Google & Microsoft PPC Updates: Asset Guidance, Ad Scheduling & Negatives
▼ Summary
– Google emphasizes that providing a wide variety of ad assets is crucial for eligibility across different ad formats and queries, not just for individual performance.
– Google is updating budget pacing for some campaigns using ad schedules, which may cause budgets to deploy faster during scheduled peak times.
– Microsoft Ads has launched self-serve negative keyword lists, allowing direct control and application at campaign or account levels, including for Performance Max.
– A key takeaway for advertisers is to focus on overall ad performance rather than impressions per individual asset when evaluating asset value.
– These platform updates collectively highlight that better advertiser inputs and clear guardrails are increasingly shaping campaign performance and flexibility.
This week brought significant updates from the major pay-per-click platforms, focusing on the critical inputs advertisers provide to guide campaign performance. Google emphasized the strategic importance of asset variety for ad eligibility, adjusted budget pacing logic for scheduled campaigns, and Microsoft Ads introduced self-serve negative keyword lists, extending this control to Performance Max campaigns in open beta. These changes highlight a broader theme: achieving flexibility in modern advertising requires higher-quality inputs and more precise guardrails from the account manager.
Google has reinforced that providing a wide variety of ad assets, headlines, descriptions, and images, is a fundamental lever for eligibility, not just a creative recommendation. In a recent podcast, product managers explained that the system uses this breadth to assemble relevant ads for an expanding range of search queries and emerging ad formats. The goal is to maximize relevance at scale. This means advertisers should think beyond which individual headline gets the most impressions. The value lies in covering different user intents and scenarios, giving the system the components it needs to qualify for more placements and experimental layouts on the search results page.
The practical takeaway for professionals is to avoid over-analyzing impression share per asset. The focus should remain on the overall ad group or campaign performance. A headline that only serves in specific, high-intent contexts can be incredibly valuable even with lower total impressions. The shift towards more conversational search makes this asset depth even more crucial, as Google aims to answer complex user journeys with the most relevant ad combinations possible.
Separately, Google began notifying some advertisers about an update to budget pacing for campaigns using ad scheduling, effective March 1. While the monthly spending cap remains unchanged, Google will now proactively spend up to that limit based on demand, even if an ad schedule is in place. This changes how spend is allocated within the scheduled windows. For a business that only runs ads on weekends, for example, the system could spend up to double the daily budget on those active days to utilize the full monthly limit.
This update requires attention from advertisers who use scheduling for strict budget control around call center hours or peak conversion times. Budgets may exhaust faster during high-demand periods within the schedule. Google’s liaison clarified that this is a phased rollout, so only accounts receiving the email are currently affected. For those adjusting, it may necessitate lowering the average daily budget to maintain the same monthly spend cap, or implementing automated rules to pause campaigns once a custom spend threshold is reached.
Microsoft Ads took a major step forward in advertiser control by launching self-serve negative keyword lists. This feature allows up to 5,000 negatives in a single list, applicable at the campaign or account level. The inclusion of Performance Max campaigns in an open beta is particularly notable, granting long-requested stewardship over where these automated campaigns should not appear. This brings Microsoft closer to the baseline control layer familiar to Google Ads users, streamlining workflow by removing the need for support tickets to manage exclusions.
Industry feedback welcomed the update while advising caution. Experts recommend building lists primarily with exact match negatives initially, as a single error with a broad or phrase match negative can unintentionally stifle ad delivery. Advertisers can later refine these into broader root word negatives if needed. This direct control empowers teams to set clearer guardrails, ensuring automation works within strategically defined boundaries.
The common thread this week is that platform flexibility is a two-way street. Sophisticated automation demands higher-quality inputs, like diverse assets, and clearer strategic guardrails, like negative keywords and understood budget pacing. Advertisers who provide robust, varied creative components and meticulously define where their ads should not show will be better positioned to leverage the evolving capabilities of both Google and Microsoft Ads.
(Source: Search Engine Journal)
