September 2026 Paid Search Updates: What Advertisers Need to Know
Interested in staying up to date with the latest Paid Search news? In September’s round-up, we’ll be looking at some of the biggest updates from Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising, including clearer search term reporting, smarter product-level bidding, new loyalty insights, Promotion Mode and Shopping ads appearing within Bing Copilot.
September Paid Search Summary
September has been a particularly busy month for ecommerce advertisers, with several new updates designed to give us more control over how budgets are spent and a clearer view of what is actually driving performance.
Google has announced new ways to prioritise higher-value products, understand the performance of loyalty members and temporarily adjust campaign targets during peak trading periods.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has started placing Shopping ads directly within Bing Copilot answers, giving ecommerce brands another way to reach customers while they are researching products.
So, there is quite a bit to get through.
Confirmed Google Platform Updates
1. Google Ads Is Improving Search Term Visibility
Let’s start with some genuinely good news: Google is working on giving advertisers clearer visibility of the searches which are actually triggering their ads.
The search terms report is already one of the most useful reports available within Google Ads. It shows the difference between the keywords we choose to target and the actual words somebody typed into Google before seeing or clicking an ad.
However, advertisers have not always had access to the full picture. Some searches are hidden or grouped together because they do not meet Google’s privacy thresholds, which can make it harder to understand exactly where budget is going.
Google’s latest reporting improvements should make more of this activity visible and give advertisers a clearer understanding of the searches behind their clicks and conversions.
What does this mean for advertisers?
Simply put, more visibility gives us more control.
If we can see more of the searches triggering ads, we can identify irrelevant traffic sooner, add more informed negative keywords and stop budget being spent on people who are unlikely to convert.
It should also make it easier to spot useful new keyword opportunities. If a search is converting but isn’t currently being targeted directly, it may deserve its own keyword, ad copy or landing page.
Of course, this doesn’t mean every single search will suddenly become visible. Privacy thresholds will still apply and advertisers should continue using search term insights alongside the main report.
Still, any move towards greater transparency is a welcome one, particularly as Google continues to rely more heavily on automation and broader matching. It should also give experienced Google Ads specialists more information to refine campaigns and reduce wasted spend.
2. Product Value Optimisation Puts Priority Products First
Not every sale is equally valuable.
A retailer may make a much healthier margin on one product than another, need to clear seasonal stock or want to prioritise a particular brand or category. Until now, automated bidding has not always had enough context to understand those wider commercial priorities.
Google’s new Product Value Optimisation beta is designed to help solve this.
Advertisers can apply value adjustments to specific products or product attributes, such as brands and categories. Google’s automated bidding can then use those adjusted values to prioritise the products which matter most to the business.
This is a little like the old days when advertisers could manually adjust product ID bids within individual ad groups, although this time Google is using the information to steer automated bidding in real time.
What does this mean for advertisers?
For ecommerce businesses running Google Shopping campaigns, this could be a really useful update.
Rather than treating every £100 sale in exactly the same way, we can give Google a clearer indication of which £100 sales are actually the most valuable.
This could help advertisers prioritise:
- Higher-margin products
- Seasonal stock
- Overstocked items
- Bestsellers
- Strategic brands or product categories
However, it is important not to use Product Value Optimisation as a shortcut for poor data.
Before testing it, advertisers need a clear understanding of their margins and product priorities. If the wrong adjustments are applied, automated bidding could confidently push more budget towards the wrong products.
The feature is also still in beta, so I’d recommend testing it across a limited selection of products or campaigns first rather than immediately applying it across an entire account.
3. Google Ads Is Making Loyalty Data More Useful
Google is also introducing more detailed ways to understand and use loyalty data within advertising campaigns.
Once customer or loyalty data has been connected to Google Ads, advertisers will be able to compare the performance of loyalty members against other customers more clearly.
This should help answer some pretty important questions.
Are existing members more likely to convert? Do they spend more when they do? Are campaigns mostly generating repeat purchases or genuinely attracting new customers?
Google has also announced wider loyalty features which can showcase member-only pricing and shipping benefits across its shopping experiences.
What does this mean for advertisers?
This update should be helpful for both reporting and targeting.
