Google alters automatic conversion goal settings in API update

On September 25, 2025, the Google Ads API Team announced modifications to how customer conversion goals are automatically configured when developers create new conversion actions through the API. The changes take effect November 17, 2025.

The modification addresses a technical inefficiency in the platform's automation systems. When developers create conversion actions via the Google Ads API, the system automatically generates customer conversion goals as needed. Under the current configuration, these newly created goals are set as account-default by default, making them immediately biddable in any campaign optimizing to account-default goals.

"While convenient, this sometimes leads to bidding mechanisms targeting unnecessary goals, potentially resulting in suboptimal campaign performance," according to Ben Karl, writing on behalf of the Google Ads API Team in the official blog post. The change aims to optimize bidding performance by reducing the number of unnecessary goals included in the account-default set for a given account.

The technical implementation introduces a category-based logic system. Starting November 17, a new automatically created goal will only be set as account-default if all other goals within the same category are also account-default goals. The system evaluates both the conversion category and conversion origin when making this determination.

For example, if an account contains an existing, non-account-default customer conversion goal associated with a conversion action with the category PURCHASE and a conversion origin of WEBSITE, then any new conversion actions with the category PURCHASE will result in goals that are also not account-default. This approach helps the system better infer user intent while ensuring the account-default set remains focused and effective.

Technical specifications and developer requirements

The CustomerConversionGoal resource contains multiple fields that control how conversion actions are managed within accounts. According to Google's API documentation, the resource includes the resource_name field, which uses the format customers/{customer_id}/customerConversionGoals/{category}~{origin}. The category field draws from the ConversionActionCategory enumeration, while the origin field uses the ConversionOrigin enumeration.

The biddable field, which has a boolean data type, determines whether the customer conversion goal is biddable. After November 17, developers must manually set this field to true if they want newly created goals to be account-default. The field CustomerConversionGoal.biddable controls this designation.

The update builds on existing conversion tracking infrastructure within Google Ads. Enhanced conversions for web utilize hashing algorithms to collect first-party customer data, which is then matched to Google user data associated with signed-in accounts to attribute conversions to specific ad interactions. This privacy-conscious approach keeps actual customer data secure without sharing it with the platform.

Context within broader API development patterns

The announcement arrives during a period of accelerated API development at Google. The company shifted to monthly releases starting January 2026, recognizing the need for faster feature deployment in competitive programmatic advertising markets. Version 20 reaches end-of-life status in June 2026, followed by V21 in August and V22 in October, using a staggered approach to prevent overwhelming developers with simultaneous version migrations.

Major releases receive sunset dates exactly one year after launch. V23 faces retirement in February 2027, while V24 expires in May 2027. The pattern continues with V25 and V26 following twelve-month lifecycles through 2027. Minor versions share sunset schedules with their parent major releases.

The monthly release cadence excludes the end-of-year holiday period, recognizing reduced development activity during November and December. This consideration addresses practical constraints faced by development teams during traditional holiday seasons.

Google released version 20 of its Google Ads API on June 4, 2025, introducing campaign-level negative keywords for Performance Max campaigns alongside enhanced Demand Gen reporting capabilities. The update represented a significant milestone for digital marketing professionals seeking greater control over automated campaign types that previously offered limited customization options.

According to the Google Ads Developer Blog, campaign-level negative keywords for Performance Max campaigns provide advertisers with intermediate control between account-wide exclusions and the previous absence of campaign-specific targeting refinements. The functionality applies exclusively to Search and Shopping inventory within Performance Max campaigns.

Impact on conversion tracking workflows

The modification affects how developers and agencies manage conversion tracking across multiple clients. For organizations using automated systems to create conversion actions programmatically, the change requires workflow adjustments. Applications that previously relied on automatic account-default designation must now explicitly set the biddable field when that behavior is desired.

Google has expanded conversion tracking capabilities across multiple dimensions recently. On December 31, 2024, the platform introduced a beta conversion tracking feature for message-based leads in Google Ads. The feature enables advertisers to track leads generated through message interactions as conversion goals. The functionality, labeled as "leads from messages (account default)," operates within the Google-hosted environment.

