PPCChat | Figuring Out the Upcoming Google Ads Changes

Posted July 29th, 2026 by Kirti & filed under Google Ads Tips.

This week’s PPCChat centered on two major Google Ads announcements: changes to how limited-budget campaigns using Target CPA will behave, and the integration of Local Service Ads (LSA) into Performance Max. Industry experts shared their initial reactions, discussed how these updates could impact campaign performance and advertiser control, outlined the account changes they’re planning, and raised key unanswered questions about Google’s implementation and reporting.

Q1: For the announced Google Ads limited budget changes – what are your initial thoughts? Hate it? Love it? No big deal? A giant nightmare headed our way?

I chalk it up as another way Google will “shake the cushions” to find some additional revenue/profit and keep Wall Street happy. Most advertisers won’t really notice it because campaigns will hit the tCPA goal they set. @robert_brady

I hate this. I think it is a pretty clear cash grab, as we can see campaigns can certainly outperform targets. And now you have to adjust well performing campaigns and hope and pray you get similar performance after you change the settings. We all know how that usually goes… @NeptuneMoon

When reading between the lines, it is quite brazen of Google to say the quiet part out loud. They clearly know which clicks won’t convert and will get enough of them for you to bring the CPA up to target. @robert_brady

Hate it. Nothing but a money grab. Saying it’s “predictable” is absolute BS. No advertiser I know prefers predictability over CPA @beyondthepaid

And they say campaigns “should” have similar performance if you shift your targets to the ones you are getting which are better than what you were targeting/asking for. That should is a pretty loaded word. @NeptuneMoon

Initial thoughts. It sucks. No clarification is going to make me believe this is in advertisers best interest. @ynotweb

Sorry, so will the limited by budget flag go away too, then ? I agree I think it’s negative change @Susie Marino

I believe the “Limited by budget” flag will remain from my reading. Anybody else feel differently? @robert_brady

You can still be limited by budget after this, yes @NeptuneMoon

Does anyone remember when they briefly offered actual CPA options. If they wanted to give that to us, they would @ynotweb

I wonder with LSA being fully absorbed into Google Ads if we’ll see pay-per-lead become a thing, because that’s how LSA has worked for years @robert_brady

Also, what advertiser is seriously going to say, hmmm, well we have been getting a $30 CPA when we target a $45 CPA, sure wish they would make our CPA $45???? @NeptuneMoon

I would expect they will just make LSA suck as much as GAds does now. @ynotweb

I know a lot of advertisers that would BALK at that from Google. If you’re cynical, you see this as a way to show advertising spending as increasing, when you’re not actually increasing customer or campaign volume, just what is being paid… @NeptuneMoon

right now that I think about it why would they take the limited by budget flag away it’s their way to spook probably lots of advertisers to spend more regardless.. @Susie Marino

I don’t think they are removing that flag @Susie Marino – this change only applies to campaigns with that status. I think they are fundamentally miscalculating how smaller advertisers (limited by budget advertisers) are going to feel when they are paying more and getting less – ESPECIALLY if they have a decent history of getting more and paying less. @NeptuneMoon

Google says “we didn’t intend to allow your campaigns to outperform targets you set” @ynotweb

This aligns perfectly with their disingenuous “belief” that advertisers’ goal is to spend their full budget. We have to wait and see how it really works in practice, but it’s justified like the recent budget rule changes. @DanThies

Q2: For the announced limited budget changes – what, if anything, are you planning to do in your accounts that will be impacted by it? How are you thinking about this and planning for it?

To Google’s credit, the tool they launched to show you which tCPA campaigns you need to review is helpful @beyondthepaid

I expect that I’ll have to run a shit-ton of tests, comparing different adjustments. Some campaigns stay the same, some reduce their target cpa, some move to completely different bidding strategies. @beyondthepaid its effectively EVERY tCPA when you work with small businesses that have limited budgets. @ynotweb

It is going to be a whole lot of “Google changed how this fundamentally works so now we have to spend the next 6 months trying to see if we can find the right setting to recover to where we were” conversations. Can’t wait for that @NeptuneMoon

I also expect that ANY results we see in the first 2 weeks will not remain “predictable” as other advertisers ALSO will be adjusting over time. This could take months to dial in. @ynotweb

And “predictable” does not mean equivalent. It means it will come as close as possible to your target even if it could get you better than your target. @NeptuneMoon

The reset learning periods are going to be a thing for sure @beyondthepaid

Every time Google makes massive changes like this it just makes me consider moving to another industry or retiring altogether. Work I used to love has become absolutely unfulfilling. @ynotweb

I feel you @ynotweb. I’m close to retirement anyway and this makes me just want to hang it up haha

We’re adjusting target CPAs for the campaigns that are outperforming their current targets to better hit the actuals @revaminkoff

