The top 10 international Pay Per Click Industry News from August 7 to 21, 2026, commented live by Gianpaolo Lorusso, the founder of ADworld Experience (the World’s Largest PPC-Cases-Only event).
1) ChatGPT Ads lands in Europe
From 24/8, it will be available through OpenAI representatives and partners. Self-service mode will be available by 2026.
https://openai.com/it-IT/index/chatgpt-ads-expands-across-europe/
2) Brand protection in GAds is increasingly expensive
Optmyzr’s Q2 2026 report captures the reality, probably due to automation in the new AI-driven campaigns
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7494320327695548416/
3) MetaAds rolls out some interesting updates
Limitations on placement control, automatic pixel event tracking, and audiences per ad.
https://www.jonloomer.com/meta-removing-placement-controls-ad-sets/ (placements – Jon loomer)
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7493185899581644800/ (pixel events – Dario Zannoni)
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7496186450309255169/ (audience per ad – Bram Van der Hallen)
4) 500x500px product images in GMC starting January 31, 2027
Google has announced that the minimum size of product images in Merchant Center will be increased to min 500x500px
https://ppcnewsfeed.com/ppc-news/2026-08/google-updates-minimum-product-image-size-product-feeds/ (Hana Kobzova)
5) Another interesting script to manage the 8/17 GAds update
Following ByteCode’s report last week, Floris de Schrijver & Arjan Schoorl have also released a nice script for the Smart Bidding Update (discovered thanks to Fabrizio Alessandrini’s insightful commentary).
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7495734177078874112/
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7495732788105564160/ (free version features)
6) GoogleAds releases “advanced matching”
Joey Bidner and Thomas Eccel report the integration into GAds of third-party data for custom matching
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7497962566690938880/
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7497687671977365504
7) Message Ads open rates on LinkedIn were overestimated
Jamison Furr explains why that format performed so much better than conversation ads (as reported a few weeks ago)
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7494418844665610240/
8) What’s new in videos for GAds campaigns
VTC in DGen, automatic formats in PMax, and videos created from landing site assets + brief
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7497694548895387648/ (VTC – Arpan Banerjee)
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7497961092522942465/ (automatic formats in PMax – A.Banerjee)
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7497953117834149888/ (video creator – Dario Zannoni)
9) MetaAds introduces the option to focus on new customers
As already happens in GAds, it will now be possible to focus campaigns on new business (in Meta’s eyes)
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7497959642300383232/ (Vivek Gupta)
10) Microsoft CAPI now publicly available
This means greater accuracy in transmitting conversion data (Sadman Shahadat)
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7497959642300383232/
EXTRA CONTENTS
Class action reimbursement on GAds USA, AB winning tests – Nils Rooijmans
Q2 2026 Digital Ads Benchmark highligts – Tinuiti + Karooya
AI Max in MSAds – Navah Hopkins (Microsoft)
Enhanced Google Tag, product feed optimization tips, language selection removed – Ginny Marvin
Here is a video commentary of the news (starting from the last one, like in any honorable news-parade): https://youtu.be/KMZzs-tqI-c
May the ROI be with you! And… more peace for everyone!
Thaaanks
Gianpaolo Lorusso
ADworld Experience founder
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