There is one catch, and it has a deadline. Campaigns that have been quietly beating their target will stop, and settle back to the target you actually set. Where that target is looser than what the campaign has really been delivering, you lose the better result. Keeping it takes one small change before 17 August, and Google will not make that change for you.
What actually changes on 17 August 2026
From 17 August 2026, campaigns on target-based bid strategies such as Target CPA and Target ROAS will optimise consistently to the target you set, rather than quietly overperforming against it. Google's own Changes to target-based bid strategies support article gives the clearest example: if your Target CPA is $10 but your recent actual CPA is $5, your campaign will start delivering closer to a $10 actual CPA once the change lands.
The change applies to Search, Shopping, Performance Max, and Demand Gen campaigns, including those managed through Search Ads 360. That covers most of what a typical mid-market NZ account runs. Campaigns that were delivering against a loose target have been quietly overperforming against it. From August, that gap closes.
The decision in front of you looks like this:
|
Current target |
Last 28 days |
Action |
From 17 August |
|---|---|---|---|
|
$10 CPA |
$5 CPA |
Keep the $10 target |
Actual CPA trends towards $10 |
|
$10 CPA |
$5 CPA |
Change the target to $5 |
Actual CPA trends towards $5 |
Google surfaces an in-platform message that flags affected campaigns and lets you review historical performance and apply a new target in the same place. It will not adjust budgets or targets on your behalf, so whatever the prompt recommends, applying it stays a deliberate choice. This video walkthrough shows how the review works in practice.
The message to send your agency this week
For most marketing managers, that in-platform prompt will land in front of whoever runs the day to day. Your job is to make sure someone competent is making the call, and on time. A short message does the work: are we on target-based bidding on any campaigns, are any of them limited by budget, and are any of those currently beating their target. If the answer to all three is yes, then before 17 August you want to know which campaigns they are resetting, which they are leaving, and why.
That last part matters. You are asking them to show you they have looked and made a deliberate call either way, campaign by campaign.
Send the three questions this week. There is no reason for the review to wait.
The gap between caring about your results and being furthest from where this change appears comes down to structure. You run email, social, content, brand, events and a leadership team that wants numbers. Search is one channel among many, usually the most technical and the least transparent, so it gets delegated. Delegation is the right call. The understanding tends to travel with it, and once you stop following how the channel works, you lose the ability to tell whether it is being run well.
A platform update like this one does not announce itself in your world. It surfaces inside a tool you do not log into, on a timeline set by Google, routed to whoever holds the login. The deadline slips past because the people who care most sit furthest from where the change appears, and nothing in the normal run of the week brings it to their attention.
This update also gives you a fair, low-drama read on your partner. A good agency is already talking to you about which campaigns to reset before 17 August, and will welcome the questions. If the change is news to them, that tells you something worth knowing. Treat that as a heads-up rather than an accusation, but pay attention to it.
The Google Ads Masterclass
The real subject here was never tCPA and tROAS. It is the difference between a marketing manager who knows what is happening underneath their results and one who finds out after the fact, and which of those two you are is a choice rather than a matter of how technical you happen to be. That is exactly what the Google Ads Masterclass is built to do. It does not teach you to reset a target yourself. It gives you enough understanding of how the platform works to ask the right questions, judge the answers, and direct your spend with confidence. I run it through the Marketing Association, and the next one is on 12 August, five days before this change takes effect. If you want to stop being a passenger in your own budget, that is where to start.