being pulled on our behalf. Automation is no longer optional, but neither is oversight. The winners this year were the advertisers who understood where algorithms shine, where they stumble, and where a human needs to step in with context that the machine simply doesn’t have.

And this evolution is far from over. As we head into 2026, I expect the debates on PPC Town Hall to get even more interesting. We’ll likely spend less time arguing about whether to adopt AI, and more time unpacking how to direct it, how to measure it, and how to prevent it from homogenizing every account it touches. We’ll explore what happens when prompts truly become the new keywords. And we’ll hear from practitioners who find creative, sometimes surprising ways to bend automation back toward profitability and strategy, rather than convenience.

If 2025 was the year we learned to tell the machine “No,” then 2026 may be the year we learn how to tell it “Do this and here’s why.” The marketers who thrive will be those who don’t just manage campaigns, but manage systems, using judgment, experimentation, and clear intent to guide increasingly powerful tools.

I’m looking forward to another year of unfiltered conversations on PPC Town Hall and to seeing what new hard truths (and opportunities) we uncover together.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Anton Vierietin/Shutterstock

PPC Pulse: Reddit Max Campaigns, Google Creator & Microsoft Targeting Updates via @sejournal, @brookeosmundson

Welcome to the first PPC Pulse of 2026! In this week’s update, Reddit introduces a new automated campaign type, Google expands its Creator Partnerships beta, and Microsoft announces new data-driven targeting capabilities.

Reddit launched Max Campaigns, an automated campaign format designed to simplify setup and expand reach across its ad inventory.

Google rolled out updates to its Creator Partnerships beta, adding creator search and centralized inquiry management inside Google Ads.

Microsoft announced a new partnership with Publicis Media Exchange and Epsilon, bringing Epsilon audience data directly into the Microsoft Advertising platform.

Read on for more details and why they matter for advertisers.

Reddit Ads Introduces Max Campaigns

Reddit has officially introduced Max Campaigns, its new automated campaign type designed to simplify setup and expand reach across the platform’s inventory.

Max Campaigns automate targeting, bidding, and ad delivery with the goal of driving conversions at scale. Advertisers provide a few core inputs, including budget, creative, and optimization goals, and Reddit’s system handles the rest.

If this sounds familiar, it should. Max Campaigns mirror the broader industry shift toward automation-first buying, similar to Google’s Performance Max or Meta’s Advantage+ formats.

What’s notable is the timing. Reddit has spent the last year improving its ad infrastructure, creative formats, and targeting capabilities. Max Campaigns feel like the next logical step in pushing advertisers toward a more consolidated buying experience.

Why This Matters For Advertisers

For advertisers already testing Reddit, Max Campaigns lower the barrier to scaling spend without building complex campaign structures.

This matters most for teams that have struggled with Reddit’s historically manual setup. Instead of managing multiple ad groups or niche targeting layers, Max Campaigns encourage a broader approach that lets Reddit’s system identify where conversions actually come from.

That said, this is not a “set it and forget it” situation.

Advertisers should expect trade-offs, as with any other automated campaign type.

Automation reduces setup friction, but it also limits visibility and control. Early testers will need to pay close attention to conversion quality, placement mix, and creative fatigue, especially since Reddit’s communities behave very differently from traditional social feeds.

The opportunity here is testing, not wholesale replacement. Max Campaigns make Reddit easier to experiment with, but they still need guardrails, realistic expectations, and clear success metrics.

Google Ads Expands Creator Partnership Beta

Google Ads quietly rolled out meaningful improvements to its Creator Partnerships beta, adding tools that make creator discovery and management far more usable for advertisers.

The update was first spotted by Thomas Eccel on LinkedIn.

The first is Creator Search, which allows advertisers to search for creators directly using keywords. This replaces the clunky browsing experience that made creator discovery feel disconnected from actual campaign goals.

Advertisers can now filter creators by:

• Subscriber Count.
• Average Views.
• Location.
• Preferred contact methods.

The second update is a Management Menu that centralizes creator inquiries. Advertisers can view creator names, statuses, subjects, response deadlines, and contact details in one place.

Why This Matters For Advertisers

Google is clearly positioning creators as a more integrated part of paid media strategy, not just a brand add-on.

