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PPC Platform Updates, Week of April 28 to May 4, 2026

Twelve updates hit the ZATO PPC News Dashboard this week, and while the volume is lower than what we saw two weeks ago with the DSA retirement bomb, the severity of what's here is real. We've got three hard deadlines in the next six weeks (June 1, June 10, and June 15) that could break reporting, break API integrations, or both. And the biggest one has zero industry coverage, which means most advertisers won't know about it until it's too late.

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🚨 Important Updates (Act on These Before June)

New Data Retention Policy for Google Ads Starting June 1, 2026 — Google Ads Developer Blog

Starting June 1, 2026, Google Ads and related measurement APIs will transition to a 37-month data retention policy for granular performance statistics. That means daily, hourly, and weekly performance data. High-level aggregations (monthly, quarterly, yearly) will continue to be available for 11 years.

How this impacts you today

If you have custom reporting, dashboards, or scripts that pull granular historical data from the Google Ads API going back further than 37 months, those queries will start failing or returning incomplete data after June 1. And if you haven't already exported that historical data somewhere (a data warehouse, BigQuery, even a spreadsheet), you have less than four weeks to do it.

This is particularly relevant if you're an agency that runs year-over-year comparisons at the daily level, or if you've built attribution models that depend on granular historical performance. The high-level monthly data will still be there, but if you need the daily or weekly breakdowns from, say, early 2023 or before, you need to pull it now.

My take: this is one of those changes that sounds boring and technical until it breaks something you depend on. If you have a data person on your team, send them the Google Ads Developer Blog post today. If you don't have a data person, go pull your historical reports into a spreadsheet this week. Better to have the data and not need it than to need the data and not have it.

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Google Ads API v20 Sunset, June 10, 2026 — Google Ads Developer Blog | Search Engine Land

Google Ads API v20 will sunset on June 10, 2026. Starting on that date, all v20 API requests will begin to fail. You need to migrate to a newer version before June 10 to ensure your API access is unaffected.

This had low industry coverage (one matching article from Search Engine Land), which is slightly better than zero but still not great given the hard deadline.

How this impacts you today

If you use any third-party tools, custom scripts, automated bidding solutions, or reporting integrations that connect to Google Ads via the API, you need to verify which API version they're running. Most major platforms (like bid management tools and reporting suites) have likely already updated, but smaller or custom-built integrations are the ones that tend to get caught by these sunsets.

The practical check is straightforward: ask your developer or tool provider "are we on API v20?" and if the answer is yes (or "I'm not sure"), that's your signal to prioritize migration. Last month we flagged the MFA requirement for the API as another thing to get ahead of, so if you knocked that out already, this is the next item on the list.

Five weeks feels comfortable until suddenly it's five days. Don't wait.

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⚠️ May Impact (Worth Understanding Soon)

Product Reporting Changes for Google Ads Starting June 15, 2026 — Google Ads Developer Blog

Another uncovered update with a hard deadline. Starting June 15, the Google Ads API will begin transitioning product reporting to include data from all Performance Max networks. This update provides comprehensive performance metrics across all campaign types and channels, including Performance Max, Shopping, Video, App, and Demand Gen.

How this impacts you today

If you manage ecommerce accounts and rely on product-level reporting through the API (or through tools that use the API for product performance data), the structure of that data is about to change. This is broadly a good thing, more visibility into how your products perform across PMax's various channels, but any custom reports or automated rules built around the current product reporting format may need to be updated.

If you don't use the API directly and just work in the Google Ads UI, this will mostly surface as richer product-level reporting in your PMax campaigns over time. But if you have automated product performance dashboards or feed optimization logic that pulls from the API, flag this for your data team now. June 15 is six weeks out.

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Microsoft Ads Adds Deeper Reporting to Performance Max Placements — Search Engine Land

Microsoft Advertising now adds conversion and spend data to PMax placement reports, giving advertisers clearer insight into where their PMax budget is actually being distributed and how it's performing.

How this impacts you today

If you're running Microsoft PMax campaigns, this is a meaningful transparency upgrade. One of the biggest frustrations with PMax on any platform has been the "black box" problem, you put money in and results come out, but you don't always know where the money went. Adding conversion and spend data to placement reports gives you a much clearer picture of which placements are driving your results and which are just burning budget.

