Google Ads Product Liaison Ginny Marvin confirmed that targets set at the ad group level are in scope for the bidding change that starts rolling out on 17 August 2026 for budget-limited campaigns. She said so in a Marketing O'Clock interview published on 12 August 2026, which PPC Land reported on 13 August 2026.
Three things in that interview had not been stated before. Ad group level targets count. Campaigns that are not limited by budget are not affected at all. And the adjustment only runs in one direction, with no new mechanism to help campaigns that are missing their targets. The change itself was first disclosed on 15 June 2026, with notification emails sent to advertisers on 2 July 2026.
What is actually new in the 12 August interview
Everything about the qualifying conditions stays as it was. A campaign is in scope only if it carries a target, is limited by budget, and is overachieving against that target. Those three conditions were set out when Google disclosed the change on 15 June 2026 and they have not moved.
What moved is the detail around the edges, which is usually where account-level surprises come from. Greg Finn asked Marvin whether targets set at the ad group level were included. Her answer: "whenever you set a target including at the ad group level um yeah we want advertisers to set targets that actually mean something to their business". That confirms ad group targets are in scope, which had not previously been stated anywhere.
Finn also asked, "is anything at all changing for non-limited by budget campaigns?" Marvin answered with a single word: "No." And asked whether campaigns missing their targets would get any new corrective mechanism, she said: "Yeah. No, it won't."
The three confirmations, side by side
The interview is short and the useful part is three question and answer pairs. Set out plainly, they read like this.
| Question put to Google | Ginny Marvin's answer | What it confirms |
|---|---|---|
| Are targets set at the ad group level included? | "whenever you set a target including at the ad group level um yeah we want advertisers to set targets that actually mean something to their business" | Ad group level targets are in scope, stated for the first time |
| "is anything at all changing for non-limited by budget campaigns?" | "No." | Campaigns that are not limited by budget are unaffected |
| Will campaigns missing their targets get a corrective mechanism? | "Yeah. No, it won't." | The correction runs one way only, with nothing added for underperformance |
Why the ad group confirmation matters more than it sounds
Most discussion of the 17 August change has been framed at campaign level, because that is where target CPA and target ROAS are usually set and reported. Ad group level targets are the quieter case. They are set once, often during a restructure or a test, and then they stop being looked at, because the campaign level view does not show them.
An account can therefore contain campaigns whose campaign-level configuration looks untouched while individual ad groups carry their own targets from months ago. Marvin's answer puts those ad groups inside the same change as everything else. If the campaign is limited by budget and an ad group target is being overachieved, that target is part of the picture.
What "not limited by budget" now means for you
Marvin's one word answer is the cleanest thing in the whole story. Asked directly whether anything at all changes for campaigns that are not limited by budget, she said no. For an advertiser, that turns the scoping job into a filter rather than an audit: campaigns whose budgets are not the binding constraint can be set aside entirely.
The caution is that "limited by budget" is a state, not a permanent label. A campaign that sits comfortably inside its budget in the first half of August can hit its cap in September after a seasonal shift, a competitor pulling back, or a budget cut. The scoping exercise done before 17 August describes the account as it is that week, not for the rest of the year.
One direction only: what the third answer rules out
The third confirmation is the one worth reading twice. Asked whether campaigns missing their targets would get any new corrective mechanism, Marvin said: "Yeah. No, it won't." The adjustment applies to overachievement against a target inside a budget-limited campaign. Underperformance against a target gets nothing new.
That asymmetry is why the "set targets that actually mean something to their business" half of her earlier answer is not throwaway. A target that was entered as a placeholder, or copied across ad groups during a build, or left behind after a test, is still a target as far as this change is concerned. Nothing in the system reads it as a placeholder.
How to find the campaigns that meet all three conditions
The rollout begins gradually on 17 August 2026, the day after this post. The scoping work is a single pass through the account, and it does not require any change to be made:
- Open the Campaigns table and look at the Status column for campaigns showing as limited by budget. That is condition two, and it removes most of the account from consideration straight away.
- For each of those, check the bid strategy. Only campaigns carrying a target, a target CPA or a target ROAS, are in scope. That is condition one.
