Google Ads has gone through a steady wave of changes over the past year. Advancements in outputs like Demand Gen and AI Max, and shifts in how users interact with search have all changed how performance shows up in the data. A new Q1 2026 benchmark report from Optmyzr, based on more than 21,000 accounts, offers a clearer view of how those changes are playing out across real accounts. At a high level, the metrics look stable. Engagement is up, costs are holding relatively steady, and return on ad spend hasn’t moved much. That might sound like business as usual, but the underlying trends tell a more important story about where growth is coming from and what advertisers should expect as they scale. The clearest place to start is with engagement, which has been rising consistently across the dataset. Engagement Is Rising, But It’s Coming From Broader Reach Across five quarters, engagement improved consistently, led by rising click-thru rates (CTR).…