Running ads · Updated October 4, 2026
Why did my Google Ads campaigns change when nobody touched them?
Updated October 4, 2026
When nobody touched your Google Ads campaigns, something else with access changed them, and Change history usually names it. The usual causes are auto-applied recommendations, Google's automatic upgrades and automated assets, a rule or script, or a person or manager account with access. Read the User column, then undo within 30 days.
If a setting changed and nobody on your team did it, open Change history and read the User column
Start in Change history, because every other check on this page depends on what it says. It lists the changes made to your account, campaigns and ad groups over the past 2 years, including changes made by automated rules, the Google Ads API and Google Ads Editor, and its User column says who or what made each one.
Read the User column as a pointer to the next place to look. Google documents three kinds of entry, and a fourth case hides inside the first. Each one sends you somewhere different:
- An email address
- Google shows the email of whoever made the change when it was made in the Google Ads interface.
- Next: if it is yours, a colleague's or a contractor's, ask them. If it is an address you do not know, check Access and security below.
- "Google Ads system"
- Google says changes by "automated systems or Google's internal systems" may show under users like "Google Ads system", and that these "usually don't alter active campaign settings or performance."
- Next: check auto-apply, the AI Max upgrade, automated assets and low-activity pauses. Those are the Google-made changes that do alter campaigns.
- "Google Ads API" or a tool's name
- Changes made through the Google Ads API, "for example, by a third-party tool", may show "Google Ads API" or the tool's name.
- Next: ask who at the business connected a reporting or bidding tool. If nobody did, check Access and security below.
- An email from a company that manages your account
- Rules and scripts run from a manager account show "the manager account user who actually made the changes", even though the rule itself is invisible from your account.
- Next: look for linked manager accounts in Access and security, then ask that company what it runs on your account.
A person
Google's systems
Software
A manager account user
- Open Change history within the Campaigns menu and set the date range to start a week before you noticed the change.
- Under the Change overview, open the By user tab to see who made the most recent changes.
- Filter the list by User or by Tool, and by Change type if you know what moved, such as Bidding, Keyword, Budget or Network.
- Click the arrow next to a change to see its details. Write down the old values before you change anything.
Change history is not complete. Google says that "sometimes, not all account-level settings changes or changes made by Google representatives during consultations are listed." If you took a call from a Google rep and agreed to changes, write down what they were, because the record may not show them.
If cost per click or search terms moved and Change history shows nothing, look at your bid strategy, match types and the auction
If the only thing that moved is what you paid per click or which searches your ads matched, look at the bid strategy, the match types and the auction before you look for a culprit. Smart Bidding sets a bid at each auction and broad match reaches new searches, and neither is an edit to a setting, so, as a judgment, do not expect a Change history row for them. Competitors move the price too: Google says "the competitiveness of an ad auction can affect your actual cost-per-click."
Smart Bidding sets a new bid for every search. Google describes it as optimizing "in every auction, a feature known as auction-time bidding": Maximize conversions, Target CPA, Target ROAS and Maximize conversion value all work this way. A higher cost per click on Monday than on Friday is the strategy working, not someone editing it.
Broad match and AI Max reach new searches without a new keyword. Broad match shows ads on searches related to your keyword, and AI Max's search term matching goes further. The search terms report fills with searches nobody typed into the account. The page on calls for jobs you don't sell covers how to find and block them.
The test is cost per lead, not whether something moved. If leads cost what they did last month, leave it. If they cost more, the fix is a setting you control: the bid strategy, its target, or the match type. The page on why cost per click went up covers the auction side.
What changes an account on its own, in the order to check
If auto-apply is on, find what Google applied and who opted you in
Check auto-apply first: it is the Google setting most likely to switch a bid strategy or add and remove keywords, because it applies the recommendations you opted into without asking each time. Google's word for how often is "regularly".
Open Recommendations within the Campaigns menu and select Auto-apply settings. The History tab shows each recommendation you are opted into, how many times it was applied in the past week, when it was last applied and when it was first turned on. Admin, then Account settings, then Auto-apply shows the same list.
Find who turned it on. Google's own advice: note the date in the History tab, then filter Change history to that date to see the user who opted the account in.
