Google Ads just changed the rules: A health check for wellbeing brands

If you’re a health and wellbeing brand running paid campaigns with Google Ads, you may or may not know that your account could have changed without you touching it. Two important Google Ad changes came into force recently – the first on 17th August 2026 and the second on 1st September 2026.

With thin margins on products like supplements, strict compliance rules around what you can and cannot say about health claims, and Q4 in full swing, make sure you’re up to speed on what the changes are and how they’ll affect your business. 

Our handy guide covers what you need to know about both changes, and what to ask your paid media agency to make sure you stay on top of things. We’ll give you a couple of short checklists that you can run for yourself for extra peace of mind, too. 

And remember, if you’ve got any questions, we’re always more than happy to help, so get in touch.

What’s changed in Google Ads?

Let’s start with a brief overview of the changes rolled out since the beginning of summer that all wellness brands running paid campaigns need to know:

Change 1: Target CPA/ROAS enforcement

Previously, if Google found sales cheaper than the limit you set, you kept the saving. But, since 17th August 2026, Google Ads has been strictly enforcing Target CPA and Target ROAS targets, and aiming for the cost limit you set. 

So, if you set a target cost per acquisition (CPA) limit of £80 and your sales are costing £48, your cost per sale can now creep back up towards £80. Performance Max and Shopping are both in scope (which is where most supplement and ecommerce spend tends to sit), and any campaigns that were “limited by budget” over the past 12 months were flagged for upgrade.

This change covers the main campaign types (Search, Shopping, Demand Gen, Travel and Performance Max). However, app campaigns, video campaigns, and any campaigns where you manually set bids won’t be affected.

The only thing that really changes for you is how Google spends within your budgets. Your daily and monthly budgets stay the same. Google won’t change your targets for you, and you can’t opt out. So, in effect, doing nothing means accepting the drift.

While Google positions this change as an advantage for brands that makes results steadier, ecommerce and supplement brands that are operating on thin margins risk being hit hard.

A cost per sale that’s drifting up by 30-60% can quickly turn a profitable campaign into a loss-making one, and nothing in your account will flag it. So, it’s a good time to stop and take stock, and ask your paid media agency to review and adjust your strategy accordingly. 

Then, it’s just a case of watching and waiting. Google’s FAQs about changes to target-based bid strategies recommend waiting 1-2 conversion cycles (the amount of time it takes for a click to result in a conversion) before evaluating performance.

Change 2: AI Max auto-upgrade

Because of the rise in popularity of AI search and overviews (Google’s AI Overviews now reach over 2.5 billion users per month), Google is changing how Google Ads search campaigns work, and upgrading some of its advertising customers to AI Max. Since the beginning of September 2026, Google has been automatically turning AI Max on for many accounts, so you can’t create old-style automated search ads anymore. 

AI Max lets you manage multiple settings under one roof, and there are three things that it can now do automatically:

1. 1. Wider search term matching: showing your ads for search terms beyond your chosen keywords, based on what Google thinks your website and ads are about. 
   2. Automatic wording: Google now uses AI to write your ad headlines and descriptions, based on what your website says.

• Choosing the best landing page: Google is starting to send traffic to the most relevant page on your website, not necessarily the page you chose. 

Not every account has been switched over to AI Max. But if your account has been automatically upgraded, it’ll be because you had one of these older settings turned on:

• If you had “Automatically created assets” switched on, where Google generates ad wording for you, you’ll have been upgraded to wider search term matching and automatic wording. 
• If you had “Campaign-level broad match” enabled, where a single switch makes every keyword in the campaign loosely match, you’ll have only been upgraded to wider search matching.

If you had neither setting enabled, your account won’t have changed.

According to Google’s Ad & Commerce blog, advertisers who use the full AI Max bundle can expect to see a rise in sales for the same price (although obviously that is not guaranteed). They say, “AI Max for Search campaigns see an average of 7% more conversions or conversion value at a similar CPA/ROAS when using the full feature suite — search term matching, text customization and final URL expansion — compared to using search term matching alone”. 

Why this matters for your wellness brand

What does all this mean for wellness brands? Well, firstly, if you’ve been upgraded to automatic ad wording, this could lead to noncompliant headlines and health claims being generated (like “cures”, “treatments”, or “clinically proven”, etc.). 

With wider search matching, there’s a risk that your ads could show up when people type in medical or symptom searches, and if you’ve got a lot of products, you’ll be especially exposed. 

And finally, if you’re upgraded to automatic landing pages, your shoppers could land on the wrong product page, or one that’s missing legally required disclaimers, etc.

While none of this is necessarily bad news, it’s still a fairly significant change to how your paid ads are running now and into the future. It’s important to fully understand the changes and what they mean for your paid ads strategy, and to ensure your agency is fully abreast of the changes too.

Both of these changes to Google Ads arrived within a few weeks of each other, so if you’ve noticed that your results have been dipping since mid-August, then one of these changes could be the reason why. Without a proper investigation, it’ll be hard to identify which change has caused it.

Your Google Ads health check

Here are a couple of quick checklists covering what you need to look at in your account:

Bidding

• Were you notified? Check your admin email as well as in-account notifications. Google said it contacted anyone affected in July to let them know of the changes.
• Compare your performance from late August against the previous period, and against the same time last year and look at cost per sale (or per enquiry), total sales, and what you spent. Costs rising while sales stay flat is an indication that this change has had some impact.  
• Compare your current targets to actual CPA/ROAS. Your target is the most you’ll pay per sale (CPA) or the return you expect for every £1 spent (ROAS). Your actual is what you’re really getting. 
• List any target CPA/ROAS campaigns that were ever budget-limited and review whether they’ve been affected by this change.

AI Max

• Which of your search campaigns now show AI Max? Go to your campaigns, open Settings, and add the AI Max column to find out. 
• Review your search terms report. This lists the actual searches people typed before seeing your ad. Look for irrelevant searches (e.g., products you don’t sell) and ‘claim-sensitive’ searches. Showing ads against either of these could be a compliance risk for wellness brands.
• Review your negative keyword list (the words you tell Google never to show your ads for) and make sure it’s still doing its job.
• Check your landing page reports for URL expansion (Google sending people to a different page than the one you wanted them to see). You can exclude pages or turn off URL expansion if you need to. 
• Check your ad copy, pinned assets (fixed headlines and descriptions) and compliance language. Has Google written any copy you can’t approve? If AI-written copy is a problem, you can turn it off.

What to ask your paid media agency

Hopefully, your paid media agency will be all over the changes across Google Ads, but here are some questions to ask. A good agency will be able to answer these questions immediately, and with specific answers.

• Did you notify us about the changes, and if so, when?
• Which of our campaigns have been affected, and what have you changed?
• Did you review targets against performance, and what did you find?
• Have you reviewed AI-generated copy and search terms against compliance rules?
• What’s your monitoring plan for Q4 and beyond?

What to do next

These alterations to Google Ads are fairly significant and may be affecting your account without you knowing it, so it’s important to get up to speed on the changes.

If you’re not sure that your agency has caught this, we can help. Our team stays up to date with every platform change, and we’ve been helping customers navigate the changes in Google Ads. Contact us today for a chat about how to improve your Google Ads performance.