Google Update Slashes Shopping Sales for Budget-Limited Campaigns
A Google Ads advertiser has reported a significant drop in Shopping sales after Google implemented a change on August 17, 2026. The update altered how budget-limited Target ROAS campaigns place bids, affecting advertisers who set a return target and regularly exhaust their daily budget. The poster, NorskBavian, described how their campaign previously delivered 3,000-4,000% ROAS despite a 300% target, attributing the strong performance to aggressive bidding enabled by the low target. After the change, sales fell, rankings worsened, and competitors began outranking their listings.
The change was part of a broader update disclosed by Google on June 15, 2026. It aimed to make budget-limited campaigns perform more consistently toward their stated targets, including when budgets change. Google's reasoning was that overperformance made results unpredictable whenever an advertiser raised a budget. The update affects various campaign types, including Search, Shopping, Performance Max, Demand Gen, and Travel, when they carry a 'Limited by budget' status and use Target CPA or Target ROAS bidding.
Reddit users offered varying explanations for the drop in performance. Some suggested that the budget cap had previously allowed the campaign to spend on the cheapest, highest-return auctions, effectively behaving as if it had a very high target. Others argued that a low tROAS let Google pay higher cost per click, and raising the target made bidding more conservative. The poster considered testing different strategies, such as Maximize Conversion Value or Maximize Conversions segmented by product margin, but found them insufficiently aggressive or unable to restore pre-August 17 levels of performance.
Google's Ads liaison, Ginny Marvin, clarified that the update does not change spend and that advertisers who lower their target to match current average delivery while leaving the budget alone would see the campaign keep performing as it does now. However, many commenters agreed that the old arrangement could not be recreated, and the update essentially patched out a 'hack' that had allowed aggressive bidding and high volume.