Google Ads is showing Target CPA and Target ROAS as standalone bidding strategies in the campaign-setup menu again, in accounts where advertisers have spotted the change. Google Ads expert Natasha Kaurra first flagged the revised menu on LinkedIn. Where the new layout has appeared, the two targets have been promoted to dedicated menu entries, listed next to Maximize Clicks, Maximize Conversions, Maximize Conversion Value, Target Impression Share and Manual CPC. Previously they were reachable only as optional settings tucked inside the two Maximize strategies.
Be precise about what this is. It is a menu reorganization, not a bidding-behavior change. Advertisers who select Target CPA or Target ROAS today will get the same automated bidding logic they would have gotten by applying a target inside Maximize Conversions or Maximize Conversion Value last week. No new bid strategy exists, and no account gains a capability it did not already have. The only thing that moved is where the option sits in the list.
Google Ads trainer Charlotte Osborne reads the reorganization as groundwork for changes scheduled for August 17, 2026, which are expected to make switching between Target CPA and Target ROAS on one side and Maximize Conversions and Maximize Conversion Value on the other easier. Google has not published details of what the August 17 update actually changes. Osborne’s read is informed speculation from someone who trains advertisers on the platform daily, not a confirmed roadmap item, and treating it as one before Google documents the update would be premature.
The framing worth adding is a direction-of-travel problem. Google spent years folding Target CPA and Target ROAS into Maximize Conversions and Maximize Conversion Value, treating them as secondary settings rather than distinct strategies. Pulling them back out as first-class menu items runs against that consolidation. It follows last week’s sighting of household-income exclusion controls resurfacing inside Performance Max, another setting Google had previously folded into its automated campaign type. Two sightings in two weeks is not a reversal of Google’s automation-first product direction, but it is a pattern search teams should track rather than dismiss.
Neither change came with a Google Search Central or Google Ads blog post explaining the rationale, which means both are being reconstructed from what advertisers see in their accounts rather than from Google’s own documentation. That gap matters for anyone deciding how much weight to put on Osborne’s read: the August 17 date is real, but what ships on it is not yet public.
Check your own accounts for the new bidding-strategy menu before assuming this applies universally. It appears to be rolling out selectively rather than to every advertiser at once. Hold off restructuring campaigns around the separated Target CPA and Target ROAS options until Google publishes what the August 17 update actually does. Acting on Osborne’s interpretation now, before the mechanics are confirmed, risks rebuilding bid-strategy structure around a guess rather than a documented change.
Search Engine Land (Anu Adegbola) reported this July 28, 2026.
