Week of Jun 30, 2025
16 changes logged the week of Jun 30, 2025, 4 high impact; 7 took effect. Open this week in the change history.
Google Ads
- Unverified phone number requirement extended to message assets
The Destination requirements policy's unverified phone number rule now applies to message assets as well as call-only ads, call assets and location assets. Enforcement began August 1, 2025 for new message assets and September 1, 2025 for existing ones. Source
- Built-in video analytics launched as a 'Videos' tab under Assets covering PMax, Demand Gen, Display and Video
A native video analytics view now sits under Assets > Videos and brings together every video asset across campaign types. It offers filters by format (Shorts, in-stream), breakdowns by age, gender and device, and per-asset engagement metrics such as views, audience retention and drop-off points. Source
- Online gambling ads opened in Ukraine for state-licensed operators and aggregators
From July 14, 2025, appropriately licensed Ukrainian operators and aggregators may advertise poker, sports betting, casino games and state lotteries after Google certification. Source
- Broad match experiments changed to split traffic within one campaign instead of duplicating it
Hana Kobzová reported that broad match experiments now divert traffic between control and treatment inside a single Smart Bidding campaign rather than requiring a duplicate. Google's documentation was updated to reflect it. Source
- Restricted Drug Term Personalization certification introduced for US, Canada and New Zealand
Advertisers promoting products with restricted drug terms to healthcare professionals in the US, Canada and New Zealand must obtain a new certification to use personalization tools; without it personalization is unavailable. Advertisers elsewhere cannot apply. Source
- Dangerous products policy restricted pill presses and encapsulating machines in Ads and Shopping
From September 1, 2025, ads and Shopping listings for pill presses, tableting machines, encapsulating machines, dies, molds, stamps and punches are restricted, with full enforcement ramping over about 6 weeks. Source
- Crypto exchange and wallet ads in Canada required FINTRAC registration and certification
Advertisers targeting Canada with cryptocurrency exchanges or software wallets must be registered with FINTRAC as a money services business and certified by Google from July 2025. Source
- 'AI Max' appeared as a value in the search terms match type segment alongside exact, phrase and broad
Aleksejus Podpruginas and Thomas Eccel noticed an AI Max option when segmenting the Keywords tab by search terms match type. Google did not announce the reporting change. Source
- Phone number verification made mandatory for message assets from August 1, 2025
Google told advertisers that phone numbers used in message assets must be verified by Google. New message assets needed verification from August 1, 2025 and existing ones from September 1, 2025; unverified numbers stop the asset from serving. Source
Merchant Center
- Merchant API v1 reached general availability as the successor to the Content API for Shopping
Google's Merchant API release notes for July 2025 announced that Merchant API v1 is generally available, with most v1beta sub-APIs graduating to v1 (leaving only v1 and v1alpha), plus a Product Studio Image resource, Checkout settings, Online Return Policy migration, AccountIdAlias for account relationships, Apps Script access and an AggregateProductStatuses method. Source
Google Analytics
- GA4 extended annotation create/edit/delete rights to users with Analyst role and above
Users with the Analyst role or higher can now create, edit and delete report annotations, rather than only editors and admins. Source
Google Ads API & Scripts
- Search and SearchStream began returning query_resource_consumption and field_mask for empty results
Starting the week of August 4, 2025, GoogleAdsService.Search and SearchStream in all API versions return the query_resource_consumption metric and field_mask even when a query returns no rows, changing the shape of empty responses (SearchStream returns an object instead of an empty array). Source
Google Tag & Tag Manager
- sGTM web container client now serves all Google scripts; GA client dropped dependency serving
Server-side Tag Manager's web container client can now serve gtag.js, gtm.js and other Google scripts from the server domain, and the Google Analytics client no longer supports dependency serving. Server-side users who relied on the GA client to serve scripts should switch to the web container client. Source
Microsoft Ads
- Target CPA and Target ROAS retired as standalone strategies for new campaigns
From August 4, 2025 new campaigns choose Maximize Conversions (with optional target CPA) or Maximize Conversion Value (with optional target ROAS) instead of standalone tCPA/tROAS. Existing campaigns were unaffected and API, bulk and Editor requests default to the new structures. Source
- API v13.0.25 added annotation opt-out, brand kit recommendations and three new reports
The July 2025 release added GetAnnotationOptOut/UpdateAnnotationOptOut, CreateBrandKitRecommendation, Apps Performance, Travel Query Insights and Feed Item Performance reports, site exclusion list bulk mappings, and MaxCpc on MaxConversionValueBiddingScheme. Source
Search Console
- Search Console Insights relaunched inside the main Search Console interface
The new Insights report replaced the standalone Search Console Insights beta, bringing clicks and impressions trends, top and trending pages and queries, and Achievements into the main product with deeper Performance report integration. Source
Took effect this week
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