“Outrageous.” “Awful. “Horrible.” “A terrible precedent.”

That’s just some of the reaction to a change to Google’s ads platform — the platform is flipping keywords to Broad Match, essentially kneecapping any specific phrase- or exact-match keywords you had set up.

This appears to be happening when moving from a non-conversion bidding strategy to a conversion strategy.

What happened?

Navah Hopkins, Evangelist at Optmyzr posted this screenshot to LinkedIn:

If you’re on mobile and can’t read that, it says: “To use broad match keywords, switch to a conversion or conversion value based bidding strategy.”

“I don't know if this is a new development, a bug, or something folks just haven't noticed,” she wrote. “But make sure you confirm your keywords are as you intend if and when you change your bidding strategy.”

Expert analysis with Navah Hopkins

Negative reaction from ad buyers

Reaction on LinkedIn was equally negative.

Jyll Saskin Gales weighs in

We asked our Google Ads correspondent Jyll Saskin Gales for her thoughts on the change:

We asked Google’s ads liaison for comment, but did not hear back by deadline.

The Top Three 🥉

The industry’s most important stories today.

🥇 META CRASHES HARD

It wasn’t just you. The entire Meta ad platform (along with the consumer apps Instagram, Facebook, and Threads) went down today. more

• Reports say Meta’s internal communications tools were also down, and ad reps had to resort to texting each other to communicate.

• 🤣 Meta was forced to announce the outage on X. lol 

🥈 THREADS API GETS A GLOW-UP

Meta's Threads API now supports replying, reposting, and quoting public posts or replies directly from third-party tools via keyword or mention search. Analytics updates now include share metrics—tracking posts shared outside the app—alongside existing metrics like views, likes, replies, reposts, and quotes. more

• 🛠️ It’s on developers to integrate the new features into their third-party publishing tools, so availability depends on the tool you're using.

🥉 AI IS COMING TO WORDPRESS

WordPress’s parent company has acquired WPAI, a startup that develops AI tools for WordPress. Presumably, its products CodeWP and AgentWP, will now be integrated into WordPress. more

• CodeWP helps developers generate optimized code

• AgentWP is an AI agent that can make design changes.

Today’s Other News ☑︎

Everything else that matters.

Case Study 📚

• It’s National Breakup Day, and Kleenex has partnered with Amazon to launch a new promo “KleenEx, The Break Up Calculator”, a tool that tells consumers when they’ll get over their ex. Consumers can visit KleenexBreakup.com to share breakup details and get a timeline, product recommendations, and Amazon “ex-tras” like song and movie suggestions to help them move on. more

Social Media 📱

• No views? No problem: Instagram is working on a new option that would let brands and creators hide view counts in their Reels tab. Although it’s not live yet, it would let users to turn off the view count display on the bottom left of Reels thumbnails. more

• Threads is also testing a hide option which would let users hide replies entirely, meaning that only “Threads” and “Reposts” would be visible on their profile. more

• A big no-no: The EU is digging deeper into Google and Meta’s secret ad campaign that allegedly targeted Instagram ads at minors on YouTube. While no formal investigation has been launched, regulators are seeking more info after Google reportedly bypassed its ban on ads for minors, advising Meta to target an “unknown” group with under-18s. more

• It's giving Elon Musk vibes: Billionaire Frank McCourt wants to buy TikTok and create a decentralized version of the app where users control their data. He’s secured $20 billion in informal commitments but hasn’t talked with ByteDance yet. more

  • 🤦‍♂️ BUT… He did host a dinner with more than a dozen TikTok creators to pitch his proposal to buy the app. Sooooo…….

Commerce 🛒

• Enjoy your work? Let buyers know! A study found that customers are willing to pay more for products from sellers who enjoy creating them. more

• With a potential U.S. ban looming, TikTok is ramping up e-commerce efforts to push more sales in Europe, starting with TikTok Shop in Spain. Spanish retailers can now host live shopping streams, while also getting access to product showcase features, affiliate programs, shop ads, and more. more

• Google is testing new features in Search and Shopping, which lets consumers track prices, save, and share products. Clicking “Track price” triggers push notifications and emails for price drops. The share button links to social media, while the save button adds items to saved results. more

Search & SEO 🔎

• Google released its top trending searches from 2024.

  • “U.S. Election” topped news searches globally.

  • “Inside Out 2” led movie trends.

  • “Usher” was the top U.S. musician (he did the halftime show, cause let's be real, why else would anyone Google Usher in 2024?).

• Google has added several new hour categories for business listings, including:

  • Brunch

  • Happy hours

  • Sabbath

  • Senior hours

Video & Streaming 📺

• YouTube is expanding its auto-dubbing feature, which will let brands and creators share content in multiple languages with audio translations of their content. more

  • ⚠️ Keep in mind these translations won’t always be accurate.

• YouTube dominates living room viewing, with consumers now streaming 1 billion hours of content daily on TV screens. more

• Nearly two-thirds of sports content viewership is projected to come via streaming in 2025, but repetitive ads are holding viewers hostage as streaming platforms struggle with ad frequency capping. Experts weigh in about what could solve the problem. more

Tech Updates 📝

• 🫠 Big L for Mullenweg: Yesterday, a California District Court judge ruled that Automattic must stop blocking WP Engine's access to WordPress resources and interfering with its plugins. more

  • Meanwhile, Automattic’s CEO (and co-founder of WordPress) Matt Mullenweg today threatened to leave the whole thing: “It's hard to imagine wanting to continue to working on WordPress after this.” more Is this what techbros look like when they take their toys and go home?

• Google Docs is rolling out 40 new templates, including blog posts, project roadmaps, and interview guides. The templates feature preset layouts, tabs for organization, and placeholder chips that let others know the info they need to fill in. Full rollout could take up to 15 days. more

Marketing Tool of the Day 🔨

Best kept secrets of the digital marketing world¹

Using the power of AI, Ad Alchemy makes it easy to build Google Ads campaigns in just a few minutes.

• Create an unlimited number of campaigns with no cap on your ad spend

• Choose from campaign structures like single keyword ad groups, thematic ad groups, and paired keywords

• Find relevant keywords for your ad campaign to target high-intent traffic

Today’s Trivia Question 🧠

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Spotted on Social 🔍

The social web’s best posts in the last 24 hours.