Still calling it AdWords? What changed in Google Ads

AdWords became Google Ads on 24 July 2018, and most of what a returning advertiser remembers has changed since. Broad match modifier was folded into phrase match in 2021, Performance Max reached every advertiser in November 2021, expanded text ads could no longer be created or edited after 30 June 2022, Enhanced CPC was retired for Search in 2025, AI Max for Search campaigns arrived the same year, and no new call-only ads can be made since February 2026. Old text ads and old modified broad keywords can still be serving inside the account under rules that changed around them, so the first job is reading what is there before spending again.

What changed, and when

Keywords: the three match types as Google defines them now

Google's current help describes broad match as showing ads on searches related to your keyword, phrase match on searches that include its meaning, and exact match on searches with the same meaning or the same intent. That last one is the change returners notice least: exact match no longer means only the words in the brackets. Broad match is also the default, so a keyword typed with no quotation marks or brackets is broad, and Google says broad match may take account of the searcher's recent searches, the landing page and the other keywords in the ad group. In a Birmingham account that makes the search terms report matter more than it did, not less, and the three shared lists in our West Midlands negative keywords guide are built on day one.

Ads: from one fixed text to fifteen headlines

An AdWords text ad was written once and shown as written. A responsive search ad takes up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions, and Google assembles the combination it expects to work for each search. Old expanded text ads can still serve, which is how an account left alone for years ends up running copy that names an offer or opening hours nobody has checked since, with no way to edit it. Pause it, write a responsive search ad in its place, and pin only the lines that must always show, such as a regulated claim.

Bidding: from a maximum CPC to a target

Manual CPC is still there; Enhanced CPC, the old halfway house, is not. Google retired it for Search and Display in the week of 31 March 2025, and campaigns that were not moved now run on plain Manual CPC. The automated strategies are Maximize Conversions and Maximize Conversion Value, each with an optional target, and from June 2026 Google labels those targets Target CPA and Target ROAS again, as separate options that behave exactly as before. Each needs conversion tracking a returner should prove before trusting it, and each major change puts the strategy into a Learning status, which Google says never lasts more than seven days. The settings guide beside this one explains how we start a small account: Maximize Clicks with a ceiling, until real conversions exist.

Performance Max and AI Max, for someone who remembers ticking Display

Performance Max is one campaign across Google's inventory, Search, YouTube, Display, Gmail, Discover and Maps among it, run from asset groups rather than keywords. For a long time it showed little of what it bought. Google's help now offers a search terms report with data from March 2023, search terms reporting for every Performance Max campaign since August 2025, and campaign-level negative keyword lists. AI Max is a different thing: an optional set of features on an ordinary Search campaign, which Google describes as search term matching beyond your keywords using broad match and keywordless technology, text customisation that drafts new headlines and descriptions from your landing page, ads and keywords, and final URL expansion that sends the click to the page it judges most relevant. Our view for a returning local business is plain. Start with a Search campaign you can read, prove the tracking, build the negatives, and switch either one on only when there is a reason and a report to judge it by.

What Google's set-up wizard built in a new account

Returners often open a fresh account rather than the old one, and the set-up wizard makes choices on their behalf. When a vehicle remapping business in Chester opened a new account on 7 October 2026, the wizard left a Performance Max campaign using a free stock image as the logo, and pausing its asset group did not pause the campaign. It had set the lead form and webpage goals to be bid on, switched call recording on and turned automatically created text assets on. The new account could not create a custom call-length conversion, so calls were counted through Google's built-in Calls from ads; the business name and logo assets needed advertiser verification; and because direct-debit billing was not live until the owner confirmed Google's small test deposit, the campaign showed as eligible while the ads did not run. None of it was visible from the overview page.

The returner's first hour, in order

1. Access and billing: whose Google account owns the ads account, whose card or direct debit pays, and who still has access from the old days.
2. Old ads: list every expanded text ad and call-only ad still serving. The text ads cannot be edited and the call ads stop in February 2027, so replace both with responsive search ads, with call assets for the phone.
3. Old keywords: modified broad keywords now behave as phrase match, so read ninety days of search terms before deciding they still do what they did.
4. Bidding: anything that was on Enhanced CPC is on Manual CPC now. Decide on purpose.
5. Auto-apply: open the setting and read what is switched on. Google's list of what it can apply includes adding keywords, adding broad match keywords, removing negative keywords it judges redundant, and switching on Display expansion and search partners.
6. Location option: people in or regularly in your area, not people interested in it.
7. Conversions: submit the form and make a call yourself, in a clean browser, and see each one arrive once.
8. Campaign types: anything the wizard or a recommendation added, Performance Max above all, read before it spends another day.

If the old account sits in a past agency's manager account rather than yours, getting it into your name comes first, as our Google Ads management page explains. Send the customer ID through the free check or the quote form, and we will read the account before saying what we would change.