2025 was a landmark year for PPC, defined by deeper AI automation, significant shifts in market players, and long-awaited transparency for advertisers.

The Top 10 Headlines

• 1. Codeless Conversion Tracking: Google launched a "wizard-style" GTM feature to track lead forms without manual coding.
• 2. Amazon Exits Google Shopping: In a "colossal" move, Amazon halted its Shopping ads across the U.S. and 20 international markets, cooling auction competition.
• 3. Temu Pulls U.S. Ads: Faced with new tariffs, Temu stopped its aggressive U.S. Shopping spend, causing its app rankings to plummet.
• 4. Automatic Content Extraction: Google began automatically pulling promotions and brand assets from merchant emails to populate ads (with an opt-out available).
• 5. Multiple Ads per SERP: A policy update now allows a single business to show multiple ads on one results page if they appear in different locations.
• 6. Ads in AI Overviews: Google officially began monetizing generative search by placing Search and Shopping ads directly within AI-generated summaries.
• 7. "AI Max" for Search: A new one-click beta that uses AI to dynamically generate ads, expand URLs, and adapt creative in real-time.
• 8. PMax Search Term Visibility: Advertisers can now finally see which search terms trigger Performance Max ads and add negative keywords directly.
• 9. PMax API Exclusions: Google confirmed that API-based placement exclusions do work for PMax, giving advertisers faster brand safety control.
• 10. GTM Technical Update: Google Tag Manager was updated to prioritize tag loading, improving data accuracy and simplifying "Enhanced Conversions."