The digital advertising landscape in 2023 has been defined by a series of significant shifts in Google Ads, driven by privacy regulations, automation advancements, and changing user behaviors. As an agency that manages high levels of spend across Google’s ecosystem, from search and shopping to display and discovery, we’ve watched these changes reshape how campaigns win or fail. Here are the most critical updates and trends you need to understand to stay competitive.
The Rise of Performance Max Campaigns
Performance Max (PMax) has become the centerpiece of Google’s automation strategy in 2023. Google is increasingly nudging advertisers toward this goal-based campaign type, which serves ads across all of Google’s inventory-Search, Shopping, Display, YouTube, Gmail, and Discovery-from a single campaign. The key update here is that PMax is no longer optional for e-commerce brands; it’s now the default for achieving maximum reach and efficiency. However, success requires a disciplined approach: you must feed it high-quality product feeds, robust audience signals (not just audience segments), and compelling creative assets. In our experience, campaigns that treat PMax as a “set it and forget it” tool fail, while those that treat it as a data-driven asset see significant gains in conversion volume and CPA efficiency.
Broad Match & Smart Bidding: The New Standard
The trend toward automation is most evident in keyword targeting. Google has effectively deprecated exact match and phrase match as standalone strategies in 2023. The update is clear: Broad match keywords combined with Smart Bidding (especially Target CPA or Target ROAS) is now the highest-performing pairing for most advertisers. This combination allows Google’s machine learning to interpret user intent more flexibly, finding valuable queries you’d never discover manually. The catch? This only works if your conversion tracking is pristine. In 2023, if your tracking is broken, broad match will burn your budget. But with clean data, it becomes a powerful engine for new customer acquisition.
Privacy-First: Enhanced Conversions & Consent Mode V2
With third-party cookies fading and privacy regulations tightening, Google has made Enhanced Conversions and Consent Mode V2 mandatory best practices. Enhanced Conversions allows you to send hashed first-party data (like email addresses) to Google to match conversions when cookies are unavailable. In 2023, Google began penalizing accounts that don’t implement this by reducing data visibility and limiting Smart Bidding effectiveness. Similarly, Consent Mode V2 (launched in March 2023) requires you to adjust how Google tags behave based on user cookie consent. The trend is unmistakable: Google is building a walled garden where the key to entry is your first-party data strategy. Advertisers who invest in capturing email addresses and phone numbers on their site will dominate in this environment.
Severe Downgrade of Search Partners & Display Network
A controversial trend this year is Google’s effort to migrate budget from Search Partners and Display to PMax. Many advertisers have reported a sharp decline in performance on the traditional Search Network with Search Partners enabled. In 2023, we’ve seen that running standalone Search campaigns without Partners-and investing that budget instead into a well-structured PMax campaign-has led to better ROAS for our clients. Google is making it harder to opt out of low-quality placements, pushing you toward automation as the solution. The savvy move is to audit your placement reports and, in many cases, disable Search Partners entirely for non-brand campaigns.
AI-Powered Creatives & Assets
Google has rolled out AI-generated assets directly within the platform. You can now provide a landing page URL, and Google will automatically generate headlines, descriptions, images, and even video snippets for your responsive search ads (RSAs) and display ads. In 2023, this feature has become a staple. The trend is toward dynamic creative optimization where you supply the inputs, and Google tests combinations at scale. But our learning is clear: human oversight is critical. AI can create irrelevant or tone-deaf copy. We recommend using the AI suggestions as a starting point, then pinning your top-performing headlines and descriptions to maintain brand voice and messaging consistency.
The Death of Average Position & Impression Share Nuances
Google removed average position years ago, but in 2023, the focus has shifted to Impression Share (IS) and Search Lost IS (Budget & Rank) as the primary metrics for campaign health. The trend is away from siloed metrics and toward holistic account-level analysis. More importantly, Google now surfaces “opportunities” based on competitive analysis more aggressively. The update here is that if you see low Impression Share due to budget, Google will recommend increasing budgets aggressively-often without regard for profitability. As a result, 2023 demands that you pair these recommendations with your own ROAS goals. Don’t let Google’s AI talk you into spending more just to capture 100% of queries that don’t convert.
Local Services Ads & Reputation Management Expansion
For service-based businesses, Local Services Ads (LSAs) have become the dominant format in 2023. Google is expanding these ads to more verticals and geographies, and they now operate on a “pay-per-lead” model. The trend is that LSAs are cannibalizing traditional Search Ads for local queries. If you’re a plumber, lawyer, or real estate agent, your Google Ads budget should now have a significant allocation to LSAs. Furthermore, Google is weighting review volume and response rate heavily in ranking LSAs. Responding to every review, both positive and negative, within 24 hours is now a ranking factor.
Data-Driven Attribution (DDA) Becomes Default
In 2023, Google made Data-Driven Attribution the default model for all new conversion actions in Google Ads. This is a monumental shift away from the last-click model. DDA uses machine learning to credit the right touchpoints across the customer journey. If your account was still using last-click, you likely experienced a sudden shift in reported performance. The trend is clear: advertisers must now optimize for the full path, not just the final click. In practice, this means allocating more budget to upper-funnel tactics like YouTube and Discovery, which you may have undervalued under last-click.
These updates paint a picture of a platform that demands strategic discipline, clean data, and a willingness to embrace automation without giving up human control. The agencies that thrive in 2023-like ours-are those that test aggressively, audit recommendations, and keep a sharp eye on the fundamentals of conversion tracking and creative quality.
