Google will remove campaign-level language targeting for Search and AI Max for Search campaigns starting in late September, eliminating a long-standing manual control that let advertisers explicitly scope which languages their Search ads should target. The change hands language-matching decisions to Google’s automated systems and shifts the onus onto ad creative and landing-page signals.

What changes and where it applies

For standard Search and AI Max for Search campaigns, the campaign-level language setting will disappear. Google says Search ads will be matched to users primarily based on the language of the ad creative and signals about the languages a user understands.

Performance Max will be split: the campaign-level language setting no longer applies to impressions on Google Search — those follow the same automated language matching as Search campaigns — but advertiser-selected language settings will continue to influence delivery on other Performance Max channels (YouTube, Display, Discover and Gmail). Shopping ads within Performance Max are not affected by this Search-specific change.

How Google determines which language to serve

Google already infers language understanding from several signals beyond a user’s interface language. On Search, those signals can include the language of the search query, explicit user language settings and other behavioral preferences. As a result, users may see ads in a language they frequently search in even if their browser or account language is set differently.

When multiple campaigns or ad candidates are eligible, Google says AI-based ad group prioritization will choose the ad it judges most relevant to the user’s language profile.

Practical implications for advertisers

The immediate effect is reduced manual control over which languages Search campaigns target. Google recommends advertisers don’t need to take immediate action on existing campaigns, but you should expect delivery to become more dependent on the language signals in your creative and landing pages.

  • Audit creatives and landing pages: Make sure ad copy and destination pages are clearly written and structured for the intended language(s) so Google can match them reliably.
  • Organize multilingual workflows differently: Rely on language-specific creatives and landing pages rather than campaign-level language controls. Use naming conventions and campaign architecture that make language-specific assets easy to manage and report on.
  • Test and monitor after rollout: Track delivery and conversion shifts for multilingual campaigns and run tests to identify the strongest ad-to-landing-page language pairings.

Developer and API considerations

The change affects how Search campaigns are created and updated via the Google Ads API. Google recommends stopping the use of language criteria when creating or updating Search campaigns. Existing language criteria can remain but will no longer influence targeting and can optionally be removed.

Attempts to add or update CampaignCriterion.language for Search campaigns will return a ContextError.OPERATION_NOT_PERMITTED_FOR_CONTEXT error. Performance Max will not return this error for non-Search channels because language settings still influence those placements.

Audit automation, scripts and campaign-creation tooling that set campaign-level language criteria and adjust logic and validation before the rollout.

What to watch and do next

This change hands a previously manual control to Google’s automation, which can make delivery less predictable for multilingual Search campaigns. Short-term, prioritize clear language signals in creatives and landing pages and update API-driven workflows to avoid setting campaign-level language criteria for Search. Medium-term, build a testing plan to determine which language-asset combinations produce the best results and watch delivery patterns closely after the late-September rollout.