- Bidding: "Bid more efficiently with Maximize conversions", "Bid more efficiently with Target CPA", "Adjust your CPA targets" and "Set a target CPA" can switch or retarget your bid strategy.
- Keywords added: "Add broad match keywords" and "Add keywords" put new keywords in the account. "Expand your reach with Google search partners" and "Use Display expansion" put ads on more networks.
- Keywords removed: "Remove redundant keywords", "Remove non-serving keywords" and "Remove conflicting negative keywords". The last one is the one to watch: Google removes any negative that blocks one of your keywords, whatever the reason it was added, so a negative added on purpose to stop wrong calls can go too.
- Ads: "Improve your Responsive Search Ads" adds headlines and descriptions taken from your final URL and the assets in the ad group. Since January 26, 2026, Google no longer auto-applies new responsive search ads.
Google notes that auto-apply "won't increase your budget". It can still change how the budget is spent, which is the change most owners notice.
How do I turn auto-apply off?
In Recommendations, select Auto-apply settings. On the Manage tab, uncheck each recommendation you want to stop and click Save. Or, on the History tab, select a recommendation and click Disable; turned-off ones show a red dot.
Auto-apply is set for the whole account, not per campaign. Expect turning it off to stop future changes only, and check Change history for what was already applied: undo it there or change it by hand.
If your Search campaign now shows AI Max, check whether Google's September 2026 upgrade turned it on
If a campaign used automatically created assets, open its settings and check for AI Max. Google's help pages say that "starting in September 2026, campaigns using text customization, formerly known as automatically created assets, will automatically be upgraded to AI Max." No opt-in is needed, and the upgrades roll out over time, so a campaign may switch after you last looked.
Check every AI Max setting, not just the one you had. Google's help pages say the broad match campaign setting is also "Upgraded into AI Max", and that turning AI Max on turns on text customization and Final URL expansion. Google's upgrade announcement, linked from the help page as "Upgrading to AI Max", adds that the broad match setting moves on the same September schedule and that upgraded campaigns may get search term matching as well. Text customization writes ad text from your site and search term matching reaches searches beyond your keywords, so an upgraded campaign can show new headlines and match new searches in the same week.
A trap in Google's own pages. Google's April 2026 announcement on its Google Business site still says Dynamic Search Ads upgrade in September too. The Dynamic Search Ads help page now says "starting in February 2027", and so does the AI Max reporting page. If you run Dynamic Search Ads, go by the help pages: February 2027.
New campaigns start with it on. Google says "New Search campaigns have the AI Max feature turned on by default." A campaign built recently by anyone has it unless they switched it off.
- Go to Campaigns within the Campaigns menu, select the Settings tab and check the box next to the campaign.
- Select AI Max. To turn it all off, use the toggle to opt out of all AI Max settings. Google says turning it back on later restores the same features as before.
- To keep AI Max but stop the ad text, go to the Asset optimization panel and deselect Text customization, then click Save. That also turns off Final URL expansion.
- To stop new searches in one ad group only, open Ad groups, select the ad group, then Search term matching, and toggle it off.
If new sitelinks, callouts or a phone number appeared under your ads, check automated assets
Filter your assets for the ones Google made. Go to Assets within the Campaigns menu, select Add filter, filter by Added by, check Google AI and click Apply. These are account level automated assets, which Google creates and shows "when predicted to improve your results", and they are a separate setting from AI Max.
Location assets matter most for a local business. If you have not added locations, Google says it "may automatically match your business to known locations (based on various account properties such as landing pages)", and those assets may include a phone number or call button. A wrong match puts a wrong address or number under your ad. You pay for taps on an automatically created call button just as for a click on the ad.
Dynamic callouts and sitelinks come from your website. Google's example callouts are lines like "25 years of experience" found on a landing page. An old page about a service you dropped or a discount that ended can turn up under your ad.
How do I turn off one kind of automated asset?
Go to Assets within the Campaigns menu and open the Associations tab. Select the three-dot menu, then Account level automated assets, then the three-dot menu again and Advanced settings. Choose the asset type to turn off, pick a reason and click Save.