For advertisers already running Demand Gen or YouTube campaigns, this update closes a workflow gap. Instead of managing creator outreach in spreadsheets or external tools, Google is pulling creator collaboration closer to the ad platform itself.

This also matters for efficiency. Teams can align creator selection more closely with campaign objectives, audience geography, and performance expectations.

It also signals where Google is headed. Creators remain one of the few formats that consistently earn attention instead of getting lost in a sea of generic ads. Google investing in better creator discovery suggests this channel will play a larger role in future campaign types.

The caveat is program maturity. This is still a beta. Measurement, attribution, and scalability remain open questions. Advertisers should approach this as a testing ground, not a replacement for established creator programs.

Microsoft Announces New Data-Driven Targeting Capabilities

Microsoft Advertising used CES to announce a new collaboration with Publicis Media Exchange and Epsilon that brings Epsilon data directly into the Microsoft Advertising platform.

The initiative, called Third-Party Search (3PS), allows Publicis Media clients to activate Epsilon’s identity and audience data across Microsoft’s search, native, and display inventory.

According to Microsoft, early pilots in the travel vertical showed strong results, including higher return on ad spend (ROAS) and access to net-new audiences that were not previously identifiable through standard in-market targeting.

The announcement reinforces Microsoft’s push toward identity-driven personalization while staying compliant with evolving privacy expectations.

There wasn’t detail provided about what specific audience types or how advertisers can use these audiences in the platform, but I’m sure more detail will follow in the coming weeks or months.

Why This Matters For Advertisers

This update highlights Microsoft’s long-term strategy: differentiated data partnerships instead of pure scale competition with Google.

For large advertisers and agencies with access to Epsilon data, this unlocks more precise audience activation without relying solely on keyword intent. That’s especially valuable in verticals like travel, finance, and retail, where user intent is fragmented across devices and touchpoints.

It also reflects a broader shift away from traditional in-market audiences. As privacy constraints tighten, platforms are leaning on richer identity frameworks and curated data partnerships to maintain performance.

For advertisers not working with Publicis or Epsilon, this announcement still matters. It signals where Microsoft is investing and how future audience solutions may evolve.

Expect more emphasis on data interoperability, identity resolution, and partnerships that sit outside standard platform-owned audiences.

Theme Of The Week: Platforms Are Simplifying Entry, Not Strategy

This week’s updates all lower the barrier to getting started, but none of them remove the need for thoughtful decision-making.

Reddit’s Max Campaigns make it easier to launch and scale without building complex structures, but advertisers still have to define success, monitor conversion quality, and decide when broader delivery is actually working.

Google’s Creator Partnerships updates streamline discovery and outreach, but they do not solve measurement, creative fit, or long-term performance questions.

Microsoft’s data collaboration expands access to richer audiences, yet advertisers still need a clear plan for how those audiences fit into their overall targeting approach.

The common thread is access, not automation as a substitute for judgment.

As setup gets easier, the real differentiator becomes how clearly advertisers define what they want these systems to achieve, and how disciplined they are about evaluating results.

More Resources:

Featured Image: beast01/Shutterstock

Why Every Google Ads Account Needs To Run Scripts

Most PPC marketers love talking about automation, Smart Bidding, and the latest AI-powered magic Google rolls out. But the truth is that none of those shiny features can save your account from the actual threats: human error, broken websites, overspending budgets, bad conversion data, brand safety violations … the list goes on and on.

That’s where Google Ads scripts come in.

Scripts are the unglamorous robots behind the scenes. They automate grunt work, protect your budget, enforce account hygiene, and alert you before a minor issue becomes a five-figure disaster. They’re free, easy to use, safe to test, and thanks to modern large language models, anyone can build or customize them – even without coding skills!

If you manage Google Ads accounts and you’re not using scripts, you’re working too hard and taking unnecessary risks.

I am here to tell you today: Every account should have Google Ads scripts running. Here’s why:

1. Automate The Grunt Work (The Tedious Tasks That Eat Your Life)

Every PPC professional has a short list of tasks they love … and a very long list of tasks they tolerate out of necessity. Scripts exist for that second list – the repetitive, time-draining, soul-evaporating work that must get done but doesn’t require human creativity.

