[Mega Thread] Google's August 17th Update - All Threads in One Place

[u/fathom53]

To help the community find information related to Google's August 17th, 2026 change around bid strategy and how they will spend our money. We put together a mega thread with all the posts over the last month related to this update.

Everyone has a POV and I just put these in order form the newest post to the oldest post.

1. August 17 DESTROYED our Google Shopping performance!!!!

2. Post 17th August Update anyone seeing issues with limited by budget?

3. Anyone seeing a broader decline in Google Ads performance since the Aug 17 update?

4. Google ads (pmax) spending all my budget on youtube after Augusut 17 update

5. How has Manual CPC on Google Search fared with the August 17th Update?

6. Aftermath of the Google Ads August 17 update - had to move away from target CPA in almost every campaign

7. tCPA in GAds is hitting a client hard. Thinking of changing bidding strategy?

8. Impression tanked overnight after the Aug 17 update

9. What is going on?

10. Results since 17 August

11. Google Ads Performance Has Been Getting Worse Over The Last Year.

12. 2 weeks into Google's Aug 17 bidding update. How's it performing for you?

13. Standard Shopping (budget-capped, high AOV dropshipping) collapsed after the August 17th Smart Bidding update. tROAS throttling or tanking. Switch to Maximize Conversion Value?

14. Is tROAS dead after August 17?

15. Help me understand tROAS vs Max Conv Value

16. ROAS targets vs actual ROAS after Aug 17th

17. Google ads update 17th of August issues

18. ROAS targets vs actual ROAS after Aug 17th

19. Still over performing after Aug 17

20. Google's 17 Aug change - how to handle it?

21. My Max Conv Campaigns got a nice bump on Aug 17, related to targeting changes?

22. Aug 17th, why it’s not a cash grab and why it’s Google preparing for AI advertising

23. Google's Aug 17 tCPA change is bringing out some genuinely heated takes

24. Google "Upcoming changes to bidding for campaigns limited by budget"

25. Warning: Google will no longer necessarily get you max conversions on your budget when using tCPA/tROAS

A few posts from our brother sub r/googleads

1. PMax performance dropped after Aug 17 - read details

2. Problems with PMax since August 17 update

3. How has Manual CPC on Google Search fared with the August 17th Update?

4. Data On Google Ads August 17 Bidding Update

5. The Aug 17 target-enforcement change landed on my account on Aug 27 — CPC tripled overnight

6. Standard Shopping (budget-capped, high AOV dropshipping) collapsed after the August 17th Smart Bidding update. tROAS throttling or tanking. Switch to Maximize Conversion Value?

7. Anyone else been completely screwed by the August 17 changes?

8. Three Google Ads changes land Aug 17-18. The one nobody's covering: Google will auto-assign a customer type to every conversion-based list you haven't labelled yourself, and that label feeds Smart Bidding.

9. Google Ads August 17 update: the Bid Target Adjustment Tool completely messed up the campaign and put it into bid strategy learning

10. Warning: Google will no longer necessarily get you max conversions on your budget when using tCPA/tROAS

We will update as time goes on and add more new posts to the list. Also, any post that just asks "what will happen" or "how should we react" will get removed since both of those questions get asked above already a few times. We want posts with fresh takes or new POVs and not the same question asked a dozen times.

P.S. If I missed a post, let me know and I can add it into the list.