Go check your Microsoft PMax placement reports this week to see the new data. If you're not running Microsoft Ads yet, this is another small but meaningful reason to consider it, Microsoft keeps investing in advertiser transparency in ways that Google tends to be slower about.

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AI Max Turns 1 with New Steering Controls — Google Ads Blog

Google published a retrospective on AI Max's first year, which included new ways to steer performance and announced expansion to more advertisers. This was the centerpiece of what turned out to be an AI Max-themed week: Google also published separate posts about adapting Shopping campaigns to AI Max and using AI Max for Travel campaigns.

How this impacts you today

If you're still running DSA campaigns and haven't started testing AI Max yet, the one-year anniversary is Google's way of saying "this isn't experimental anymore, this is the future." We talked about the DSA-to-AI Max migration a couple weeks ago, and the new steering controls are specifically designed to address the "I don't have enough control" objection that's been holding a lot of advertisers back.

The Shopping and Travel-specific posts are also worth reading if you operate in those verticals. Google is clearly positioning AI Max as the future of Search campaign targeting, and the advertisers who learn to use the steering controls effectively now will have an advantage when the broader migration starts later this year.

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📋 Good to Know (Lower Priority, But on Your Radar)

Optmyzr Report: Google Ads Engagement Rising While Efficiency Holds — Search Engine Journal

New data from Optmyzr shows that Google Ads CTR is rising across the board, but conversions remain relatively flat. This is an interesting signal about the state of the platform: ads are getting more clicks, but those clicks aren't necessarily converting better.

The quick take: If your own data shows a similar pattern (higher CTR, flat or declining conversion rates), it's worth investigating whether changes in ad formats, AI-generated creative, or increased competition are driving the click growth without corresponding conversion improvement. More clicks at the same conversion rate means higher cost per conversion, which is something to watch in your efficiency metrics.

Google Ads Adds "Association" Metric to Brand Lift Studies — Search Engine Land

Google's new Association metric shows how consumers link brands to key attributes, bridging the gap between awareness and consideration in Brand Lift Studies.

The quick take: Relevant if you run Brand Lift Studies as part of your YouTube or Display campaigns. Less relevant if you're focused purely on direct response. But it's a sign that Google continues to invest in upper-funnel measurement, which matters as more advertisers push into Demand Gen and video.

Performance Max for B2B: 5 Best Practices — Search Engine Land

A practical guide on how to guide AI, improve lead quality, use signals, creative, and reporting to get better B2B results from Performance Max.

The quick take: If you're running PMax for B2B (or considering it), this is worth bookmarking. B2B PMax has a different set of challenges than ecommerce PMax, and the lead quality concerns are real. Getting PMax right requires a different approach for B2B.

PMax for Ecommerce in 2026: Why the Hybrid Strategy Is Better — Search Engine Journal

An argument for pairing Performance Max with Standard Shopping campaigns to balance automation with control and maximize ROAS.

The quick take: This aligns with what I've been seeing in practice. Pure PMax-only strategies can work, but the hybrid approach (PMax + Standard Shopping) tends to give you better control over where your budget goes while still benefiting from PMax's AI optimization. If you're running PMax-only for ecommerce, it's worth testing the hybrid approach.

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The TL;DR

Three deadlines, in order of urgency:

June 1 (27 days out): New data retention policy kicks in. Pull any granular historical data (daily, hourly, weekly) older than 37 months before it's gone. This is the one nobody is talking about, and it's the one most likely to catch people off guard.

June 10 (36 days out): API v20 goes dark. Verify your tools, scripts, and integrations are not running on v20. If they are, migrate now.

June 15 (41 days out): Product reporting changes for PMax. Less urgent for most advertisers, but flag it for your data team if you have custom product reporting.

Beyond the deadlines: check your Microsoft PMax placement reports for the new conversion and spend data, and if you haven't started exploring AI Max yet, the one-year anniversary content from Google is a good on-ramp.

Quieter week in terms of volume, but the three June deadlines make this one of the more consequential weeks in a while.

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