Turn off only the types that put wrong information under your ads. Showing them costs nothing: Google says you are typically charged for clicks on the ad and for certain interactions with an asset, such as a call button, not for the asset appearing.
If Change history names a rule or someone who left, check Rules and Scripts under Tools
Open Tools, then Bulk actions, then Rules, and do the same for Scripts. A rule can change budgets, pause ads and raise or lower bids on a schedule. A script can change bids, pause ad groups and add keywords. Both write their changes to Change history, and Scripts has its own Script history with a Changes log.
A rule outlives the person who made it. Google says that since July 2021, "a rule created by a user who no longer has account access will continue running without any errors." Removing a former contractor's login does not stop their rules. Pause or remove the rule itself, and disable a script under Options, then Disable.
Rules and scripts run from a manager account are invisible from yours. Google says users signed into a client account "won't see any bulk actions completed in their account by other owners (managers) above them", and only that manager account can change them. Change history still shows the manager account user who made each change. If the Rules page is empty and Change history names someone from another company, the rule lives in their manager account: ask them to stop it, or unlink their manager account.
If a keyword, ad group or ad stopped by itself, read its status before you hunt for a person
Check the status column first. Two kinds of stop come from Google, not from anyone with a login.
- Paused for low activity. Google may pause positive keywords and ad groups that were created more than 13 months ago and had zero impressions in the past 13 months. Keywords show Paused with "Keyword paused due to low activity"; filter by Status reason to find them. Unpause only what you expect to get impressions: anything still at zero impressions over the next 3 months is paused again.
- Disapproved. An ad that fails policy review is "Disapproved" and "can't show anywhere." Google also reserves the right to re-review ads. Use Policy Manager to see every ad, keyword and asset with a policy problem across the account.
If a name in Change history is a stranger, check who has access
Go to Access and security within the Admin menu and read the Users list and any linked manager accounts listed there. A linked manager account counts as access too: Google says its admins "can receive notification emails and manage your campaigns." Remove anyone you do not recognize from Users with Remove access, and ask any linked manager what it does before you unlink it.
Which access level each person should hold, and how to take control back when someone else holds it, is the subject of the page on who should own your Google Ads account.
Undo it, then decide what stays
If the change is under 30 days old, undo it from its row in Change history
Find the row and click Undo in the User / Date & Time column, then confirm with Undo. The column then reads "Changes undone". Google lets you undo most types of change made in the last 30 days.
One Undo reverts the whole row. If several changes share a row, they are undone together, so read the row before you click.
Older than 30 days, or "Changes can't be undone": change it back by hand. That happens when a related item was removed since, or someone already undid it. Change history keeps the before values for 2 years, so you can still see what to set.
Turn off the source before you undo. Google applies opted-in recommendations whenever they are relevant, so a keyword you undo with auto-apply still on can come back.
For example
A plumber's account spent $3,000 in August and brought 50 leads, $60 a lead. In September the Search campaign was upgraded to AI Max, and the same $3,000 brought 40 leads, $75 a lead, with new searches in the search terms report. The plumber turns off search term matching in the one ad group bringing the wrong searches and keeps it in the others. If October comes back near $60 a lead, the change paid its way; if not, AI Max goes off for the campaign.
Turn off what changes spending or targeting without you; keep what you can judge
Decide each one on cost per lead and booked jobs, not on how many settings Google switched on. As a judgment for a local service business:
- Turn off
- Auto-apply for bidding and keyword recommendations, especially "Remove conflicting negative keywords". Automated location assets if they matched the wrong address or number. Any rule or script nobody at the business can explain.
- Apply the good recommendations by hand from the Recommendations page, so each one is a change someone chose.
- Keep, then judge
- Smart Bidding and AI Max on campaigns where cost per lead held or improved. Automated sitelinks and callouts that say true things about the business.
- Check the search terms report and the ad text monthly. These keep working without you, so a monthly look is what keeps them honest.
Changes without asking
Works inside your settings
Get told next time. Turn on campaign maintenance notifications in your Google Ads preferences, and Google emails a weekly summary of what auto-apply did. Then open Change history once a month, filtered by User, and ask about any name you do not recognize.