Google's Own Team Won't Explain What Just Changed in Your Account.
A top-spending advertiser asked Google three direct questions about a live algorithm change. The answer to all three, from Google's own side, was some version of 'we can't tell you.'
Three questions, three refusals
After an August update to how Google's tROAS and tCPA auctions decide who's eligible to see an ad, an advertiser with a direct line into Google, the kind of spend level that gets you an actual contact, went back with three specific questions: why did this change happen, what is it actually doing, and what changed functionally in who gets included or excluded. Every answer came back some version of "we can't tell you." Not a shrug. Not "let me look into it." A declined answer, from the people who built the system, to the person paying to run it.
That's a different problem than an ignorant rep
If the account rep genuinely hadn't known, that's an org chart problem, the kind big enough advertisers route around by escalating until they find someone who does. Getting a real answer and having it withheld is a different category entirely. It means the platform decided its own reasoning about who sees your ads, and why, isn't something it owes you, even at the spend level that normally buys a direct line to an engineer.
What this means for the number on your dashboard
Every reported metric sitting downstream of that decision, who got shown your ad, at what price, under what eligibility rule, rests on logic the platform has already said on the record it won't share. That's not a reason to panic over any single week's numbers. It's a reason not to depend on the platform ever explaining itself in the first place. A record built from your own orders and your own customers doesn't need Google's cooperation to hold up. It just needs to be checked against what actually converted and what actually landed in the bank, regardless of what reasoning the algorithm is or isn't willing to give up.