Google Ads is changing how target-based bid strategies behave when a campaign is limited by budget. From 17 August 2026, a campaign running Target CPA or Target ROAS on a capped budget will, in Google's wording, "more consistently perform toward your bid target" instead of settling well below it. The example Google uses in its own documentation: if your Target CPA is $10 and the campaign is currently achieving $5, actual performance will move closer to $10 after the change.
The update is set out in the Google Ads Help article "Changes to target-based bid strategies". Search Engine Journal wrote about it on 27 July and reported that account notifications have started landing. The original wording is in the Google Ads Help documentation.
Which campaigns the bid target change affects
The change applies to Search, Shopping, Performance Max, Demand Gen, Display, Hotel and Travel campaigns. App, Video Reach and Video View campaigns keep their current behaviour.
Two conditions have to be true together. The campaign uses a target-based bid strategy, and its budget is capping delivery. Either one on its own does not put a campaign in scope.
Why budget-limited campaigns have been beating their targets
A target tells Google what you are willing to pay. A budget tells it how much you are willing to spend in a day. When the budget runs out first, plenty of accounts have been landing well under the number they set, and that gap has often been read as free efficiency rather than as a target that was never revisited.
A Target CPA entered eight months ago, on old margins and old conversion values, is the version of this that stings. It has been sitting there as a ceiling nobody tested, while the campaign quietly delivered half of it. After 17 August, the number you typed in is the number the system aims for.
The Bid Target Adjustment Tool
Google made a Bid Target Adjustment Tool available on 6 July 2026 so advertisers can look at campaign history and decide what to do before the deadline. That is about six weeks of lead time, and most of it is already gone.
Search Engine Journal's report adds one detail worth reading twice: Google is applying the change automatically. It is not adjusting targets or budgets on advertisers' behalf. If your target is wrong for the account you run today, nobody is going to correct it for you.
The five options Google lists
| Option | What it does |
| Keep current targets | Accept that performance moves toward the target you already set. |
| Reset targets to recent actual performance | Bring the target down to what the campaign has really been delivering. |
| Set custom targets | Pick a number based on your own economics rather than history or habit. |
| Switch bid strategy | Move off target-based bidding for that campaign. |
| Raise budgets | Buy more volume at the target you stated. |
Keeping current targets is a decision, not a default. It is the right call when the target still reflects what a conversion is worth to the business and you want the extra volume that comes with paying up to it. It is the wrong call when the target was a guess that nobody has revisited since the campaign launched.
Resetting to recent actual performance is the conservative move, and it is the one that protects a fixed monthly number. Raising budgets is the aggressive one: if the target is genuinely profitable, more spend at that target is more profit, and the budget cap was the thing holding you back all along.
How to decide before 17 August
Pull the campaigns that are flagged as limited by budget and running Target CPA or Target ROAS. For each one, compare the target against the CPA or ROAS the campaign actually delivered over the last 30 to 60 days. Where the two numbers are close, there is not much to do. Where the target is double the delivered figure, you are looking at the campaigns that will move most.
Then check the number underneath it all. A target is only as good as the conversion data feeding it, and accounts with duplicate conversion actions, stale imported goals or a half-finished measurement setup will be aiming at the wrong figure whichever option they pick. If your analytics and conversion tracking has drifted, fix that before you touch a target.
What this means for Thai marketers
Thai accounts commonly run small daily budgets. Many campaigns here are budget-limited by design rather than by accident, which puts a large share of the local market squarely in the group this change affects. An account spending a few hundred baht a day on Search with a Target CPA that was set once and left alone is the exact profile Google is describing.
Retail and Shopping accounts deserve a second look, because Shopping and Performance Max are both in scope and both tend to run against tight budgets during promotional periods. If you plan campaigns around monthly sale dates, a target that starts pulling more spend per conversion in the middle of a promotion is a pacing problem as much as an efficiency one. Anyone running ecommerce campaigns should map the change against the next two promotional cycles, not just against last month's report.
Questions advertisers are asking
Will Google change my targets for me?
No. Google is applying the behaviour change; the targets and budgets in your account stay as you left them.
Which campaign types are exempt?
App, Video Reach and Video View campaigns keep the current behaviour.
What if my campaign is not limited by budget?
The change is described for campaigns that are limited by budget. A campaign spending freely inside its cap is not the case Google is addressing.
When does it take effect?
17 August 2026.
What to do now
Three weeks is enough time to audit targets properly, and not enough time to leave it. Open the Bid Target Adjustment Tool, sort by the size of the gap between target and delivered performance, and make an explicit call on each campaign. If you would rather have someone else pull that list and defend each number, our Google Ads team does this kind of pre-deadline audit for accounts of every size.
