All You Need to Know About Google Ads Updates in 2025

In a digital ecosystem where attention spans are shrinking and algorithms decide what gets seen, maintaining visibility has never been more critical. 

As Google continues to reshape its search experience, advertisers are being pushed to rethink how they connect with audiences. 

Google Ads are at the center of this shift. Laced with the latest AI-powered capabilities, the platform offers advanced tools to target high-intent opportunities. 

In 2025, Google Ads is rolling out a wave of new features that make advertising even more predictive, intelligent, and competitive. Whether it is smarter automation, new audience targeting options, or creative formats, the changes are set to create a more dynamic search environment. 

In this blog post, we’ll walk you through the key Google Ads updates for 2025 and their impact on campaign performance to help you get the best results.

1. Performance Max Updates (Jan 2025)

Performance Max campaigns give you reach across new ad places, such as Google’s Discovery feed, to better target prospects and boost conversions. In 2025, the focus is on giving advertisers more control, transparency, and performance lift through AI. 

Performance Max introduced new features like high-value customer acquisition goals, brand and demographic exclusions, and device targeting to help fine-tune ad campaigns with greater precision.

Enhanced search reporting is another key update. It includes search terms insights that show how your search themes are contributing to campaign reach. The search theme limit has been increased from 25 to 50 per asset group. 

Additionally, asset group segmentation and downloadable reports provide a clearer view of ad performance. 

2. Display and Video 360 (Jan 2025)

Display & Video 360 is stepping up with tools to help advertisers reach audiences while respecting user privacy. At the core of this update is PAIR (Publisher Advertiser Identity Reconciliation), which is now an industry standard for responsible data usage. PAIR lets you connect your first-party data with top publishers and offers better personalization without data pooling.

Beyond PAIR, Google is also integrating more signals like Customer Match, PPID, and BigQuery into DV360 for comprehensive audience understanding. Additionally, Google AI is driving automation and optimized targeting that help advertisers get up to 60% lower CPAs.

3. Demand Gen Enhancements to Drive Performance (Jan 2025)

As consumer journeys grow more visual and exploratory, advertisers need to reach audiences where they discover, browse, and connect. Demand Gen campaigns are designed for this. They help you tap into high-intent moments across YouTube, Gmail, Discover, and Display with AI-driven creative and targeting.

Recent enhancements include:

• Expanded channel controls to precisely choose where ads appear, including Shorts
• New creative tools like vertical image ads and AI-generated video variations
• Retail-focused upgrades with product feeds and real-time local inventory visibility
• Enhanced reporting to compare Demand Gen with paid social and other Google campaigns

4. Negative Keywords in Performance Max Campaigns (Jan 2025)

Performance Max campaigns now offer greater control with the ability to add negative keywords at both the campaign and account levels. This helps ensure your ads avoid showing up for irrelevant or low-intent queries across Search and Shopping inventory. 

It also accounts for common misspellings in the keywords to filter queries without listing every variation. This brings much-needed precision to campaign targeting to reduce wasted spend and stay in control of where your ads appear.

5. AI-Powered Search Ads With Greater Asset Flexibility (Feb 2025)

Navigating the evolving digital marketplace means your ad assets need to be as flexible as your audience’s needs. Google is enhancing Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) to let AI dynamically assemble and repurpose your headlines and descriptions. This means: 

• Your existing assets can now work across multiple placements.
• Up to two RSA headlines can appear as additional links within your ad, leading to the same final URL.
• AI determines the optimal arrangement or omission of content for each query and user.

Note that your pinned assets will remain intact while other content will be tested and optimized in real time for best performance.

6. Creative Updates for Lifestyle Imagery (Feb 2025) 

Creating compelling assets at scale just got easier with this Google Ads update. It offers a suite of AI-driven features designed to simplify creative development. It lets you: 

• Generate lifestyle imagery that includes people using simple text prompts
• Get personalized asset recommendations aligned with your top-performing audience segments
• Access auto-suggested visuals powered by generative AI to quickly update or refresh your creatives
• Evaluate creative impact with new testing options in feed-only Performance Max campaigns

7. Video Action Campaign Upgraded to Demand Gen (March 2025)

Google Ads began its move to Demand Gen by phasing out Discovery campaigns last year. Now, that transition continues with Video Action Campaigns (VAC). From April 2025, new Video Action Campaigns can no longer be created, and starting July 2025, existing ones will be automatically upgraded.

Demand Gen builds on VACs by extending reach beyond YouTube to Discover, Gmail, and the Google Display Network. It also supports more ad formats, including image and carousel ads. Here are its key upgrades: 

• Creative A/B testing across formats
• AI-generated image assets
• Lookalike targeting using first-party data
• Flexible location/language settings at the ad group level
• Advanced format-level reporting

8. Google Display Ads Updates (March 2025)

Google Display Ads released several updates this year to help advertisers reach new audiences and drive better results. These include: 

Demand Gen Meets Display

The Google Display Network is now available within Demand Gen campaigns. As per reports, advertisers using this combination have seen a 16% increase in their conversions.[i] 

Smarter, Scalable Creative With AI

Google AI, with its latest Imagen 3 model, now enables enhanced image generation. This lets advertisers produce high-quality visuals tailored for performance. A new asset preview gallery also streamlines the review and approval process for teams.

Broader Inventory Access

Google Display Ads are expanding into more content categories, covering news, sports, social platforms, and gaming. New Connected TV (CTV) placements will also roll out across top publishers like FOX News, TelevisaUnivision, and MLB.

