Two Google Ads practitioners have lit up LinkedIn with a blunt claim: budget has quietly replaced Quality Score as the performance lever that matters. Freelance Google Ads manager Joey Bidner and Daniel Toledo, director of group media and performance marketing at evoke, made the argument across October 9–10, 2026.
What the posts say
Bidner’s short LinkedIn post did not mince words. He objected to advice that raising budgets fixes performance issues under what he called Google’s “stupid new bidding algo.” His core line: budget should not be a lever for performance. He did not name a specific product update or share account data, and the post was published as opinion.
Toledo replied that ten years ago the conversation used to be about Quality Score and relevancy. Now, he said, those terms are absent and “budget is the new quality score.” The comment was short, but it reframed the argument historically.
The change behind the anger
The exchange lands roughly eight weeks after Google began rolling out a bidding change on August 17, 2026. The update affects Search, Shopping, Performance Max, Demand Gen and Travel campaigns using Target CPA or Target ROAS that show a “Limited by budget” status. Before the change, a budget-capped campaign could massively over-deliver against its target, such as a $10 CPA target converting at $5. After the change, performance can drift back toward the stated target.
Google has said it does not change budgets or targets automatically. Its advertising liaison Ginny Marvin described the target as the efficiency lever for budget-constrained campaigns. But to Bidner, presenting a bigger budget as a fix turns spend into a performance signal.
Why this matters for performance marketers
For most of Google Ads’ history, relevance was the cheap-click playbook. Quality Score, introduced in 2005, rewarded better expected click-through rates and landing pages, letting a more relevant ad beat a bigger bidder. Smart Bidding in 2016 began automating away per-keyword bid control. Advertisers now mostly set a target and a budget, and the system does the rest.
That shifts the practical question for search teams:
- If relevance still wins auctions, then keyword choice, ad copy and landing page work remain the highest-leverage tasks.
- If budget and target settings dominate, the marketer’s levers shrink to two numbers controlled inside the platform.
- Rising costs add pressure: WordStream’s 2026 benchmarks put median US search CPC at $5.42, up from $2.32 in 2016.
That’s the conflict of interest measurement vendors have flagged: the platform that sells the inventory also decides how to spend against your settings. Microsoft has taken a contrasting public line, saying its campaigns can still overachieve regardless of budget status.
What to do before you raise budget
The posts don’t settle whether Google has truly demoted relevance, and they offer no account data. But they name a tension every performance marketer should audit. Before feeding more budget into a “Limited by budget” Target CPA or ROAS campaign, check whether it is already beating its target. If it is, lowering the target, changing the bid strategy, or switching to Maximize Conversions may be the real fix rather than more spend.
Also keep Quality Score visible as a diagnostic rather than a bid input. If relevance still depresses your cost per click, creative and landing page tests are still performance work.
Source: PPC Land
