A Google Search ad for a Philadelphia personal injury firm has been seen carrying a green Apple Messages button that, when tapped on an iPhone, opened a pre-written text addressed to the firm's toll-free number. Anthony Higman, founder and chief executive of the agency ADSQUIRE, posted the example on X on October 28, 2026, and wrote that the option was not available in the agency's own Google Ads accounts. Google has not announced it. Its help pages for message assets name WhatsApp, SMS, Facebook Messenger and Zalo, say nothing about Apple, and do not list the United States among the countries where message ads can serve on iOS.

In Short

A Google search ad for a law firm in Philadelphia showed a green button called Apple Messages, and tapping it on an iPhone opened a ready-made text to the firm. Google has not announced the button, its instructions for advertisers do not mention Apple, and the marketer who found it says the agency's own accounts cannot add it. The text it opens travels as an ordinary SMS, so the firm sees the sender's phone number, which is not how Apple's own system for chatting with businesses works.

What the ad showed

The ad belonged to Rand Spear, a personal injury firm, and appeared under Google's "Sponsored Results" label. It carried a carousel of images, a headline offering a free case evaluation around the clock, and a location line placing the firm's Market Street office in Philadelphia 1.0 mile from the searcher, open 24 hours, with a 4.7-star rating from 815 reviews. Beneath the description sat three buttons: "Call", "Website" and "Apple Messages". The third carried Apple's green Messages icon.

"Apple Messages In Google Ads? DEF Sticks Out With The Bright Green," Higman wrote. According to the post, pressing the button "Opens Up Apple Messages With Pre Populated 'I Would Like To Speak With Someone About An Incident' Message."

In the example Higman shared, the iPhone's New Message window was addressed to a US toll-free number with an 844 prefix, and the text field held the draft "I would like to speak with someone about an incident." The status bar showed a link back to the Google app, the usual sign on an iPhone that one app was opened from another. The searcher therefore saw the ad inside Google's own app and was handed to Apple's Messages app with one tap. Nothing was sent automatically. The draft still needed a second tap on the send arrow.

The rest of the post raised the question of who can use it. "We Do NOT Have This Option Available In Our Accounts Though? So Maybe A Super Secret Beta? As 'Message' Assets Are In Beta," Higman wrote.

Higman has surfaced Google changes before. In September, Higman posted that Google was showing ads from exact and phrase match keywords in AI Mode, which Google then described as a small experiment. In August, Higman published the email in which Google told advertisers it would start charging Local Services advertisers for missed calls over 20 seconds.

PPC News Feed, which credited Higman, went further on October 29. "Google Ads has introduced Apple Messages as a new option for message assets in Search campaigns, allowing advertisers to connect with potential customers directly through Apple's messaging platform," the site wrote. It cited no Google announcement, and the claim that advertisers have the option sits uneasily with Higman's statement that it was missing from the agency's accounts. Search Engine Roundtable, which covered the post on October 28, described the button as a test, and its executive editor, Barry Schwartz, doubted that it was Apple's Messages for Business service. Neither publication quoted Google.

Green button, green bubble

The label says Apple Messages. The message itself, in the example, was set to leave the phone as an SMS.

The compose window marked the draft "Text Message • SMS", which distinguishes a standard text sent over the carrier network from iMessage or RCS. The recipient's number and the send arrow were both green. According to Apple's support pages, blue bubbles mean a message was sent with iMessage, while green bubbles mean it was sent as SMS, MMS or RCS. RCS on the iPhone needs iOS 18 and a carrier that supports it.

One reply under Higman's post picked up on the colour. "Ironic use of green for iMessage lol," wrote Ryan, who posts as HVAC SEO.

The distinction matters because Apple runs a separate product for companies: Messages for Business. According to Apple's documentation, it is a business-to-customer service distinct from iMessage, in which a customer starts the conversation from a Messages button on a website, an email, a QR code or an app. Businesses must deploy it through a messaging service provider, and Apple says it has integrated with more than 20 of them. Apple also states that the business does not receive the customer's phone number, email address or iCloud details, and that texting a customer's phone number does not start a Messages for Business conversation.