Stronger Controls and Creative Standards

New creative templates promote consistency across formats, while enhanced inventory verification elevates the quality of ad placements. Additionally, the updated traffic quality measures provide increased protection for your campaigns.

9. Updates to Improve Campaign Data Quality (April 2025)

Google Analytics is enhancing data accuracy and reliability to help advertisers effectively measure and improve ad performance. Here’s how:

Smarter Attribution When Google Click Identifiers Are Missing

• Aggregate identifiers are now used when campaign information from Google Ads can’t be automatically retrieved.
• Fallback mechanisms like UTMs (specifically utm_campaign) ensure campaign data is still captured and not misclassified as Organic traffic.

Clearer Reporting With New Data Labels

• Data not available: Shown when source/medium data hasn’t been processed yet.
• (not set): Appears when campaign parameters are missing or improperly configured, like unlinked Google Ads accounts or manual tagging issues.

Deeper Insights to Proactively Address Issues

• Data quality indicator: Flags problems like missing session_start events to provide insight into tracking issues that could impact ad reporting.
• System-generated annotations: Appear in reports to explain changes (such as product updates or data collection shifts) that may affect your Google Ads metrics.

10. Updates to Ads Transparency Policy (April 2025)

Starting May 2025, Google will display the payer’s name in My Ad Center and the Ads Transparency Center. This will reflect the payment profile name if it differs from the verified advertiser name. 

For agencies, the client’s payment profile will be used instead. Agencies that were incorrectly verified as direct advertisers have until May 31, 2025, to complete re-verification.

In June 2025, advertisers can edit their payer name via the verification page. New accounts will default to the payment profile name unless changed during verification. 

11. Measurement Updates to Enhance First-Party Data Strategies (May 2025)

Google Ads introduced four new ways to improve app campaign reporting and first-party data strategies: 

Google Tag Gateway for Advertisers

A new server-side tagging option lets you serve tags from your own domain. You can enable this from the Google Tag interface. Confidential computing technology will be added soon for enhanced security and transparency. 

New Measurement and Data Source Diagnostics  

Advertisers can now access diagnostics across Google ad solutions to ensure their first-party data setup is accurate. This helps optimize AI models and adapt to evolving customer behavior.

On-Device Conversion Measurement Using Event Data  

Google is expanding its on-device measurement to support deidentified app event data. This will help optimize iOS App campaigns and reporting while maintaining user privacy.

Integrated Conversion Measurement for App Campaigns

Paired with on-device tracking, this solution enables real-time, comprehensive reporting through third-party App Attribution Partners. It empowers marketers to make faster, data-driven decisions.

12. Other Notable Google Ads News and Trends (May 2025)

Campaign-Level Device Targeting Comes to Performance Max 

You can now control device targeting directly within Performance Max campaigns. The new setting allows you to choose specific device types such as computers, mobile phones, tablets, and TV screens (applicable to Display and Video placements). This added flexibility offers better insight and control over where your ads appear. 

Generative AI for 3D Product Visuals in eCommerce 

Google has launched new AI technology that transforms 2D product photos into immersive 3D experiences. With just three images, businesses can generate detailed 3D visualizations. Key innovations in this space include Neural Radiance Fields enabling full 360° product views, a view-conditioned diffusion model to improve rendering accuracy, and the advanced Veo model for smooth 360° spins.

Launch of AI Max for Search Campaigns

Google’s AI Max for Search campaigns, currently in global beta, offers a set of tools focused on helping advertisers reach new customers. It boosts conversions by an average of 14%, with improved search term matching, ad relevance, and expanded URL options. The platform also offers advanced controls and analytics for better performance measurement. 

Everything In A Nutshell

The latest Google Ads updates for 2025 bring greater transparency and control to your ad campaigns.

Performance Max is now easier to manage, Demand Gen campaigns are more powerful, and marketing mix models have evolved with modern capabilities.

To stay ahead, it’s important to test and incorporate these updates into your strategy. 

As your trusted Google Ads agency, we’ll continue to monitor the changes and keep you informed of new developments. So, bookmark this post to revisit later.

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Statistical Reference: 

[i] Google Internal Data

FAQ

1. Has Google Ads changed recently?
Yes, Google Ads is constantly evolving with new features and updates. There have been significant updates in 2025.

2. What is the latest update in Google Ads?
Recent Google Ads updates include enhanced AI-powered features, expanded network reach, and improvements to Performance Max campaigns. Specifically, AI Max for Search campaigns, currently in beta, uses Google AI to boost ad performance.

3. How often does Google Ads update data?
Google Ads updates data regularly, typically throughout the day. However, the exact frequency can vary depending on the specific data point. You can see the most recent update time for most metrics directly within the Google Ads interface.

4. What AI-powered features are there in Google Ads?
Google Ads leverages various AI-powered features to help advertisers optimize their campaigns. Here are a few examples:

• AI-Driven Search Campaigns: AI helps set the right bids, reach the right searches, and create relevant ads. 
• Performance Max: This campaign type uses AI to reach customers across multiple Google channels (Search, YouTube, Gmail, Maps, Display, Discovery) with a single campaign. 
• Automated Asset Creation: AI can automatically generate ad copy and visuals, saving you time and effort. 
• Conversational Experience: AI-powered tools power chat-like ad formats that respond dynamically to user queries.
• YouTube AI-Powered Creative Tools: AI analyzes your brand assets and audience behavior to generate video variations for different segments.