From 12 October 2026, Google Ads automatically identifies promotions on your website, such as coupons, percentage-off deals and "buy one get one" offers, and attaches them to your ads as promotion assets. It applies to Search and Performance Max campaigns with linked location assets, and it is switched on by default.
Google frames this as a performance feature, and in some accounts it will be one. The risk is that any offer currently visible on your website is fair game, including the ones you forgot were still there.
📌 The short version:
- Automated promotions are opt-out, enabled from 12 October 2026.
- They apply only to Search and Performance Max campaigns with linked location assets that do not already have promotion assets attached.
- To switch it off: Assets → Account-level automated assets → Advanced settings → Automated promotions → Off.
- If you leave it on, audit every offer currently on your website first. Google can only pull through what it can find.
What Changed on 12 October?
Google documented automated promotions in its Ads Help Centre in September, then emailed affected advertisers in early October, giving roughly a week's notice before the default switched on. The notice says Google will automatically identify and extract high-quality promotions from your website and apply them directly to campaigns, without any manual setup.
Google's own example is a landing page advertising "20% off black sweaters". The system reads the offer, creates a promotion asset from it and attaches it to eligible campaigns. Reporting suggests each automated promotion runs for less than 24 hours at a time and is re-enabled only while Google can still verify the offer on your site. That limits the window for an expired deal, but it does not close it.
Which Campaigns Are Affected?
Two conditions both have to be true:
- The campaign is an active Search or Performance Max campaign with location assets linked. That includes Local campaigns. Location assets usually come from a linked Google Business Profile, which is why this feature matters far more for businesses with a physical address than for pure online stores.
- The campaign does not already have manual promotion assets attached. Google skips campaigns that already carry promotions you set up yourself.
In practice, that puts a lot of Australian service businesses squarely in scope: trades, clinics, showrooms, gyms, salons and professional services firms, many of which link their Business Profile to Google Ads as a matter of course. If you are unsure whether your profile is linked, our Google Business Profile guide covers how the connection works.
Where the Brand Safety Risk Actually Sits
The feature is only as accurate as your website. The offers most likely to cause trouble are:
- Expired deals still visible somewhere. Last season's homepage banner, an old landing page that was never unpublished, or a blog post announcing a sale from eighteen months ago.
- Offers that need their terms. "Free installation" that only applies above a certain spend, or "50% off" that applies to one product line. A promotion asset has limited room for conditions.
- Pricing you have not cleared for ads. Trade pricing, member pricing, or a one-off deal for a specific client segment that happens to sit on a public page.
- Q4 timing. Black Friday, Click Frenzy and Christmas offers go up and come down quickly, often managed by someone other than the person running Google Ads.
⚖️ The Australian angle: under the Australian Consumer Law, a business is responsible for the price and offer representations in its own advertising. An automated tool assembling the ad does not change who is accountable for what it says, and the ACCC has been consistently active on misleading pricing and discount claims. This is not legal advice, but it is a good reason to know exactly which offers are live on your site before Google starts quoting them.
How to Switch Automated Promotions Off
If you have offers on your website that you do not want appearing in ads, turn it off. It takes under a minute:
- In Google Ads, open Campaigns, then Assets.
- Open the three-dot menu and choose Account-level automated assets.
- Go to Advanced settings, find Automated promotions, and change it from "On (recommended)" to Off.
If you also run Shopping through Merchant Center, check its Promotions tab separately. Website-sourced promotions in Merchant Center are controlled there, not in Google Ads.
If You Leave It On, Tidy the Website First
For a business that runs clear, always-on offers, leaving automated promotions on is a reasonable choice. Promotion assets take up space on the results page and can lift click-through rate. But do the housekeeping before Google does the reading:
- Search your own site for offer language: "% off", "save", "free", "deal", "sale", "coupon", "limited time". Check every result is current.
- Unpublish or redirect expired campaign pages rather than leaving them live but unlinked. Unlinked does not mean invisible.
- Put the conditions next to the offer. If an offer has a minimum spend or end date, state it in the same sentence, not in a footnote.
- Name an owner. Whoever updates the website now also controls what appears in your ads. Make sure they know that.
The same discipline improves your landing pages generally. Our guide to landing page design covers how to present offers so they convert without creating ambiguity.
The Middle Option: Add Your Own Promotion Assets
Because Google skips campaigns that already have manual promotions, attaching your own promotion asset gives you control over exactly what appears, with the dates and terms you choose, while keeping the visual benefit of a promotion on the ad. For businesses with a genuine standing offer, this is often the best of both: you get the asset, Google does not get to choose it.
How to Monitor It
Check the Assets report weekly through the fourth quarter and filter for automatically created assets. One detail catches people out: automated assets only appear in the report once they have received impressions, so an empty report on day one does not mean nothing is eligible.
The Bottom Line
This is part of a clear pattern: Google switching automation on by default and asking advertisers to opt out, as it did with the AI Max migration in September. The defensible position is the same each time. Decide deliberately rather than inheriting the default. If your website has any offer you would not want quoted in an ad, switch automated promotions off today. If you are happy for it to run, audit what is live on your site so you know what Google might pull through. Our Google Ads guide covers the account fundamentals, and our paid advertising team can run the audit for you.
Sources: Google Ads Help Centre, "About automated promotions" (September 2026); Google Ads advertiser email, "Automated promotions for campaigns with location assets", published by Search Engine Roundtable (5 October 2026); Search Engine Land, automated promotions default-on coverage (October 2026); eMarketer, automated promotions and in-store shopping (2026); ACCC guidance on advertising and pricing under the Australian Consumer Law.