If loyalty members convert more frequently or generate a higher average order value, there may be a case for treating them differently within the account. Equally, if too much budget is being spent on existing customers, advertisers may decide to put more focus behind new customer acquisition.
The important part is deciding what the campaign is actually trying to achieve. Retaining valuable customers and acquiring new ones are both useful goals, but they should not be blended together without understanding the difference.
There is one fairly major requirement: Google needs access to reliable first-party customer data.
Businesses will need to connect an appropriate customer list or data source, make sure consent requirements have been met and keep the data accurate enough to be useful. Poor match rates or outdated customer records will naturally limit what the reporting can tell us.
4. Promotion Mode Could Make Managing Sales Much Easier
Anyone who has managed Paid Search campaigns through Black Friday, a flash sale or another peak trading period will know how quickly things can become messy.
Budgets need to increase, return on ad spend targets may need to become more flexible and everything has to be changed back once the sale ends.
Google’s new Promotion Mode is designed to make this process much easier.
Advertisers can schedule a temporary increase in daily budget and allow campaigns to work within a more flexible ROAS tolerance during a defined promotional period. Once that period ends, the campaign should return to its usual settings automatically.
What does this mean for advertisers?
This could be very handy during periods when demand is expected to rise sharply.
Instead of permanently changing a campaign’s targets or relying on somebody to manually reverse changes at the end of a sale, the temporary adjustment can be scheduled in advance.
It could be useful for:
- Black Friday and Cyber Monday
- January sales
- Flash sales
- Product launches
- Short seasonal promotions
- Limited-time discount events
There are a few things to keep in mind.
The promotion needs to be planned before it begins and the usual campaign targets should already be agreed. A larger budget and looser ROAS tolerance also do not guarantee profitable growth, particularly if stock, margins, landing pages or promotional messaging are not ready for the extra traffic.
Promotion Mode is currently a beta feature, so availability may vary between accounts. I’d also recommend testing it on a controlled promotion before relying on it during your biggest trading event of the year. Advertisers may also want to use relevant Google Ads promotion assets so the offer is clearly visible within their ads.
Confirmed Microsoft Platform Updates
5. Shopping Ads Are Appearing Within Bing Copilot
Finally, we have an interesting update from Microsoft.
Shopping ads can now appear within Bing Copilot results, placing relevant products alongside AI-generated answers when somebody is researching what to buy.
Rather than only appearing within a traditional set of search results, a product could now be shown while somebody is asking Copilot to compare options, recommend an item or help them decide what best suits their needs.
What does this mean for advertisers?
For ecommerce businesses already running Microsoft Shopping campaigns, this creates another opportunity to reach potential customers earlier in their research.
Someone asking Copilot for help may not have decided on a specific brand or product yet. Appearing within that answer could put a retailer in front of them while they are still comparing their options.
I wouldn’t describe this as a major shift in budget just yet. Bing search volumes remain smaller than Google’s and we still need more performance data before knowing how valuable these placements will be.
However, it is a useful piece of incremental visibility and another sign that paid product placements are moving beyond traditional search engine results pages.
Advertisers should make sure their Microsoft Merchant Centre feeds are accurate and complete, then monitor whether Copilot placements contribute meaningful traffic, sales and return on ad spend rather than assuming more visibility automatically means better performance.
Final Thoughts
The theme running through most of this month’s updates is greater control over automation.
Google is giving advertisers more ways to tell its bidding systems which searches, customers, products and trading periods matter most. At the same time, Microsoft is expanding where product ads can appear as search behaviour becomes more conversational.
That additional control is useful, but only when the information being fed into the platforms is accurate. Product margins, customer data, promotional plans and conversion tracking all need to be reliable if automated campaigns are expected to make good decisions.
So, while there are several promising features here, I wouldn’t recommend switching everything on for the sake of it. Test them carefully, measure the commercial impact and expand only when the data supports it.
Need Help Navigating These Paid Search Updates?
If you’d like to understand which of these updates could benefit your campaigns, or you want to improve the performance of your existing Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising activity, get in touch with Algebra’s paid search specialists.
We can review your account, identify where budget may be going to waste and build a Paid Search strategy focused on the products and customers which matter most to your business.