The Digital Debrief for week of Sept 12th, 2025.
It's been a busy week in the world of digital marketing, and as always, it starts and ends with Google making moves that affect how we all do business online. I won't sugarcoat it—some of these changes are significant, but the smart money is on adapting quickly rather than complaining about them.
Google's Still Spring Cleaning (And Your Rankings Might Feel It)
Google's August spam update is still rolling out and won't be finished for a few more weeks Google releases August 2025 spam update. If you've noticed your website rankings wobbling over the past fortnight, this is likely why.
Here's what's actually happening: Google is getting ruthless about thin, low-value content. They're prioritizing high-quality, authoritative content that provides real value to users September 2025 Google SEO Updates and pushing down anything that smells like it was created purely for search engines.
For most of my SME clients, this is actually brilliant news. While the big players scramble to clean up years of content farming, smaller businesses with genuine expertise have a golden opportunity to shine.
What you should do about it: Take a hard look at your website content. If you've got blog posts that are essentially fluff designed to "hack SEO," either improve them dramatically or delete them entirely. Better to have 10 genuinely helpful pages than 50 mediocre ones.
Shopping Ads Just Got Smarter (Finally)
Google has finally allowed Shopping campaigns to exclude audiences—something we've been waiting years for Google Ads News - September 2025 Edition. Previously, you could only "observe" how different audiences performed, but your ads would still show to everyone, including people who'd already bought from you last week.
This is huge for budget efficiency. I've got clients who were essentially advertising umbrellas to people who'd just bought umbrellas. Not exactly rocket science that this was wasteful.
Your action plan: Log into Google Ads right now and audit your Shopping campaigns. Exclude recent converters, add negative audience segments for irrelevant demographics, and watch your cost-per-acquisition improve almost immediately.
The smart play here is to reinvest those savings into targeting higher-intent audiences who haven't converted yet.
Performance Max Gets Transparent (About Time)
Google has rolled out account-level reporting for Performance Max campaigns, letting you compare campaigns side-by-side and see which channels are actually driving results Google Ads News - September 2025 Edition.
For those unfamiliar, Performance Max has been a bit of a black box—you put money in, hopefully get results out, but Google kept the mechanics largely hidden. This update changes that.
Here's why this matters: You can now see whether your budget is better spent on YouTube ads, Google Shopping, or traditional Search campaigns. No more guessing which part of the Performance Max machine is doing the heavy lifting.
What to do: Use this new visibility to spot your best-performing channels, then consider creating dedicated campaigns for those areas. Sometimes breaking out of the automated approach and taking manual control delivers better results.
AI Mode Goes Global (And Changes Everything)
Google AI Mode is now live in 180 countries, and industry experts are predicting potential drops of up to 50% in traditional organic search traffic Video: 5 AI search stories you need to know (September 2025).
Here's the reality: When someone searches for "best CRM for small business," they're increasingly getting an AI-generated answer instead of a list of websites to click through. The key is getting your business cited and referenced in these AI responses Video: 5 AI search stories you need to know (September 2025).
This isn't about gaming the system—it's about becoming the go-to authority in your field that AI naturally wants to reference.
Your strategy: Focus on creating content that positions you as the definitive expert. High-quality, user-centric, contextual content Video: 5 AI search stories you need to know (September 2025) that thoroughly answers questions in your industry. Think less "blog for SEO" and more "become the person journalists call for quotes."
Small Business Targeting Gets Better
Google lowered the Customer Match threshold from 1,000 to just 100 users for Search campaigns Google Ads News & Updates for September 2025. This means even smaller businesses can now use their customer email lists for targeted advertising.
Previously, this was a big-company game. Now, if you've got 100+ customers on your email list, you can upload it to Google Ads for remarketing and lookalike targeting.
The opportunity: Upload your customer list, create lookalike audiences, and target people who behave similarly to your best customers. It's like having a crystal ball for finding your ideal prospects.
Back to Basics: Quality Still Wins
All these updates have a common thread: Google is rewarding businesses that provide genuine value while punishing those trying to manipulate the system.
The next time you're tempted to pump out quick, low-value content or chase the latest "growth hack," remember this week's updates. 88% of marketers are now using AI tools 5 AI Marketing Trends to Watch in 2025 (+How They'll Impact You) | WordStream, but the winners are those using them to enhance quality, not replace thinking.
Use AI to generate ideas, research topics, and streamline processes—but the insights, expertise, and genuine value? That still needs to come from you.
In other news…
I've been experimenting with streamlining my own digital setup this week, and it's got me thinking about website design. Just like my move from cluttered email signatures to clean, simple communications, your website probably needs the same treatment.
Every element on your site should serve a purpose. If it's not helping visitors understand what you do or take action, it's likely hindering your results. Sometimes the best optimisation is simply removing the unnecessary stuff.
That's your debrief for this week. If you found this useful, forward it to another business owner who might benefit. The best compliment you can give is sharing knowledge that helps others grow their businesses.
Until next week,
Ollie