Let’s look at some examples and include some free scripts.

Budget Pacing

Google has a very relaxed attitude toward daily budgets. One day, it only spends 60% of your daily budget; the next day, it decides to impress you with a 180% increased spend. Great. But not if your client expects a steady pace and has strict budget requirements.

A pacing script brings sanity by monitoring both daily and month‑to‑date spend, projecting where your budget will land by the end of the period, and alerting you whenever Google begins to overspend or drift off pace. It highlights pacing issues early and gives you room to adjust budgets proactively – or even automate those adjustments entirely.

Instead of hoping Google behaves, pacing scripts make sure your budget does.

Fixing Your Product Feeds

Any ecommerce manager will tell you: Feeds break constantly, usually at the worst possible moment (think Black Friday, or Christmas, anyone?).

Instead of leaving you to manually sift through thousands of items, scripts take on the heavy lifting. They can flag missing or invalid GTINs long before they cause disapprovals, detect broken product URLs that quietly tank performance, and surface best-selling items that have suddenly been disapproved.

Scripts also help uncover missing attributes such as sizes or colors (details that matter for relevance), and can even rewrite product titles dynamically using real search term data to improve impression quality and match user intent more effectively.

In short, Google Ads scripts help you maintain a clean, high-performing product feed that supports both Shopping and Performance Max success.

Automated Reporting

Manual reporting is tolerable for one account. Maybe two. Beyond that? No thanks.

The PPC Manager who screams “I love creating client reports” … be sure to tell me when you find one.

Instead of forcing you to manually assemble slides, screenshots, and spreadsheets, scripts take over the entire reporting pipeline. They can automatically export daily, weekly, and monthly performance reports, push the data directly into Google Sheets, and generate clean performance summaries without you lifting a finger. They also build trend dashboards that stay updated in real time, and can even work alongside an LLM to prepare and send a client email that includes the report, along with a short, auto‑generated overview of the key highlights.

You get reporting consistency without sacrificing your weekends.

2. Boost Account Performance & Cut Wasted Spend

Scripts don’t just save time; they actively improve performance. They reveal inefficiencies humans overlook and take action instantly.

Search Term Analysis & N-Gram Exclusions

N-gram analysis is one of the most underrated PPC tactics. It breaks queries into word chunks so you can identify patterns of waste.

Instead of manually combing through endless search term reports, a script can take over the entire process by pulling all queries, breaking them into n‑grams (small one‑, two‑, or three‑word patterns) and analyzing which of those patterns consistently fail to convert. It then identifies common waste phrases and can even auto‑suggest or apply negative keywords based on what it finds.

If “free,” “DIY,” or “near me” is burning budget across thousands of queries, you’ll know. And you’ll fix it.

Pausing Non-Converting Products in Shopping & PMax

No one has time to manually audit thousands of SKUs.

Scripts can automatically pause products after X spend without conversions, or down-bid poor performers by automatically placing them in a different campaign with higher tROAS and lower max CPC bids.

This is especially critical for PMax, which happily spends on products you wish it wouldn’t.

Excluding Bad Display Placements

Display inventory is unpredictable, and if you’ve ever taken a serious look at your placements report, you already know how messy it can get.

Click fraud, lead fraud, and brand safety violations are, unfortunately, daily realities in the Display ecosystem.

This is exactly where scripts earn their keep. Instead of leaving you to manually sift through questionable placements, a script can automatically detect low-quality inventory and remove it from your campaigns. It can identify and exclude MFA sites, pages associated with CSAM or malware risks, and the endless parade of children’s apps that chew through budget without producing meaningful leads. By continuously filtering out these problem areas, scripts can reduce Display waste anywhere from 20% to 60%, depending on your country and account setup.

Your brand will thank you.

3. Prevent Costly Mistakes Before They Burn Money

Scripts excel at catching issues early – before your budgets vanish or Smart Bidding crashes.

Broken Link Checker

A broken URL instantly tanks performance, and this is exactly where a link-checker script proves invaluable.

Instead of relying on manual checks, the script automatically crawls all your final URLs, scanning them for issues such as 404 errors, unexpected redirects, or pages that load so slowly they might as well be broken. When it detects a problem, it alerts you immediately, long before wasted spend or frustrated users pile up.