@Neptune Moon especially fun when you are just starting with a client/product/audience and do not have a baseline for how much that target CPA should be. Pick too low, you won’t get visibility, pick too high, you’ll never be sure if you could do better. @ynotweb

and then we’re also going to max conversions for the campaigns that are really trying to maximize, to try to avoid some of the tCPA trap stuff @revaminkoff

@Reva Minkoff definitely one of the options to test @ynotweb

It feels like we are moving toward an input of just “how much are you willing to pay for a lead/sale” @NeptuneMoon

I still think this is like it was set to when TCPA first rolled out 10 years ago or so… @revaminkoff

im actually finding the “tool” pretty useless. it hasnt updated since july 6th and for a particular ecomm account, their seasonality is going to change right after this change goes into effect. @Janinemonico

This also should remind people they should NOT put all their eggs in a one-ad-platform basket. If you don’t use multiple ad platforms, you won’t know when the CPA is lower elsewhere. @ynotweb

I feel the same way. “Give us your landing page and cpa targets and we’ll do the rest.” NOT what anyone wants @NeptuneMoon

yep, its also useless for advertisers with limited time items – like events @ynotweb

Mine is also last updated July 6 and only uses a 28-day lookback window @robert_brady

I am definitely looking at sending more budget away from Google. We already have clients who do great on Meta. I also have the flexibility to send budget back to MS Ads where the only problem we’ve had is scalability. @ynotweb

Meta definitely more friendly for those limited time offer client campaigns @Susie Marino

yes, and no. really depends on how “limited.” Most my event clients have a 3-6 month window. After 20 days, Meta gets shifty. You really have to stay on top of what craziness they try to pull after that. @ynotweb

Being limited by budget still has benefits – you can narrow your targeting, etc. This change is going to force that so you can get out of limited status as much as possible. @DanThies

I also think Google thinks that every account wants to scale, scale, scale and that limited budgets are simply an account that has not caught up yet. When in reality, many advertisers have the amount to spend that they have to spend and want to get the most for those $$.@NeptuneMoon

I am skeptical this will allow too much narrowing of target as I still see “too small a target” issues impacting campaigns in the last 2 months particularly (especially from very local businesses) @ynotweb

The “scale, scale, scale at all costs” mentality is prevalent across lots of tech. They can’t fathom that a business would be happy to stay a specific size, keep the same advertising budget, and service the same number of clients @robert_brady

agreed – but it depends on HOW you narrow. As an example, we routinely exclude males or females, but if you try to take out unknown you lose too much. The algorithm needs conversions and activity to work @DanThies

Q3: For the announced limited budget changes – what questions do you have about how it will work?

I have a hard time believing it will only affect limited by budget campaigns… @revaminkoff

Greg Finn asked a good question on Marketing O’clock last week – is this a different smart bidding strategy depending on whether or not you’re limited by budget? It’s unclear @beyondthepaid

@Reva Minkoff And if so, why only budget limited campaigns? @NeptuneMoon

Q1: “How will it work?” I mean tell us ANYTHING and it’s better than they’ve been doing. @DanThies

Q4: Local Service Ads (LSA) being rolled into PMax – what are your initial thoughts? Hate it? Love it? No big deal? A giant nightmare headed our way?

I do not work in LSA but rolling them into PMax seems like it is going to cost advertisers more? Anthony Higman does a ton of LSA and has THOUGHTS. He is on Twitter and LinkedIn and was on Marketing O’Clock this week to talk about it. @NeptuneMoon

This one I’m leaning more positive I think this one will be easier just simply because they finally live in the same platform as everything else but agree it will likely drive up costs which the point of LSAs is they’re more small advertiser budget friendly @Susie Marino

I am also wondering if LSA will only appear in search or maps when rolled into PMax or will they start showing up in other placements? And if so, will the leads cost the same across placements?@NeptuneMoon

It’s about time… unless they give us no way to opt in or out. Being able to run LSA in Pmax and Demand Gen only makes sense. I’m sure this is why they essentially eliminated all ability for advertisers to report bad leads in LSA. Don’t be evil should be replaced by don’t be google… @DanThies

they claim they’ll still only show in search and maps.. @Susie Marino

well, there was a time I would have loved to have LSA’s integrated. Now I just see this as a massive headache awaiting us all. LSA advertisers are going to get worse and non-LSA advertisers are going to have more competition in the PMAX marketplace. @ynotweb

I think from the standpoint of having a single interface/place for ad campaigns it is a good thing. How it performs in this new setup remains to be seen. It is also a way to get more advertisers doing LSA and paying for leads, which are more expensive than clicks and once again pump up ad revenue numbers. @NeptuneMoon

and likely or “hopefully” i’m sure from google’s perspective – get more LSA-only advertisers to try other campaign types.. but some businesses really just want that, and they’re not as well-versed in the platform and other campaign types or PMax @Susie Marino

