Everyone Raised Their tROAS 12% — Most of Them Shouldn't Have

Google's August 17 bidding update didn't move CPCs. It moved advertiser behaviour — and most of the market reacted to a change that never touched them. The update removed the conservative buffer that artificially lowered bids on campaigns limited by budget. Those campaigns had been quietly over-delivering efficiency for years by picking up cheap, high-value clicks. Google's position: performance now trends toward the target you actually set, over one to two conversion cycles. Mike Ryan pulled the first data across smec's managed accounts. CPCs have not moved in any notable way — anyone showing you day-after impact is showing you noise. Nobody opened their budgets either; the share of campaigns flagged as limited by budget stayed flat. Instead, advertisers raised their targets: the median tROAS in affected campaigns moved 4% the week before the change and 12% the week of it. Then it gets strange. Campaigns that were never limited by budget — 75 to 85% of the population, and an enormous share of total spend — raised their targets by a median of 9%. No tool prompted them. No exposure. They tightened out of fear. Spend fell roughly 10% that week. Which is where the opportunity sits. If a large share of the auction has gone defensive for no reason, the slack is available to whoever doesn't follow. Full data drops mid-to-late September. Key Takeaways \- Google isn't raising your CPCs — it stopped artificially lowering your bids on budget-limited campaigns. \- No notable CPC movement yet, and conversion data is still too green to read. \- Advertisers chose targets over budget: median tROAS up 12% in affected campaigns, while the limited-by-budget share stayed flat. \- Campaigns that were never affected raised targets 9% anyway. A fear reaction, not a strategy. \- Market spend fell around 10% that week — the opposite of what the change was designed to achieve. \- If your campaigns aren't limited by budget, hold your targets or push harder. Expect the window to close going into Q4. Resources & Links \- Mike Ryan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeryanretail/ \- Chris Scharmueller on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-scharm%C3%BCller/ \- smec Campaign Orchestrator: https://smarter-ecommerce.com/en/platform/ **About Smarter Ecommerce (smec):** Smarter Ecommerce (smec) empowers e-commerce brands with AI-driven PPC automation that optimizes for profit and business outcomes while maintaining strategic control. The platform activates first-party data - profit margins, customer lifetime value, and key business metrics - to automate campaign optimization toward goals like profitability and efficient growth, while detailed campaign insights provide full transparency and enable PPC teams to focus on strategic oversight rather than manual execution. As a Google Premier Partner and three-time Microsoft Retail Partner of the Year, smec manages over €500 million in ad spend and drives €5B+ in annual e-commerce revenue for 350+ global retail clients including THG, Snipes, REWE, and Intersport. **Make sure to follow smec - Smarter Ecommerce for more performance marketing insights:** smec - Smarter Ecommerce: https://www.smarter-ecommerce.com LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/smarter-ecommerce-gmbh Newsletter: https://smarter-ecommerce.com/en/newsletter/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smarterecommerce/