Google on June 15, 2026, published three updates to its Google Ads bidding and budgeting infrastructure, with the announcement made by Ginny Marvin, Ads Product Liaison at Google, via LinkedIn and accompanied by a formal post on the Accelerate with Google blog. The package covers an expansion of Smart Bidding Exploration to Performance Max and Shopping campaigns, a beta launch of promotion mode for managing demand spikes, and a backend change to how the platform handles campaigns limited by budget. One of the most immediately notable moments in the announcement thread was a clarification from Marvin herself, correcting a widespread assumption that practitioners had formed about how promotion mode works.

Jordan Fry, CEO of RevAmp and a former Google employee, had written in his LinkedIn post summarising the changes that advertisers would need to "set a calendar reminder to turn it back off" after using promotion mode. Marvin replied directly in the comment thread to address that. "With Promotion mode, there's no need to remember to come back to turn it off," Marvin wrote. "The very first prompt is to set the start and end dates of the promotion (with a time span of 3 to 14 days)."

That single clarification reshapes the operational picture considerably. Promotion mode is not a toggle that stays active until an advertiser manually reverses it. It is a scheduled window with a hard end date built into the setup flow itself.

What promotion mode actually does

According to Google, promotion mode lets advertisers schedule temporary changes to their ROAS tolerance and add extra daily budget during defined date ranges. The feature is available in beta for Search and Performance Max campaigns. It is compatible with daily budgets, and the ROAS tolerance adjustment can also be combined with campaign total budgets - a format Google expanded to Search, Performance Max, and Shopping campaigns in January 2026.

That compatibility matters. Advertisers who adopted the total budget model for fixed-spend promotional periods can now schedule temporary performance accelerations within those same constraints. A retailer running a Black Friday campaign on a campaign total budget, for instance, could layer in a promotion mode window to widen ROAS tolerance and inject extra daily budget for the 48-hour core of the sale - and then have the system automatically revert to standard settings when the defined window closes.

The scheduling mechanism addresses a real operational risk. Managing peak periods manually - adjusting ROAS targets, changing budgets, then undoing those changes when the window closes - introduces timing errors, human error, and the need for someone to be watching the account at the exact right moment. Promotion mode moves that coordination into a planned setup step rather than a real-time action.

The conversation in the LinkedIn thread drew comparisons between promotion mode and seasonality adjustments, the existing Smart Bidding tool that signals expected changes in conversion rates. PPC Land's October 2024 coverage documented that 65% of advertisers used seasonality adjustments for Black Friday campaigns, based on a LinkedIn poll by Adriaan Dekker that gathered 169 votes. That adoption rate shows the market has already demonstrated appetite for structured peak-period management tools.

But promotion mode and seasonality adjustments operate on different levers. Seasonality adjustments tell the system to expect a higher or lower conversion rate. Promotion mode adjusts the ROAS tolerance directly and also injects additional budget. The two tools can run in parallel for Search and Performance Max campaigns, though Google's current documentation does not address how the two signals interact when both are active during the same period.

Google had already expanded seasonality adjustments to App campaigns in beta in September 2025, but that feature remains structurally different. Promotion mode does not replace seasonality adjustments. Advertisers with complex peak-period strategies may end up using both.

Smart Bidding Exploration expands to Performance Max and Shopping

Smart Bidding Exploration has been available for Search campaigns since 2024. The mechanism works by setting a ROAS tolerance - a range within which the algorithm is permitted to bid on queries with plausible but unproven conversion histories. Rather than staying within the traffic patterns the system already understands, the tolerance gives the algorithm room to test queries it would otherwise skip.

According to Google, campaigns using Smart Bidding Exploration see on average a +18% increase in unique search query categories with conversions, and a +19% increase in conversions, based on Google internal data from March 11, 2025 to April 11, 2025.

The June 15 expansion takes two forms. Smart Bidding Exploration is now available globally in all languages for all Performance Max campaigns without a product feed. This represents a graduation from its earlier beta status, which was flagged at Google Marketing Live 2026. Second, a new beta is opening for Shopping ads - specifically, on both Performance Max campaigns with a product feed and on standard Shopping campaigns. The GML 2026 coverage on PPC Land had noted that bidding and budgeting changes were among the most anticipated follow-ups from the May 20 event.

The distinction between the two tracks matters in practice. Performance Max campaigns without a product feed are the first to receive full global availability. Performance Max campaigns with a product feed and standard Shopping campaigns are entering beta, which means access is restricted and published results data is not yet available for those formats.

The Shopping extension addresses a gap that practitioners had observed since Smart Bidding Exploration launched on Search. Product queries are structurally different from text search queries: they tend to be more price-sensitive and category-driven. Whether the exploration mechanism translates effectively to product inventory is something the beta period is designed to test. Campaigns with low conversion volume may see more variance as the system tests outside established patterns.

For those interested in the beta for Smart Bidding Exploration on Shopping and Performance Max campaigns with product feeds, Google states that advertisers should reach out to their account team.