None of those features appears in the Philadelphia example. The thread was addressed to a phone number, labelled as SMS, and showed no business name or logo. An SMS sent from an iPhone also carries the sender's mobile number to the firm. For a law firm collecting accident leads, that is a usable contact record. For the person tapping a button that carries Apple's name, it means handing over the number that Apple's business chat product is designed to withhold.

A pattern from Android

A plausible reading, which neither Google nor Apple has confirmed, is that the button is the existing SMS message asset, labelled with the name of the phone's built-in texting app. The sequence of sightings fits it. On July 11, 2026, PPC News Feed reported an SMS option in the message asset setup, with a preview that showed a send-message prompt through Google Messages rather than a third-party app. On September 14, the same site reported a Google Messages button on a sponsored result, spotted by Sachin Patel, and treated it as a new option. Google Messages is Google's own texting app for Android, and Samsung said in April that it would retire Samsung Messages in July 2026, leaving Google Messages as the default SMS and RCS app on its phones running Android 12 or later.

An Apple Messages label on the iPhone would be the mirror image. It would also mean that the "new option" described by PPC News Feed is not a new platform at all, but a new presentation of SMS on Apple devices. The alternative, that Google has some arrangement with Apple to route ads into its messaging app, has no support in anything either company has published.

Missing from Google's documentation

Google's main help page on message assets describes the format as being in beta and says some advertisers may not have access yet. The page explains that message assets add a button to responsive search ads, that a tap sends the user to the advertiser's chosen messaging platform, and that the assets work with Search and Performance Max campaigns. The platforms it names in its setup instructions are WhatsApp, SMS, Facebook Messenger and Zalo. LINE, Google Messages, RCS and Apple Messages do not appear.

The eligibility rules are strict. Google requires a good history of policy compliance, an account in an eligible vertical, and completion of its advertiser verification programme. Sensitive categories such as campaigns and elections are excluded, and new advertisers may see their message asset impressions limited until users have interacted positively with them. Advertisers supply a phone number, URL or username along with a starter message, the text that appeared pre-filled in the Philadelphia example. Google also tells advertisers not to mention the messaging platform in their headlines, because users who tap the headline go to the website rather than the chat.

The most striking gap concerns geography. Google's page on reporting for message assets says message ads are available globally on Android, but on iOS they are eligible to serve only in a list of 42 countries. The list runs from Argentina to the United Kingdom and includes Germany, France, India, Mexico and Spain. It does not include the United States, Canada, Japan or Australia. The Philadelphia ad was served on an iPhone, to a searcher about a mile from the firm's office, with a US toll-free number in the message window. Either the list is out of date, or the iPhone placement in the US is new and undocumented. The help page carries no date, so it is not possible to tell which.

A second discrepancy concerns the other buttons. Google's explanation of how message assets work says that when the message button serves, no other asset types are triggered, naming calls and lead forms as examples. The Philadelphia ad showed a Call button beside the Apple Messages button. That Call button may come from the firm's location details rather than a call asset, but Google's documentation does not cover the combination either way.

Google also keeps a directory of official partners for message asset campaigns, companies trained to set up chatbots, automated workflows and reporting. It lists 22 of them, from 360 Dialog and Infobip to Wati and Zwiz, with service areas ranging from Latin America to Japan and Vietnam. Apple is not mentioned there either.

How message assets reached this point

Google's paid messaging formats have changed repeatedly since it closed its earlier chat channel. It ended chat in Google Business Profile in 2024: new conversations from Search and Maps stopped on July 15 and the feature was removed on July 31. Message assets in Google Ads, initially built around WhatsApp, remained as the paid route into a conversation.

