Published Every Other Week

The OJD Digital Digest

The sharpest people in Google Ads, Meta Ads and AI publish more every week than anyone has time to read. We read all of it and keep the handful that changes how you run an account. One short read, every other week.

01 — Archive

October 2, 2026

The OJD Digital Digest — October 2, 2026

Google and Meta are businesses with revenue targets, and sometimes that runs against yours. Four reminders from the past fortnight: AI Max vs Dynamic Search Ads, a new warning when you cut a budget, Target ROAS locked during promotion mode, and Meta's two-link cap. Plus the lever that stays in your hands: training bidding on fewer, better leads.

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September 17, 2026

The OJD Digital Digest — September 17, 2026

Google is invalidating promotional credits after the qualifying spend has already happened, the August 17 bidding rewrite is still collapsing lead volume in budget-limited accounts, and the product feed is quietly becoming the ad unit in both ChatGPT and Merchant Center. Plus a correction: the Dynamic Search Ads migration to AI Max is February 2027, not this month.

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September 14, 2026

The OJD Digital Digest — Week of September 14, 2026

Meta is stripping placement exclusions from ad sets, Google is moving Search campaigns to AI Max (though Dynamic Search Ads now wait until February 2027), and Google calls its own EU changes the biggest quality drop in 29 years. Plus: turning off Meta's new creative workflow, the real policy risk in competitor bidding, segmenting by conversion action, and Dara Denney on AI dissolving middle management.

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August 31, 2026

The OJD Digital Digest — Week of August 31, 2026

AI Max auto-upgrades start tomorrow and exact match may be about to go broad, Google begins rewriting result URLs with /goto redirects, and GA4 becomes the one place to see all paid social spend. Plus Meta trading placement controls for ad-level targeting, and Local Services Ads charging for missed calls from October 1.

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August 11, 2026

The OJD Digital Digest — Week of August 11, 2026

Google will auto-upgrade Search campaigns to AI Max on September 1, the budget-limited bidding change takes effect, and campaign-level language targeting is being removed from Search. Plus Meta letting advertisers define their own attribution model, agentic ad ops arriving on both platforms, and a refund US advertisers may be owed.

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June 29, 2026

The OJD Digital Digest — Week of June 29, 2026

Performance Max finally gives you control and a window in, AI Max moves from Dynamic Search Ads toward Shopping, and Meta starts spending 5% of your budget on placements you excluded. Plus Jon Loomer on having too many ad sets and Meta's AI enforcement locking out one of its own experts.

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June 15, 2026

The OJD Digital Digest — Week of June 15, 2026

Smart Bidding Exploration expands to every Performance Max campaign, a Promotion Mode beta lets you push harder during sales without rebuilding bids, and Dynamic Search Ads begin their upgrade to AI Max. Plus Advantage+ Creative generating video from your statics, a new AI disclosure checkbox in Meta, and McKinsey on ad value shifting toward what AI agents pick.

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June 1, 2026

The OJD Digital Digest — Week of June 1, 2026

Google Ads daily budget pacing changed and dayparted campaigns are about to spend more, Meta's AI connectors quietly expose every ad account in a portfolio, and Post Engagement gives way to Maximize Interactions. Plus a first real look at ChatGPT Ads and Anthropic shipping Claude Opus 4.8.

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May 18, 2026

The OJD Digital Digest — Week of May 18, 2026

Google's AI Max migration is set for September and it is not opt-in, Meta AI Connectors expose every ad account in a business portfolio, and budget concentrating on a single ad turns out to be the system working as designed. Plus Advantage+ becoming the default for new campaigns, Google I/O's Search redesign, and Foxwell's platform-stability tracker.

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May 11, 2026

The OJD Digital Digest — Week of May 11, 2026

Meta's AI Connector hands Claude 29 tools inside your ad account, ChatGPT Ads opens to all advertisers, and Meta kills Flexible Format in favor of the new creative workflow. Plus whether too many ads still hurt performance after Andromeda, and OpenAI closing the reasoning gap in voice agents.

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April 13, 2026

The OJD Digital Digest — Week of April 13, 2026

Google Ads in AI Mode turns from a test into a real placement, Anthropic unveils a model it says is too powerful to release publicly, and Meta ships its first model out of the Superintelligence Lab. Plus the boring landing page fix that beats months of bid testing, new Meta retargeting filters, and Perplexity pivoting into personal finance.

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April 6, 2026

The OJD Digital Digest — Week of April 6, 2026

What to actually do when Meta ads stop working, why Meta is hiding creative performance data, and Customer Match moving to the Data Manager API. Plus ChatGPT Ads crossing $100M, Google open-sourcing Meridian for marketing mix modeling, and Block replacing its managers with AI.

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March 30, 2026

The OJD Digital Digest — Week of March 30, 2026

Shopify products start appearing inside ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot, Google AI Mode adds sponsored stores and direct offers, and Demand Gen picks up AI video creation and creator partnership tools. Plus Meta's multimodal policy enforcement, whether Meta really steals conversion credit, and Anthropic shipping remote computer use.

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March 22, 2026

The OJD Digital Digest — Week of March 22, 2026

Google's opt-out AI voice-overs in Performance Max, Meta's attribution redefinition and its new Partnership Ads requirement, budget pacing changes for ad scheduling, the first ChatGPT ad results, and Meta's AI agents landing inside Ads Manager.

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