Google's Ads Decoded episode in March 2026, in which Google Ads product managers Kristina Park and Carlo Buchmann appeared alongside Ginny Marvin, described Smart Bidding Exploration as "the biggest advancement in bidding in years." The November 2025 release of Google Ads Editor 2.11 had introduced Smart Bidding Exploration as an opt-in feature for Search campaigns, marking the first time the feature appeared in a desktop management interface. The June 15 expansion to Performance Max and Shopping continues that trajectory - moving Smart Bidding Exploration from a Search-specific tool toward a platform-wide capability.

The August 17 bidding change: the most consequential update

The third announcement in the package is the one with the hardest deadline, and it requires the most active preparation from advertisers. According to Google, starting August 17, 2026, and rolling out over a few weeks, the platform is updating bidding target optimization to help campaigns limited by budget deliver more predictable performance in line with their stated bidding targets.

To understand what this changes, it helps to understand the current behaviour. When a campaign has a "Limited by budget" status and uses a Target CPA or Target ROAS bid strategy, the system may allow actual performance to exceed the stated target. A campaign with a Target CPA of $10, for example, might regularly deliver conversions at $5. That over-performance appears positive on the surface, but it creates a concealed tension. If the advertiser increases the budget, the bidding system may respond with performance fluctuations. The over-performance had effectively masked the gap between the actual efficiency floor and the stated target.

From August 17, campaigns in that situation will begin delivering closer to their stated targets. A campaign set to $10 CPA that was delivering at $5 will move toward $10. This is not a reduction in quality - it is the system honoring the constraint the advertiser set. But for advertisers whose planning was built on the over-performing behaviour continuing, the change will alter CPA and ROAS readings in accounts. The practical consequence is a potential rise in stated CPA or drop in stated ROAS for affected campaigns, even if the underlying campaign logic was always consistent with the new behaviour.

To manage the transition, Google is introducing a new tool called the Bid Target Adjustment Tool, available in Google Ads starting July 6, 2026. The tool is triggered by account notifications sent to advertisers whose campaigns were limited by budget in the last 12 months and use a target-based bid strategy affected by the changes. Within the tool, advertisers can review historical campaign performance and choose from three actions: keeping the current target unchanged, adjusting the target in line with recent actual performance, or pausing the campaign if the change is not compatible with current goals.

Notifications will appear in Google Ads starting July 6, 2026. Advertisers will have roughly six weeks between when the tool becomes available and when the change takes effect on August 17.

The change spans a wide range of platforms. According to Google, the August 17 update affects Google Ads, Search Ads 360, Display and Video 360, Google Ads Editor, and the Google Ads API. That breadth means agency teams managing campaigns across multiple surfaces will need to audit targets across all connected environments, not just the main Google Ads interface.

How the LinkedIn thread reads

The public discussion on the LinkedIn thread following Fry's post offers a rare, granular view into how practitioners are processing these changes in real time.

Roger Cooney, identified in the thread as a PPC specialist focused on quality lead generation, described the budget-limited campaign change as likely to be "very bad for those applicable campaigns." Cooney wrote that it would "almost definitely drive CPAs up." That reaction reflects the position of advertisers who have structured expectations around the over-performing behaviour and built budget planning on those numbers.

Fry's own reaction to Marvin's clarification about the end date built into promotion mode was direct: "thank you for clarifying." The exchange illustrates why Marvin's presence in practitioner discussions matters operationally. A misunderstanding about whether promotion mode requires manual deactivation could lead to an advertiser building a monitoring workflow that turns out to be unnecessary - or, in the opposite case, assuming the system will deactivate itself when it won't.

Craig Graham, who works in paid media for dental service organisations and is building attribution and forecasting tools, compared promotion mode to seasonality adjustments in the thread. Marvin confirmed the conceptual distinction - promotion mode adjusts ROAS tolerance and budget, while seasonality adjustments address conversion rate expectations. Both are available simultaneously.

The March 2026 budget pacing change - when Google altered how average daily budgets pace for campaigns using ad scheduling - had also been first publicly documented through a Jordan Fry LinkedIn post, and Marvin's detailed responses in that thread had become an important reference point for practitioners trying to understand the operational implications. That pattern repeats here: Fry raises a practical concern, Marvin corrects a specific misreading, and the comment thread becomes the most detailed public explanation of the feature's actual behaviour.

Context: why this package of changes matters

These three updates do not arrive in isolation. Google had pre-signalled the Smart Bidding Exploration expansion and bidding target changes in a May 7, 2026 post authored by Josh Braverman, Group Product Manager at Google Ads, ahead of Google Marketing Live. The May post noted that since 2025 Google has shipped more than 20 improvements to Search and Shopping bid strategies. The June 15 announcements are part of a series, not a standalone event.

The pre-announcement noted that Smart Bidding Exploration for Search campaigns had already produced a 27% average increase in unique converting users. The June 15 post from the Accelerate with Google blog adds the figure of +18% increase in unique search query categories with conversions and +19% increase in conversions for campaigns using the feature, citing Google internal data from March 11 to April 11, 2025.

Google also cited campaign total budgets data: a 66% average reduction in manual budget adjustments for advertisers using that feature, which launched globally in beta on January 15, 2026. Promotion mode's compatibility with campaign total budgets connects these two features into a more integrated peak-period management toolkit than either offers individually.