Measurement followed. On December 31, 2024, Google introduced message-based lead conversion tracking, with a "leads from messages" goal marked as Google hosted and each successful message interaction counting as one conversion. Verification came next. Google extended its phone number verification rules to message assets from August 1, 2025 for new assets and September 1 for existing ones. In September 2025, Google added Facebook Messenger and Zalo alongside WhatsApp Business and SMS, with a Leads from Messages conversion goal created automatically once the assets were approved. On September 30, 2025, Google set out message asset requirements enforced from October 30: the messaging account must relate to the advertised company and be verified, either through a link on the advertiser's site or through proof of domain ownership.

Phone-based formats were shifting at the same time. In October 2025, Google said it would end the creation of call-only ads in February 2026, with existing call ads to stop serving in February 2027.

At Google Marketing Live on May 20, 2026, Google listed Message Ads with RCS for Business among its lead generation launches, describing them as extending click-to-message into SMS outreach with richer, AI-driven conversations on both iOS and Android, answered at scale by a Gemini-powered agent. RCS, unlike SMS, can display a verified business name and logo in the thread. The Philadelphia example showed neither, and it used SMS.

Since then, new messaging options have surfaced through advertisers' screens rather than announcements. LINE was spotted on July 27, credited to Arpan Banerjee, Google Messages in September, and now Apple Messages. On the same day as Higman's post, Invoca released AI agents that answer RCS chats started from Google Search, built with Google's RCS for Business and Google Ads teams.

Counting the lead

Google's current help pages say that once a message asset is approved, a Leads from Messages conversion goal becomes available, and that Search advertisers can pick Messages from your ads as the way to reach a leads goal. Google's troubleshooting page lists the older Google-hosted version of that goal as a legacy setting that can keep campaigns from serving.

What the pages do not say is when a message lead is counted: on the tap, or when a message is actually sent. That gap is wider for SMS on an iPhone than for WhatsApp or Messenger. In the Philadelphia example, the conversation was composed in Apple's app and would leave through the mobile carrier to the firm's own number. Whether Google counts the tap that opened the draft, or has any way of learning that the text was sent, is not explained in its documentation. For an advertiser bidding toward message conversions, the difference between a tap and a sent message is the difference between interest and a lead.

Why it matters

For lead-generation advertisers such as law firms and home services companies, a pre-written text lowers the effort of making contact. A one-line message that is already typed asks less of a person than a phone call to a stranger. The firm receives a phone number it can reply to, outside any Google or Apple platform.

The open questions are about control and disclosure. Google's documentation does not describe the button, and Higman's agency reports that the option is not in its accounts. If the button is SMS under a new label, advertisers already running SMS message assets may find their ads presented on iPhones under Apple's name, in a country Google's help page does not list for iOS, without having changed anything. If it is something new, Google has not said what it is, who can use it or how leads from it are measured.

Neither Google nor Apple has commented publicly on the button. Google has not said whether it is a test, how widely it is serving, or whether it will appear in advertisers' accounts.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Google Ads, whose Search ad for Philadelphia personal injury firm Rand Spear carried an Apple Messages button, and Anthony Higman, founder and chief executive of ADSQUIRE, who posted the example and said the option was not in the agency's accounts. Apple has not commented, and nothing in the example points to its Messages for Business service.

What: A message button labelled Apple Messages that, on an iPhone, opened Apple's Messages app with the pre-written text "I would like to speak with someone about an incident", addressed as an SMS to the firm's toll-free number. Google's help pages for message assets name only WhatsApp, SMS, Facebook Messenger and Zalo.

When: Higman posted the example on X on October 28, 2026. PPC News Feed reported it on October 29, 2026, as a new message asset option.

Where: In a Google Search ad viewed in the Google app on an iPhone near Philadelphia. Google's help page lists 42 countries where message ads can serve on iOS, and the United States is not one of them.

Why: Message assets let advertisers collect leads by text rather than by calls or forms, and Google has been adding messaging channels to them since 2024. The Apple label leaves open whether this is a test or the SMS asset presented under Apple's name, which advertisers can use it, and how Google counts a lead when the message is sent from Apple's app over a carrier network.