From 17 August 2026, campaigns in a “Limited by budget” status using Target CPA, Target ROAS, or Target CPC (Demand Gen only) optimise more consistently toward the target you set, including when budgets are adjusted. The previous behaviour, where budget-constrained campaigns often overdelivered against their stated target, has ended.

Google states this does not directly increase spend and daily and monthly budget limits are still respected. Campaigns that are not budget-constrained are unaffected, as are manual CPC and Target impression share strategies. Google will not automatically adjust targets or budgets. A Target Adjustment Tool sits in account notifications and on the Campaigns page.

Pricing and display practices across Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy Instamart and larger marketplaces are under growing scrutiny, with consumers flagging gaps between prices shown online and on delivered goods, inflated “original price” anchors, and charges that only surface late in checkout.

Legal commentary cited in the reporting places Legal Metrology liability for selling above applicable MRP with the seller or retailer, while a platform could face Consumer Protection Act liability where it made a misleading price representation itself. Indian law does not prohibit dynamic pricing as such; the contested area is individualised pricing based on purchase history, device or behaviour without meaningful disclosure.

Meta's published pricing documentation confirms a higher marketing message rate for India effective 1 January 2026, alongside India moving to INR billing. A further adjustment on 1 April 2026 raised India's authentication-international rate.

Meta's changelog lists additional rate card changes taking effect on 1 July 2026 and 1 October 2026 across 16 currencies. Billing remains per delivered template message rather than per 24-hour conversation window. Service messages inside the customer service window stay free, and click-to-WhatsApp ad clicks open a 72-hour free window.

Reporting indicates that Instagram Explore Feed and Messenger Stories placements no longer exist in Marketing API v26.0, and that integrations pinned to an unsupported version will be force-upgraded into those changes. Separately, device and hourly reporting breakdowns reportedly went dark for accounts not opted in, returning an empty successful response rather than an error, so connectors can write zeroes instead of flagging a failure.

Source pending: this has not been confirmed against Meta's Graph API changelog. Verify before publishing.

Multiple practitioner accounts report that Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart seller dashboards calculate ROAS against Maximum Retail Price rather than the actual transaction price after platform discounting. On a product with an MRP of Rs 500 selling at Rs 340, the reported figure runs roughly 47% above the real return.

Important caveat: none of the three platforms documents this publicly. The claim is consistent across several independent agency and operator sources but is not platform-confirmed. Recalculate against net transaction value from your own order data before acting on it.

The Consent Manager registration regime under India's DPDP Rules becomes operational on 13 November 2026, twelve months after the Rules were notified. Full substantive compliance covering notice, consent, security safeguards, data principal rights and breach notification is due 13 May 2027, with penalties attaching from that date.

Through 2026 the Data Protection Board is expected to focus on guidance rather than active enforcement. Pre-ticked boxes, bundled consent and blanket “I agree” patterns do not meet the standard: consent must be free, specific, informed, unconditional and unambiguous, with each purpose consented to separately.

Source pending: replace with the MeitY notification before publishing.

Shopify's Q1 2026 commerce data shows referral sessions from AI assistants growing more than eightfold year over year across its storefronts, with AI-referred orders up close to thirteenfold. Those visitors convert at nearly 50% higher rates than organic search on product detail pages and carry around 14% higher average order values.

Attribution is the weak point. A meaningful share of AI-driven traffic arrives with the referrer stripped and lands in direct, and Google does not separately attribute AI Mode or AI Overviews referrals in GA4. Reported AI share is almost certainly an undercount.

On 23 July 2026 the DPIIT issued a press note permitting foreign-funded e-commerce entities to operate an inventory-based model exclusively for exporting goods manufactured or produced in India. Eligible companies can buy qualifying Indian-made goods from manufacturers and hold that inventory for export.

Existing restrictions on foreign-funded inventory-based e-commerce serving domestic consumers are unchanged, and the change takes effect only on notification under FEMA. Businesses running both domestic marketplace and export inventory operations should keep the two models clearly separated.

Source pending: replace with the DPIIT press note before publishing.

GA4's Advertising section was reorganised: the Attribution paths and Model comparison reports were merged into a single tabbed Attribution report, and Journey analysis now defaults to showing only the top ten conversion paths. A separate June change altered how traffic sources are grouped and how consent controls govern what GA4 can share with Google Ads.

The practical effect is that period-over-period comparisons straddling these dates show movement that is a measurement artifact rather than a real performance change, and remarketing lists built from GA4 shrink to true consent capture rate.

Source pending: replace with the Google Analytics Help release notes before publishing.

Shopify's Spring '26 Edition shipped on 17 June 2026 with more than 150 updates. The Universal Commerce Protocol, co-developed with Google as an open standard for agentic commerce, is enabled by default for Shopify merchants rather than requiring a custom build.

Shopify Catalog structures and syndicates product data to ChatGPT, Copilot, the Shop app and other AI surfaces with no extra apps or manual feeds. Merchants with eligible products are included by default.

Note: this release is officially the Spring '26 Edition. A number of third-party write-ups have referred to it as Summer '26.