You avoid burning budget and annoying potential customers.

Out-Of-Stock Ad Pausing

Buying clicks to products that aren’t available is classic ecommerce pain.

Yes, a well-managed Shopping feed usually prevents this, but for standard Search ads, you’re on your own unless you automate the checks.

This is where scripts step in. They continuously monitor your product pages to detect when items go out of stock, when certain variants become unavailable, or when products are fully discontinued. Once a problem is spotted, the script automatically pauses the affected ads and then resumes them the moment stock returns, protecting both your budget and user experience.

Conversion Tracking Monitor

When conversion tracking breaks, everything breaks – and this is especially true for Google’s Smart Bidding, which becomes completely misaligned the moment your tracking data goes off.

A monitoring script can catch these issues early by watching for sudden drops in conversions, or unexpected spikes caused by duplicates. The script detects missing enhanced conversions, offline conversions that stop importing, or irregularities in how your tags are firing. It flags these problems the moment they appear, so you can intervene before Smart Bidding optimizes itself into chaos.

Trust me: When conversion tracking breaks, you want to be the first to know.

Some Personal Real-Life Examples

If the examples above haven’t convinced you yet, let me share some personal examples of how scripts saved my neck.

Account Down Alerts (The Friday 4:55 PM Nightmare Scenario)

Every PPC manager has lived this.

A real account alert in one of my clients’ accounts: “Your ads have stopped running – You reached your monthly account spend limit. To get your ads running again, increase your ad spend.”

This message arrived late on a Friday. No one was looking at the account at that time. Google didn’t send out an email.

If it weren’t for my script, we wouldn’t have noticed the issue until Monday, and the client would lose out on the weekend revenue.

Scripts can also act as “real-time account-down watchdogs” by alerting you when your ads suddenly stop serving, when billing fails, and payments can’t be processed, or when monthly or campaign-level spend caps are unexpectedly hit. They also catch situations where Google’s suspension policies kick in or when campaigns shut off without warning for any number of reasons. Instead of discovering these issues hours (or days!) later, scripts make sure you know the moment something breaks.

Here’s the thing: Google’s notifications aren’t always timely. Script alerts are.

Change History Monitoring (Protecting Your Account From Humans)

Some of the most dangerous changes made inside a Google Ads account come from people who shouldn’t have access, from automated third-party tools, or simply from changes that happen unnoticed over a weekend by some auto-applied suggestion.

A real-life example illustrates this perfectly: One of my clients installed a third-party tracking tool on a Saturday, and the tool quietly modified the account’s tracking templates. Those seemingly small edits broke conversion tracking entirely. If it had gone unnoticed, OCI would have been misaligned and Smart Bidding would’ve optimized against faulty conversion data, performance would certainly go down the drain. This is exactly the kind of situation scripts help prevent.

My Change History alert script flagged the edit instantly and luckily warned us before real damage was done.

Monitoring changes in your account is not paranoia. This is survival.

No Excuse Not To Use Scripts

There is literally no downside to using scripts, and they’re completely free to run. Scripts are safe because Google’s built-in Preview mode lets you test everything before making actual changes. They’re also incredibly easy to use since most scripts require nothing more than a simple copy-paste to get started. And if you want to customize them, they’re flexible as well; you can modify or extend almost any script with the help of AI in just a few seconds.

Between Google’s documentation, open‑source script libraries, LLMs, and other tools, creating or customizing scripts has never been easier.

Final Takeaway: Scripts Are Now Essential PPC Infrastructure

Running Google Ads without scripts is like flying a plane with half your instruments turned off. Sure, you might land safely – but why take that chance?

If you care about PPC performance, reliability, or sanity, Google Ads scripts aren’t optional. They’re your watchdog, your analyst, your QA system, and your 24/7 protection against angry clients/bosses.

Stop wasting budget. Stop working harder than you need to. Start scripting.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Accogliente Design/Shutterstock

PPC Pulse: More Apple Search Inventory, Exact Match Limits In AI Overviews via @sejournal, @brookeosmundson

In this week’s PPC Pulse: updates include an inventory expansion for Apple Ads, and Google confirms that Exact match keywords are not eligible to serve for Ads in AI Overviews.