Technical implementation details indicate that the conversion source is specifically marked as "Google hosted," with each successful message interaction counting as one action in the conversion metrics. Implementation requires no additional code integration on the advertiser's website, as the conversion tracking occurs within the Google-hosted environment.

The customer lifecycle targeting options announced on April 8, 2025, expanded conversion goal functionality further. The updated customer lifecycle goals include two primary categories: new customer acquisition goals and retention goals. Each category contains several bidding modes designed to target specific customer segments.

For the new customer acquisition category, Google implemented three distinct bidding modes. The New Customer Value Mode allows advertisers to assign higher bids for new customers than existing ones while maintaining engagement with returning customers. High Value New Customer Mode, in beta testing, enables differentiated bidding priorities for high-value new prospects.

Performance optimization considerations

The change affects how automated bidding strategies evaluate conversion goals. Smart Bidding algorithms use account-default goals to determine which conversions to optimize for when campaigns are set to optimize toward account-default settings. By reducing the automatic inclusion of goals in the account-default set, the system provides more precise optimization signals to automated bidding mechanisms.

Value-based bidding requirements vary by campaign type. For Demand Gen campaigns, advertisers must accumulate at least 50 conversions with value within the past 35 days, including a minimum of 10 conversions with value within the past 7 days, before accessing maximize conversion value or target ROAS bidding options. Alternatively, accounts must demonstrate at least 100 conversions with value across all Demand Gen campaigns within the past 35 days.

These thresholds ensure that only conversions with meaningful value contribute to eligibility criteria. According to the documentation, conversions with a value of zero or a negative value do not contribute to the eligibility criteria. Value-based bidding encompasses two distinct optimization strategies: maximize conversion value bidding and target ROAS bidding.

The implementation process requires advertisers to initially establish campaigns using maximize conversions or target CPA bidding strategies. This preliminary phase accumulates sufficient conversion data for the machine learning algorithms that power value-based optimization.

Developer communication and support channels

Google provides multiple support channels for developers navigating the conversion goal changes. The Google Ads API support page offers technical assistance for implementation questions. The company also maintains a Discord community server called "Google Advertising and Measurement Community" for real-time developer discussions and problem-solving.

Documentation improvements announced August 14, 2025, streamlined developer workflows through unified reference materials, improved campaign type discovery, and seamless protocol switching. According to Lois Patterson from the Google Ads API Team, these changes were "a direct result of valuable feedback from our incredible API developer community."

The documentation overhaul addressed four major developer pain points identified through community feedback. Developers requested clearer guidance on supported campaign types, consolidated reference materials, and better protocol accessibility for testing purposes. The updated documentation provides direct implementation resources and clustered guide organization following workflow-based categorization.

Google released an open-source Model Context Protocol server on October 11, 2025, for Google Ads API integration. The initiative enables third-party generative artificial intelligence tools to interact directly with advertiser accounts through the API infrastructure. The server exposes two distinct tools for language model interaction with advertising data: a search tool for retrieving account information and a list_accessible_customers tool for returning account names.

Migration timeline and preparation steps

The November 17, 2025, effective date provides developers with approximately eight weeks from the September 25 announcement to review applications and adjust workflows. Google recommends that developers audit existing conversion action creation processes to identify where explicit biddable field setting is needed.

For agencies managing multiple client accounts through manager accounts, the change requires coordinated updates across programmatic systems. Automated processes that create conversion actions without human review should be modified to include decision logic about account-default designation.

Testing procedures should verify that conversion tracking continues to function correctly after the changes take effect. Applications should include logging mechanisms to track when new conversion goals are created and whether they receive account-default designation as intended.

The modification does not affect existing conversion goals created before November 17. Only newly created goals will be subject to the category-based logic system. Developers can manually update existing goals by modifying the CustomerConversionGoal.biddable field through standard API operations.

Implications for automated bidding strategies

The category-based approach changes how bidding algorithms receive optimization signals. Campaigns configured to optimize toward account-default goals will only consider goals that meet the new criteria. This focused approach should improve optimization efficiency by eliminating signals from goals that may not align with campaign objectives.

Performance Max campaigns use machine learning to optimize for chosen conversion goals, targeting people across all of Google's properties, including Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, and Shopping. The platform automatically selects the best inventory for campaigns based on conversion goals, showing ads on a wider variety of placements than manually managed campaigns.

