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Changes to Support for Smart Campaigns in the Google Ads API

Starting on August 3, 2026 you will no longer be able to create new Smart Campaigns using the Google Ads API. You will still be able to update your existing Smart Campaigns, and they will continue to serve ads.

In lieu of new Smart Campaigns, we recommend exploring other campaign types, such as Performance Max, an automated campaign type that serves across Google's advertising channels. Other campaign types, such as Search or Demand Gen, are also available, depending on your business goals.

Technical details

For technical support issues, please reach out to Google Ads API Support. If you have any questions or want to discuss this post, please reach out to us on our “Google Advertising and Measurement Community” Discord server.

Ben Karl
Google’s Advertising and Measurement Developer Relations team

Enhanced security monitoring with expanded Admin password reset alerts

In Alert Center, we are expanding the existing “Super Admin password reset” alert into a broader Admin password reset alert. Previously, this rule only triggered alerts when a super admin’s password was changed. With this update, the alert will now cover password resets for all administrator roles within your organization.

This update provides admins with better visibility and control over the security of their organization's privileged accounts. Monitoring password changes for all admin roles provide a higher level of oversight to respond more quickly to potential account compromises or unauthorized changes.

This change aligns with security best practices by treating all administrative access with increased vigilance.

Getting started

  • Admins: This feature will be ON by default and automatically replaces the previous "Super Admin password reset" rule. No action is required to enable the new alert. If you had modified the recipient list for the previous rule, those settings will automatically carry over to the new rule.
  • End users: There is no end user setting or impact for this feature.

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers

Resources

Documenting the manual: how curiosity and robotic arms led to a career in open source

by Daryl Ducharme, Google Open Source

When you think of "innovation" in open source, your mind probably jumps to the latest AI model or a revolutionary new framework. You might not immediately think of manual pages. Even Alejandro "Alex" Colomar, who spends his days maintaining Linux Kernel documentation, jokingly admits that some might find the work "boring" because it focuses on fixing existing issues and documenting new features rather than flashy inventions.

But as any developer knows, the most powerful code is only as good as the documentation behind it. At Google, we believe that investing in the success of projects we don't own is a core part of being a good open source citizen. That is why we are proud to sponsor Alejandro's work on the Linux Kernel man-pages project—supporting the critical infrastructure that many of our own systems rely on every day.

Documentation is the gift you give to your future self and your whole community.

The precision of a robot

Alejandro's journey into the world of essential documentation started at university. He was working with robotic arms that used a proprietary scripting language. Wanting more control, he decided to write a C library to communicate with the robots over the network by sniffing packets with Wireshark. It worked, but it was slow—he had to wait seconds between commands to ensure the robot had finished moving.

To make the movements smooth, he needed to understand the messages the robot was sending back in real-time. This required high-precision timing. He found SO_TIMESTAMP, which provided microsecond precision, but he noticed a macro called SO_TIMESTAMPNS in the header files that promised nanosecond resolution. The problem? It wasn't documented in the manual page.

The first patch

After figuring out how to use the undocumented feature by looking at the kernel source code, Alejandro decided to ensure the next person wouldn't have to struggle. He cloned the man-pages repository, wrote a new paragraph based on existing features, and figured out how to send a plain-text patch via email.

"As it was my first patch, I was a bit intimidated by the procedure," Alejandro recalls. That intimidation led to a commit message he is still proud of today: roughly 120 lines of explanation for just 25 lines of new documentation. He wanted to prove that he had done his homework. The welcoming response from the maintainer encouraged him to keep going, leading to more patches and, eventually, a career-long dedication to clarity in open source communities.

Sustaining the commons

Google understands that open source is a "small community built on trust." By supporting maintainers like Alejandro, we help ensure that critical infrastructure—like the documentation that powers the Linux ecosystem—remains accurate and accessible for everyone. We believe that using open source comes with a responsibility to contribute and sustain it, which is why we partner with developers to maintain and grow critical projects.

Alejandro's work doesn't just help himself; it helps thousands of other programmers who rely on correct documentation to build the next generation of technology. As he puts it: "I couldn't program without correct documentation, so whenever I find an issue in documentation, I try to fix it."

A garden that needs tending

We often say that a community is a garden, not a building—it requires constant tending, not just initial construction. By sponsoring Alejandro, we are helping to tend that garden, ensuring the "manual" remains a living, breathing resource for the global developer ecosystem. Whether it is fixing a typo or documenting a high-precision networking macro, every contribution makes the "eyes" on the code that much sharper.