PPC Land's weekly pre-Cannes recap noted that the three August changes sit alongside broader structural shifts: Google's tag-to-CRM testing to recover conversion signal lost to browser restrictions, a server-to-server Shopify link routing purchases into GA4 from July 2026, and the rollout of Information Agents within AI Mode for Google AI Ultra subscribers. Taken together, the June 15 bidding announcements are part of a broader push to reconstruct measurement signal and hand more optimization to automated systems, two objectives that have defined much of Google's 2025-2026 product roadmap.

For the marketing community specifically, the August 17 bidding change is the most time-sensitive item. Advertisers have until July 6, 2026, when the Bid Target Adjustment Tool becomes available, to understand their exposure. The six-week window between tool availability and the change's rollout date is the period to audit budget-limited campaigns, review actual versus stated performance, and decide whether target adjustments are needed before the system begins enforcing them automatically.

Timeline

  • October 2024 - PPC Land documents that 65% of advertisers use seasonality adjustments for Black Friday campaigns, based on a 169-vote LinkedIn poll by Adriaan Dekker (source)
  • September 28, 2025 - Google expands seasonality adjustments to App campaigns in beta, extending the feature beyond Search, Shopping, and Display (PPC Land)
  • November 6, 2025 - Google Ads Editor 2.11 releases, introducing Smart Bidding Exploration as an opt-in feature for Search campaigns and Performance Max search term reports (PPC Land)
  • January 15, 2026 - Google expands campaign total budgets to Search, Performance Max, and Shopping campaigns globally in open beta, announced by Ginny Marvin via LinkedIn (PPC Land)
  • February 19, 2026 - Jordan Fry, CEO of RevAmp, publicly documents a Google Ads email about a budget pacing change for ad scheduling campaigns; Ginny Marvin responds with clarifications on LinkedIn and X
  • March 1, 2026 - Google begins rolling out the ad scheduling budget pacing change, requiring close monitoring of affected campaigns (PPC Land)
  • March 11-12, 2026 - Google Ads product managers Kristina Park and Carlo Buchmann, hosted by Ginny Marvin, publish an Ads Decoded episode on smart bidding best practices, describing Smart Bidding Exploration as "the biggest advancement in bidding in years" (PPC Land)
  • May 7, 2026 - Josh Braverman, Group Product Manager at Google Ads, pre-announces journey-aware bidding, Smart Bidding Exploration for Shopping, and demand-led budget pacing ahead of GML 2026; cites 27% average increase in unique converting users for Search campaigns using Smart Bidding Exploration (PPC Land)
  • May 20, 2026 - Google Marketing Live 2026 takes place; Smart Bidding Exploration and bidding updates flagged as forthcoming follow-ups (PPC Land)
  • June 15, 2026 - Google announces three bidding and budgeting updates via Ginny Marvin on LinkedIn and the Accelerate with Google blog: Smart Bidding Exploration expanded to Performance Max globally and opened in beta for Shopping; promotion mode launched in beta for Search and Performance Max; bidding target optimization change set for August 17, 2026 (PPC Land)
  • July 6, 2026 - Bid Target Adjustment Tool becomes available in Google Ads; account notifications sent to affected advertisers
  • August 17, 2026 - Bidding target optimization change begins rolling out over a few weeks; budget-limited campaigns using Target CPA or Target ROAS will begin delivering more consistently to their stated targets

Summary

Who: Google Ads, affecting all advertisers running Search, Shopping, and Performance Max campaigns globally. The announcements were made by Ginny Marvin, Ads Product Liaison at Google, via LinkedIn and the Accelerate with Google blog. Jordan Fry, CEO of RevAmp and former Google employee, published a practitioner summary that drew Marvin's clarification into the public record.

What: Three updates to Google Ads bidding and budgeting: (1) Smart Bidding Exploration expanded globally to all Performance Max campaigns without a product feed, and opened in beta for Performance Max campaigns with product feeds and standard Shopping campaigns; (2) promotion mode launched in beta for Search and Performance Max campaigns, allowing advertisers to schedule ROAS tolerance adjustments and additional daily budget across windows of 3 to 14 days; (3) a backend bidding target optimization change set for August 17, 2026, that will cause budget-limited campaigns using Target CPA or Target ROAS to deliver more consistently toward their stated targets.

When: Announced June 15, 2026. The Bid Target Adjustment Tool becomes available July 6, 2026. The bidding target optimization change takes effect August 17, 2026, rolling out over several weeks.

Where: Google Ads platform. The August 17 change spans Google Ads, Search Ads 360, Display and Video 360, Google Ads Editor, and the Google Ads API.

Why: According to Google, user search behaviour has shifted toward longer, more specific, and more complex queries, which creates conversion opportunities that standard bidding strategies - tuned to established patterns - do not capture. Smart Bidding Exploration is designed to reach those queries by widening the ROAS tolerance range. Promotion mode addresses the operational risk of manual peak-period management. The August 17 change is intended to make campaign performance more predictable and consistent with the targets advertisers set, particularly as budgets scale.