Google Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin has published a roughly five-minute video Q&A answering three questions about the bidding change that takes effect on 17 August 2026, and Search Engine Roundtable reported it on 6 August 2026. The change itself was announced earlier and has already been covered; what is new is Google's own set of answers, and the instruction sitting inside them. If a campaign is limited by budget, set its target to the average it is actually achieving before 17 August 2026.
What Marvin says is changing on 17 August 2026
Campaigns that are limited by budget and over-achieving their targets will see performance adjust to their set targets. Marvin describes bids and targets aligning more closely, so the system aims to hit the CPA or ROAS target whether or not the campaign is budget-limited. She says that is already how campaigns with unconstrained budgets work.
She adds that the same behaviour will hold when advertisers change budgets, which is where performance fluctuations have often occurred. A budget edit has long been a small gamble on a budget-capped campaign, and Google's position is that it should stop being one.
What Marvin says to expect afterwards
Her answer on expectations has two branches. If an advertiser adjusts the target of a budget-capped campaign to its current average performance, they should see similar conversion volume or value after a brief recalibration. If no action is taken, the system will aim to find conversions at the average target set in the campaign, which may mean entering different auctions than before.
The second branch is the one to sit with. The campaign starts chasing the number in the target field, and on a lot of accounts that number was typed in at launch and never revisited.
The target becomes the efficiency lever
Marvin frames the shift as the target becoming the efficiency lever in budget-constrained campaigns. A budget-capped campaign that has been over-achieving its target has been delivering better than the number in the field, and the number in the field has not mattered much. From 17 August 2026 it is what the system aims at.
The audit is short and specific. Take each budget-limited campaign, look at the average CPA or ROAS it has actually delivered over a recent stable period, and set the target to that figure:
- List every campaign flagged as limited by budget.
- Pull its average CPA or average ROAS over a recent window with no major edits in it.
- Set tCPA or tROAS to that average rather than to the aspirational number.
- Note what you changed and when, so the data after 17 August 2026 has a baseline.
Clean conversion data is the load-bearing part here, because the reset is only as good as the average you measure. If conversion tracking is double-counting or missing values, the target you set from it will be wrong in the same direction.
How the industry is taking it
Search Engine Roundtable says the change is "causing a big stir" in the PPC industry, and that practitioners remain concerned about what the data will look like after 17 August 2026. The Q&A does not settle that; it explains the mechanism and says what to do with it.
The three answers side by side
Every line below comes from Marvin's video Q&A as reported on 6 August 2026.
| Question | What Ginny Marvin said |
|---|---|
| What is changing on 17 August 2026 | Budget-limited campaigns that over-achieve their targets will see performance adjust to their set targets, with bids and targets aligned more closely, which is already how unconstrained-budget campaigns work |
| What happens when budgets change | The same behaviour holds during budget changes, where performance fluctuations have often occurred, so results should be more stable and predictable |
| If you reset the target to current average performance | Similar conversion volume or value, after a brief recalibration |
| If you take no action | The system aims to find conversions at the average target set in the campaign, which may mean entering different auctions than before |
What this means for Thai marketers
Thai accounts are disproportionately budget-limited. Monthly budgets in baht are small enough that most search campaigns hit their cap on a normal day, and the tCPA or tROAS is often whatever was set at launch and forgotten. That combination is precisely the setup this change lands on.
An account with five campaigns is an hour of work: pull the average, reset the target, note the date. An account with fifty needs a plan before 17 August 2026. Retail and ecommerce accounts on tROAS deserve the first look, because a value-based target left at an optimistic figure can pull spend into different auctions faster than a CPA target does. If you want a hand sizing the job across a Google Ads account, that is a short conversation.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to do anything before 17 August 2026?
Not strictly, but Marvin's answer describes two different outcomes. Reset the target of a budget-capped campaign to its current average performance and you should see similar conversion volume or value after a brief recalibration. Do nothing and the system will aim at the target already in the campaign, which may mean entering different auctions than before.
Which campaigns does this affect?
The Q&A is about campaigns limited by budget, in particular those over-achieving their targets. Marvin says campaigns with unconstrained budgets already behave the way the change describes, so they are not the ones changing.
Will my conversion volume drop?
Marvin does not promise a volume outcome for accounts that do nothing. She says an advertiser who moves the target to current average performance should see similar conversion volume or value after a brief recalibration. For the do-nothing case she says only that the system will aim at the set target and may enter different auctions.
Is this a Thailand-specific change?
The source does not state any country restriction. It is described as a bidding change taking effect on 17 August 2026, with no market carve-out mentioned in the Q&A.
Is this the same story that was reported earlier?
The change is the same one announced earlier. What is new, reported on 6 August 2026, is the roughly five-minute video Q&A in which Ginny Marvin answers three questions about it and describes what to expect either way.
Resetting targets is unglamorous work with a hard deadline attached, and the accounts that skip it will be reading strange numbers in late August with no baseline to compare against. If you would rather have someone walk the campaign list with you before 17 August 2026, the Relevant Audience team can help.