Automated targeting uses machine learning to select optimal inventory based on campaign conversion goals. First-party data improves targeting by showing ads to people more likely to be interested in products or services. Dynamic formats support a wider variety of ad formats, including images, videos, text ads, and HTML5 ads.

Demand Gen campaigns, designed to help businesses generate demand across Google's visually-rich surfaces, leverage sophisticated bidding options including Max Clicks, Target CPA, and Target ROAS for aligning with campaign goals and optimizing spend. Comprehensive measurement leverages insights from Brand Lift, Search Lift, Conversion Lift, creative testing, and product-level reporting for informed decision-making.

The change aligns with ongoing platform emphasis on refined automation. As Google continues expanding automated bidding capabilities, ensuring clean and intentional conversion goal configuration becomes increasingly important for optimal algorithm performance.

Technical recommendation summary

According to the announcement, the update will enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of goal management within Google Ads. The team encourages developers to review applications and client workflows in light of the upcoming change. For questions or concerns, developers can refer to the support page or discuss the update in the Discord server.

The announcement, signed by Ben Karl on behalf of the Google Ads API Team, includes labels for conversion, conversions, google_ads, google_ads_api, and offline_conversions, indicating the scope of features affected by the modification.

Timeline

• July 18, 2021: Google launched cross-account bid strategies for Search and standard Shopping campaigns, enabling advertisers to create portfolio strategies at manager account level
• November 17, 2021: Google introduced campaign-level conversions on Google Ads, enabling advertisers to select goals at the campaign level
• January 6, 2024: Enhanced conversions documentation distinguished between web and leads implementations, clarifying accuracy differences and setup requirements
• March 27, 2024: Demand Gen campaign documentation detailed bidding strategies including Max Clicks, Target CPA, and Target ROAS for visual advertising surfaces
• June 9, 2024: Google Ads API v17 implementation introduced resource usage policy updates, Discovery to Demand Gen rebranding, and enhanced reporting views
• September 8, 2024: Google announced Enhanced CPC deprecation for Search and Display ads, with automatic migration to Manual CPC beginning March 2025
• December 31, 2024: Beta conversion tracking feature launched for message-based leads in Google Ads
• April 8, 2025: Customer lifecycle targeting options expanded with new customer acquisition goals and retention goals
• June 4, 2025: Google Ads API v20 released with Performance Max negative keywords and enhanced Demand Gen reporting
• June 17, 2025: Target CPC bidding rolled out for Demand Gen campaigns without official announcement
• June 28, 2025: Value-based bidding requirements clarified for Demand Gen campaigns, establishing 50-conversion thresholds
• July 8, 2025: Google explored Model Context Protocol server implementation for third-party AI tool integration
• August 14, 2025: Google Ads API documentation received comprehensive overhaul streamlining developer workflows
• September 4, 2025: Google Ads API shifted to monthly releases starting January 2026, establishing predictable update cadence
• September 25, 2025: Google announces streamlined account-default CustomerConversionGoal behavior changes effective November 17, 2025
• October 11, 2025: Google released open-source MCP server for Google Ads API integration with AI tools
• November 17, 2025: Automatic conversion goal account-default behavior changes take effect

Summary

Who: The Google Ads API Team, represented by Ben Karl, announced the changes affecting developers, agencies, and advertisers who create conversion actions programmatically through the Google Ads API.

What: Google is modifying how customer conversion goals are automatically designated as account-default when created through the API. Under the new system, a newly created goal will only be set as account-default if all other goals within the same category are also account-default goals. Developers must manually set the CustomerConversionGoal.biddable field to true for account-default designation after the change.

When: The announcement was made on September 25, 2025, with the changes taking effect on November 17, 2025. This provides approximately eight weeks for developers to review applications and adjust workflows before implementation.

Where: The changes affect the Google Ads API infrastructure, specifically the CustomerConversionGoal resource and related conversion tracking systems. The modification impacts accounts globally across all regions where the Google Ads API is available.

Why: The change addresses a technical inefficiency where automatically created conversion goals were set as account-default by default, leading to bidding mechanisms targeting unnecessary goals and potentially resulting in suboptimal campaign performance. The category-based logic system helps the platform better infer user intent while ensuring the account-default set remains focused and effective for automated bidding optimization.