There are so many issues here. LSA uses a pay-per-lead model. Will they get moved to tCPA? LSA ads show in an entirely different pack of ads on SERPS. Will they now be in the regular ad packs? Will Google continue offering “Competitive quotes” like this result? And that’s not even getting into how the interface will handle this. @robert_brady

it’s going to be a new PMax pay per lead goal that hasn’t rolled out yet. so like during the transition, you can’t create them fresh in google ads, because it’s not an option yet @Susie Marino

They did add leads into data you can see as a first step toward this @NeptuneMoon

I doubt this will lead to more LSA advertisers, unless they have relaxed the requirements. I mean, you can’t even list your business name as a franchisee right now. @ynotweb

And LSA has a very strict verification process. All the way to having background checks on all the techs working for the business. How does that get integrated? @robert_brady

if you’re already currently verified you won’t have to reverify i guess, but i think the process will relatively be the same? correct me on that though @Susie Marino

I am going to make a Google doc for Ginny with our questions on both of these topics and I’ll do a post when she is back from vacation and can answer them. @NeptuneMoon

not to be that guy but if this is helpful for anyone for now i tried to cover the FAQs on this one here: https://www.wordstream.com/blog/google-ads-lsa-pmax-update @Susie Marino

I was looking forward to LSAs being integrated into normal Google Ads, but PMax is not exactly where I was thinking they would go….I think Demand Gen would make MUCH more sense @revaminkoff

LSA verification has been a very manual process since the beginning. Verifying licensure, insurance, background checks, etc. The kind of work that Google hates because it doesn’t scale easily. I’m honestly surprised it existed as a separate system for so long. @robert_brady

if display is moving to demand gen.. might as well dump all the other ad types into demand gen @Susie Marino

Do you think they will loosen up the LSA verification @Robert Brady? @NeptuneMoon

If Google wants to keep the pay-per-lead model (where they’re basically the aggregator) then they need to keep it pretty strict because they’re selling the lead and if a consumer gets scammed the liability could roll up to Google. If they move it to a tCPA model like the rest of Google Ads, then they could dial it back to the more simple business verification that exists currently. @Robert Brady

Is Guaranteed by Google still a thing? Like as in they vetted advertisers. Maybe that got rolled into LSA? @NeptuneMoon

The “Google Guaranteed” went away awhile ago. @Robert Brady

Q5: Local Service Ads (LSA) being rolled into PMax – what, if anything, are you planning to do in your accounts that will be impacted by it? How are you thinking about this and planning for it?

I don’t currently have an LSA client, but if you’re in an industry with LSA the auction/algorithms are going to have a learning period coming. @robert_brady

Well one interesting note in the announcement is that once an LSA upgrade starts, is that it won’t be fully done and “settled” for up to two weeks.. it’s funny they said they’re aiming for “minimal interruption” but then are LSA advertisers supposed to just like sit on the new PPL PMax for 2 weeks before making any adjustments ? @Susie Marino‘

It’s 7 days until new passkeys are fully ready potentially too. We didn’t even talk about that change! @NeptuneMoon

I will be sending several strongly worded warnings to those clients. @ynotweb

Campaign experiments if the advertiser is big enough. If I chased clients myself (I only work through agencies) I’d be making lists of big LSA advertisers in my area because a bunch of them ARE going to see a disruption. . @DanThies

yep, anyone looking for new clients should target those LSA advertisers a month, two months, and three months into it. @ynotweb

Q6: Local Service Ads (LSA) being rolled into PMax – what questions do you have about how it will work?

How will it work? Can we have the docs now? @DanThies

Biggest one for me is how the SERP is impacted. @robert_brady

Will it still be on a cost per lead basis? Will there still be a way to report poor quality leads? @revaminkoff

yeah will we start seeing more or less LSAs on local serps ? hmm @Susie Marino

the ability to report poor leads is already going away @DanThies

Will LSAs actually show as LSAs or how do we know that budget won’t get taken up by video or display, for example, versus the maps and search placements, etc. @revaminkoff

Yes that I’m not totally clear on – they make it sound like when you get the PMax with the specific pay-per-lead goal the LSAs in there will only show in search and maps, but that defeats the nature/point of a PMax campign @Susie Marino

More info on reporting and what data will be available in LSA reporting would be good to know too. Will LSAs actually show as LSAs or how do we know that budget won’t get taken up by video or display, for example, versus the maps and search placements, etc. @NeptuneMoon

agree!! ^ which essentially wasn’t mentioned in the announcement AT ALL lol @Susie Marino

It’s going in PMax because in the near future, PMax is going to be the only campaign type (this is just my prediction) @NeptuneMoon

agree with that prediction @Susie Marino

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