This is where I stand, I operate some ad accounts but the amount of control and insight taken away with each update is really noticeable. Really interesting is that I actually get zero input on how much I pay on each day. You give a budget for the day but I don’t have a lot of control over it unless I micromanage the thing. It’s crazy and I hope the EU will go hard on Google.
Edit
So more about payments. It used to be I could just give a lump sum and let Google Ads play until there is no more budget.
Not anymore, and -I don’t have a choice-. You can only use a bank account which you give Google Ads control over, and if you forget to set end dates, the thing will keep on rolling. For me it’s another dark pattern build in. For some big clients no big deal probably, I just want to point out there is not a lot of control or choice.
In a project I maintain on billing and payments[1], I had a link to Google Ads API. It was documenting how they had hard-limit budget, with notions like "capped actuals" and "monthly with rollover". The explanation was quite good so I keep it around to explain the concept, and why it was perfect for customers to avoid any surprises.
Then the URL[2] 404'd and the API disappeared. I couldn't find any references to a "BillingCap". I wondered why[3].
Now it makes sense: they got rid of budgets as you explained above. Everything's seems to be obfuscated behind a quite opaque Proposals/Deals[4] data structure now.
Thank you, this has been insightful! Sometimes it’s hard to make a report that makes sense. For instance when having to deal with conversion lag I had to deal with this week. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9347141
Edit So more about payments. It used to be I could just give a lump sum and let Google Ads play until there is no more budget.
Not anymore, and -I don’t have a choice-. You can only use a bank account which you give Google Ads control over, and if you forget to set end dates, the thing will keep on rolling. For me it’s another dark pattern build in. For some big clients no big deal probably, I just want to point out there is not a lot of control or choice.