Google Ads 2026: Tips to Start the Year Strong

Your Google Ads account needs a 2026 reset - start the year clean and profitable.

In this episode of the Google Ads Unleashed Podcast, host Jeremy walks through a practical Google Ads “spring clean,” covering ad copy refreshes, conversion tracking checks, audience updates, keyword research, and landing page optimisation. 

You’ll learn how to spot what held performance back in 2025 and what to fix now to scale smarter in 2026.

Get your free 30 minute strategy session with Jeremy here: https://www.younganddigital.marketing/

Scale your store with 1:1 coaching: https://www.younganddigital.marketing/1-2-1-coaching

Transcript

your Google Ads account is dirty and it needs a little spring clean, which is why I'm here to help you this year, to give it a good spring clean and to help it off to the right start. Welcome back to Google ads and leash guys. Hope everyone is doing fine. Welcome in 2026
this is the first podcast in 2026
after some refreshing time off, which is quite nice, things are picking up. Very busy again, for the agency, for the coaching, for the podcast, and we've got some absolutely banging podcasts planned in already for the beginning of the year. However, I wanted to start it off with something more palatable and more digestible and easily actionable, and that is to give your Google Ads account a little spring clean into the new year. Because the issue is, sometimes when you look at stuff, you sometimes get a bit stuck. You may don't may in those sort of more off periods. If it's an OFF period for you have not as many sort of insights for certain things, or you sort of can't see the forest for the trees anymore, and that is why I am here to give you some ideas of things that you could look at. And this is what we're discussing today. And I'll start off with ad copy. So basically, one of the things that very often is a bit of set and forget is our ad copy. What I would always recommend when the year is over is to reflect how things have changed. Maybe customer sentiment has changed. Maybe there's a different occasion now, such as New year, new me, or that may resonate with your audience, or you've not done any sort of testing of ad copy, or you have sort of certain timely elements, such as old Christmas or Black Friday copy. I've seen everything still life in the ad account. Give it all a check. Give it all an overhaul. You can even ask your existing customers what they're interested in right now, and just give your ad copy an overhaul. We recommend doing this every quarter anyway. But if you don't do that, if this as often, even if you don't change anything, give it a thorough check to really make sure that everything is aligned and that everything is still up to date. Sometimes it's even just things such as year numbers, right? So you may have old copy saying, you know, the best travel pillow of 2025 or something like that, whereas you will obviously wanted to say 2026 so this is something that I would recommend to you guys instantly. Then the second thing that I always sort of think is a good idea is to just review the performance here on year, right? If you have a full two years data year on year, I would have a look at everything that has worked as you know, certain things that you've actually certain initiatives worked. What have you sold more of? What have you sold less of? Which campaigns have worked? Which campaigns haven't worked. Are the CPCs? Higher are the impressions? Higher is the search volume? Higher is that etc, etc. Basically, reviewing your performance metrics is just a really good idea, especially on a monthly basis over the year, is to identify any seasonality trends, any adjustments that you may have to make for the year ahead, and it also gives you an idea of what you need to do strategically. For instance, we have seen with one client that we've ended the year pretty much flat. That gave us a little bit of a worry, because obviously we want to grow accounts. And as it turns out, search volume was down 20% but our efficiency was up 20% right? So we've actually done a good job, but there's just fewer people searching. So as a strategic input, we've now recommended adding advertorials into the mix, add in Microsoft ads into the mix, adding demand gen into the mix. So this sort of stuff gives you a really good idea to know what to focus on, even if you run your own business as well. Then for third I would always give you conversion tracking a refresh just make sure that all conversion actions are correct, to make sure it's reporting properly. Maybe even do one or two test purchases to make sure all the test leads, to make sure everything runs as it should. Maybe even get a freelancer to double check into this, you can always message me. I know someone who can help you with that. If you have a have a problem, make sure that use enhanced conversions. Make sure that you have used enhanced conversion for leads. Make sure everything is collecting data as expected, also double and triple check.
Is that everything is okay with with your cookies settings, and, of course, make sure that, for instance, your repeat rate isn't particularly high or something, that you don't have any duplicate conversion tracking. It's the right time to do this, just to set up the new year for success.
Then next, I would recommend look at your audiences. So naturally, sometimes what happens is, once we set up audiences via, for instance, Klaviyo, or whether sepia or some sort of other API that you sort of tend to forget about it as well and then never look at it again. And of course, all of your audience targeting, which you use in demand, Gen, which you use in your audience signals, in p, Max, they all become outdated as a result of that. You don't want that to happen, so just give it a good refresh. Have a look at it that everything is up to date and that everything is the way it should next. I think you should revisit your ad extensions or your assets, right? Make sure all of the site links are up to date. Have instance, more sub categories have been added in the new year which you've not even added to your existing account setup, right? That's something that happens very often, that people just forget about that completely, or call outs. This is also part of refreshing copyright certain things you don't really do at all or don't look at it often enough that is absolutely something you should be looking at and just making sure that everything there is up to date. Next, I think you should have a look. If you could do some product and keyword research, both for negative keyword lists. So update those, maybe even have a quick look if you've accidentally excluded actually relevant searches. Or have a look if you've excluded something that has become relevant over time. You know, for instance, you've excluded certain colors or something like that, and now you actually offer those colors. Those are things that you should be certainly doing, but you should also be having a look if search volume has changed, in terms of search volume, but also in how people search, very often, there's patterns and changes, right? So, for instance, people will start searching for something like one big change that happened over the last eight years, let's say, is that people started searching for a lot of best X, Y and Z, 2026, or something like that. Those are keywords that you may want to include or not include, and that is something that you should be having a look at. Same with products. I think this is the ideal time to just add more products to your portfolio, and you need to do some research in order to get that over the line.
Next, I think, lastly, and this is sort of one of my last tips, I would say, is to just double and make sure that you have a look at everything that happens beyond your clicks. I've got loads of podcasts on this topic, but traffic is only half the equation. Conversions depends. You know, the conversion happens on your landing page, and your landing page experience is what determines, very often, the success or misfortune of an ad account. And if you haven't done so, then this is what you need to focus on for this year to in order to make 2026 your year. And I'm sure you've been busy anyway. So with that, you probably have done a lot, even especially if you follow the pod on sort of ongoing hygiene work. But this year, you could start it off with a bang by implementing those points. You can also join our free community on Slack, where we answer any questions that you may have, or we discuss the content of the podcast. You can also always inquire with us, Jeremy at young and digital dot marketing, or you can head to the website, young and digital dot marketing to book a call. Or you can very easily find me on LinkedIn, Jeremy and Google ads, and we can have a chat and see if it can help you with that. If your account needs a fresh pair of eyes on that note, thank you very much for listening. We're back in the grind, folks, and I'm looking forward to delivering a lot more content for you in the new year. This has been Jeremy young, your personal Google Ads expert, and I wish you a happy and productive week ahead.
Thank you for listening to Google Ads unleashed to connect with Jeremy. Check him out online at www dot young and digital dot marketing. We'll see you next time you.