Apple announced additional ad placements coming to App Store search results in early 2026.

Google confirmed that exact match keywords cannot serve in AI Overviews, even when identical broad match keywords exist in an account.

Both updates reinforce an ongoing shift. Search inventory is growing across new surfaces, but the level of control advertisers once relied on is changing.

Read on for more details and why they matter for advertisers.

Apple Search Ads Will Add New Search Placements In 2026

Apple officially announced that it will introduce additional ads within App Store Search Results starting in 2026. Today, advertisers can appear only in the top position. Beginning next year, ads will also show further down the results page across more queries, expanding total available inventory.

In its email announcement, Apple shared several supporting data points in its announcement:

• Nearly 65% of App Store downloads occur directly after a search.
• The App Store sees 800 million weekly visitors.
• More than 85% of visitors download at least one app during their visit.
• Current Search Results ads see 60% or higher conversion rates at the top of results.

Per the announcement, advertisers will not need to adjust campaigns to qualify for the new placements. Apple noted that ads will be automatically eligible and cannot be targeted or bid separately by position. The format and billing model will remain the same.

Expanding On An Already Big Year For Apple

Apple has consistently rolled out upgrades and expansions throughout 2025, including:

• Custom Product Page expansion (March 2025): Apple expanded testing capabilities by allowing more CPP variants tied to specific keywords, improving message alignment.
• Reporting enhancements (June 2025): Apple introduced clearer diagnostics around impression share, keyword performance, and CPP impact. These updates made it easier to identify friction points in search campaigns.
• Creative refinements for Today Tab and Search Tab (August 2025): Apple improved visual consistency and added support for higher-funnel experimentation, hinting at broader expansion across App Store surfaces.

These updates all point toward a more robust Apple Ads marketing platform, making the 2026 inventory expansion feel like a natural progression.

Why This Matters For Advertisers

More placements signal higher reach, but also more variability. Top-position performance is unlikely to change, but additional placements may bring new traffic patterns as more users scroll past the first result.

Advertisers should expect incremental installs paired with slightly wider performance swings.

This also means that metadata, product page quality, and CPP strategy will influence performance more than before, since every placement will rely on the same creative foundation.

Read More: An In-Depth Guide To Apple Search Ads

Google Confirms Exact Match Keywords Not Eligible For AI Overviews

A few questions came in to Google Ads Liaison, Ginny Marvin, this week on X (Twitter) regarding the eligibility of exact match keywords for ads in AI Overviews.

Marvin confirmed via a thread on X (Twitter) that exact match ads are not eligible to serve ads inside Google’s AI Overviews. This clarification explains a pattern many advertisers have seen over the last year. Even if an account contains the same query in both exact and broad match, only broad match can enter AI Overview auctions.

The update circulated quickly after Arpan Banerjee shared it on LinkedIn, giving the topic more visibility among PPC practitioners.

This means advertisers may see broad match triggering queries that they assumed would be handled by exact match. It also means AI Overview impressions are routed through a different layer of Google’s system with its own eligibility rules. Since Google does not provide separate AI Overview reporting, changes in performance may not be clearly attributed to this shift.

Why This Matters For Advertisers

This update makes it clear that match types do not operate the same way inside AI-driven surfaces.

The long-standing assumption that exact match provides clean, isolated coverage does not apply within AI Overviews. Broad match becomes the only entry point, which could influence spend allocation, campaign structure, query mapping, and performance diagnostics.

Advertisers should expect shifts in query distribution on terms where they rely heavily on exact match control.

Read More: AI-Enhanced Keyword Selection In PPC

This Week’s Theme: Search Control Looks Different Than It Used To

Both updates highlight a similar pattern. Platforms are expanding search inventory, but advertisers have less control over how placements are allocated.

Apple is opening new ad positions without letting advertisers bid separately for them. Google is routing some search coverage through AI Overviews, where exact match does not participate. In both cases, the legacy structure of “keyword plus bid plus placement” is giving way to a more interpretive system.

This does not mean advertisers lose influence. It means influence shifts to metadata quality, creative alignment, first-party data, and smart segmentation. Both updates remind advertisers to stay flexible because new surfaces will continue to emerge.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Pixel-Shot/Shutterstock