- Compare recent actual performance against the target: actual CPA below the target CPA, or actual ROAS above the target ROAS, is the overachieving state described as condition three.
- Write down which campaigns satisfy all three at the same time. Those are the ones where a later change in delivery has a documented reason.
Where ad group level targets hide
Ad group overrides are not visible from the campaign view, which is exactly why they get forgotten. To surface them, open the Ad groups table for each in-scope campaign and add the target CPA and target ROAS columns to that view. Any ad group with a value in those columns carries its own target, independent of the campaign setting. The same values are visible in each ad group's settings, but the table view is faster because it shows the whole campaign at once.
Two things are worth noting as you go. An ad group target that differs sharply from its campaign target is usually a leftover rather than a decision, and it is now in scope either way. And an ad group target that nobody in the current team remembers setting is exactly the case Marvin's answer was about.
What to record before 17 August
Nothing here is a required action. It is a baseline, so that a performance shift in late August can be attributed to this change or ruled out as unrelated. For each campaign that meets all three conditions, save the following with today's date on it:
- The campaign name, its bid strategy, and the exact target value at campaign level.
- Every ad group level target inside that campaign, with the ad group name.
- The daily budget, and how long the campaign has been showing as limited by budget.
- Cost, conversions, conversion value, CPA and ROAS for a clean recent period, for example the 30 days ending 16 August 2026.
- Search impression share lost to budget for the same period.
A dated export beats a memory, and it beats a screenshot without a date on it. If the numbers move in September and nobody wrote down what the targets were in mid August, the argument about cause cannot be settled. Teams whose reporting runs through a properly configured analytics setup will find most of this exportable in one pass, and accounts running ecommerce campaigns on target ROAS should capture conversion value as well as conversion count, since ROAS targets are in scope on the same terms as CPA targets.
What the source does not say
PPC Land's report does not give a size for any performance change, and neither did Marvin. There is no stated figure for how much delivery, spend or cost per acquisition might move on a campaign that qualifies. Anyone quoting a percentage is not quoting this story.
The report also does not say which accounts or campaign types are picked up first inside a gradual rollout, how long the rollout takes to complete, or whether advertisers are notified when a specific campaign is affected. The word used is gradual, starting 17 August 2026, and that is the whole of it. The source likewise gives no country by country breakdown.
What this means for Thai marketers
Budget-limited campaigns are common in accounts working to a fixed monthly figure, which describes a large share of advertising in Thailand, so the scoping question is worth an hour rather than a glance. The three conditions do the filtering: a campaign with no target is out, a campaign that is not limited by budget is out, and a campaign that is hitting or missing its target rather than beating it is out.
The ad group point deserves particular attention in accounts that have been through more than one agency or more than one restructure, because that is where forgotten ad group targets accumulate. A pass over the ad group target columns before 17 August is cheap. For teams reviewing bidding structure more broadly, the same audit sits naturally alongside routine Google Ads account management work rather than being a separate project.
FAQ: what advertisers are asking
My campaigns are not limited by budget. Is anything changing for them?
No. Asked directly whether anything at all changes for campaigns that are not limited by budget, Ginny Marvin answered with one word: "No." All three conditions have to be true at the same time for a campaign to be in scope.
I set target CPA at the ad group level, not the campaign. Am I affected?
Yes, ad group level targets are in scope, which Marvin confirmed for the first time in the 12 August interview. Her wording was that this applies "whenever you set a target including at the ad group level".
Will Google also help campaigns that are missing their targets?
No. Marvin was asked whether campaigns missing their targets would get any new corrective mechanism and answered: "Yeah. No, it won't." The adjustment runs in one direction, against overachievement, with nothing added for underperformance.
Is this live in Thailand from 17 August?
The source does not break the rollout down by country. It says the rollout begins gradually on 17 August 2026, without naming markets, and without saying how long gradual takes or which campaigns are picked up first.
Do I have to do anything before 17 August?
No action is required. The useful preparation is a record rather than a change: list the campaigns meeting all three conditions, note every campaign and ad group target value, and export recent cost and conversion data so a later shift can be attributed correctly.
If you would rather have someone else run that pass across the account before the rollout starts, we are glad to take a look at the structure and the targets sitting in it.
