Google Ads Automated Promotions: What Changes on 12 October and What to Check Before Black Friday

From 12 October 2026, Google Ads will start reading the offers on some advertisers' websites and adding them to their ads automatically. If your landing page says "20% off" or "buy one get one free", that offer can now appear under your Search or Performance Max ad, even if nobody on your team set it up in the account.

Google calls the feature automated promotions. It is switched on by default, it lands a few weeks before Black Friday, and it turns your website into the source of truth for the discount claims in your ads. That is a reason to check a few settings this week, not a reason to panic.

This guide explains what Google Ads automated promotions are, which campaigns they affect, how to switch them off, and what to check before peak season. At BlackFire Marketing we manage Google Ads and Meta for UK and US brands, so this is written from the account side.

What are Google Ads automated promotions?

Promotion assets are the small offer lines that can show under a Google ad. Advertisers have long been able to add them by hand, choosing the occasion, discount, promo code and dates.

Automated promotions do the same job without the manual setup. According to Google's help page, Google Ads identifies promotions on your website landing pages and attaches them to eligible Search and Performance Max campaigns. Google's own example is a landing page advertising "20% off on black sweaters": the system extracts that offer and can show the discount in search results when people look for those products.

Google lists it among its account-level automated assets, alongside dynamic sitelinks and callouts, and its Performance Max feature table shows the default as "On".

What changes on 12 October 2026

The feature is not brand new, but Google has now started emailing advertisers about it. Search Engine Roundtable published one of those emails on 5 October 2026. It says that starting 12 October 2026, Google Ads will "automatically identify and extract high-quality promotions, such as coupons and deals" from your website and apply them directly to your campaigns.

PPC Land points out that this left a public notice period of just seven days. The email reportedly went to "some advertisers" and neither source names the countries included, so do not assume you are excluded because you did not see it.

Which campaigns are affected

According to Google's help page and the email, automated promotions only apply to campaigns that meet all of these conditions:

• Active Search or Performance Max campaigns (including Local Ad campaigns)
• Location assets attached to the campaign
• No manual promotion assets already running on that campaign

Location assets are the address details pulled from a linked business profile, so this is aimed at businesses with physical premises: shops, showrooms, clinics, salons, trade counters and multi-site brands. If you have a well-optimised Google Business Profile linked to Google Ads, you are likely to be in scope.

How long an automated promotion runs

Google says each automated promotion is eligible to serve for less than 24 hours. After that, it may be switched back on as long as Google's systems can still verify that the offer is visible on your website. That check helps, but only if your website is accurate. If a sale page is still live after the sale has ended, Google may still see an active offer.

What you will and will not see in reporting

Once automated promotions start serving, they appear in the Assets section with "Google AI" shown in the "Added by" column. The email adds an important limit: assets with zero impressions will not appear. As PPC Land notes, that means you see the offers that have already shown, not the ones Google has lined up.

Why this matters for UK advertisers

Extra visibility for a genuine offer is welcome. The risks come from offers that are out of date, conditional or never meant for search.

An offer in an ad is still your claim

Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, the CMA says its price transparency rules apply to anyone who sells, advertises or promotes a product "from early-stage advertising to the final sale". The CMA can fine businesses up to 10% of turnover or £300,000, whichever is greater. Its guidance on unfair commercial practices also says businesses must not pretend that a special offer will finish soon when that is not true.

Advertising rules point the same way. The CAP Code covers paid search ads, and the ASA's advice on promotional marketing says significant conditions, such as closing dates, eligibility and spend thresholds, must be made clear where leaving them out is likely to mislead. For ads with limited space, you must include as much as is practicable and link clearly to the full terms.

Google pulling the offer from your site does not change whose ad it is. PPC Land notes that Google's Terms of Service, updated from 1 July 2026, restate that advertisers remain responsible for reviewing automatically generated campaigns and assets, though it is not clear whether that covers offers extracted from a site. Our guide to Black Friday marketing in the UK covers the CMA pricing basics, and our post on fake reviews law in the UK the wider enforcement picture.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. If promotions are central to your business or you are unsure about a specific offer, speak to a qualified adviser.

Your website becomes your promotion feed

Plenty of sites carry offers that should not appear in a search ad: a first-order discount for newsletter sign-ups, a trade-only price, a regional deal for one branch, a staff code left on a page, or a summer sale page nobody took down. If it is visible on a landing page, it may be a candidate.

That makes landing page housekeeping a paid media task too. Our web design team often finds old offer banners and orphaned sale pages when auditing sites before a campaign.

It lands right before peak season

Black Friday and Cyber Monday become available as promotion occasions in Google Ads from 15 October, and most businesses will change their site offers several times before Christmas. More offers, changing faster, means more chances for a mismatch between the ad and the page.

Should you leave automated promotions on?

It depends on how disciplined your website is about offers.

Leaving it on can make sense if:

• You run simple, sitewide offers that apply to everyone
• Your offer pages are updated and removed on time, every time

Switching it off, or adding manual promotions, makes more sense if:

• Your offers have conditions, such as minimum spend, new customers only or selected products
• Different branches or regions run different deals
• You are in a regulated sector, or offers need sign-off before they go into an ad

Google says campaigns that already have manual promotions running are skipped, so adding your own promotion asset to a campaign is a simple way to keep control without switching the feature off account-wide.

Whatever you choose, judge it on the right numbers. Google suggests segmenting reports by click type and looking at overall campaign conversions. We would add lead quality and margin, because a discount that lifts clicks but cuts profit is not a win. See our guide on how to measure marketing ROI.

How to check and control automated promotions

Google's help page sets out the steps. In the Google Ads interface:

1. Go to Assets in the Campaigns menu
2. In the filter bar, select the "More" (three-dot) icon and choose Account level automated assets
3. On that page, select the three-dot icon and choose Advanced settings
4. Open the Automated promotions drop-down and choose On or Off (you may be asked for a reason if you switch it off)

To see which automated promotions have served, go to Assets, filter Asset type to Promotion, and look for "Google AI" in the "Added by" column.

A pre-Black Friday checklist for Google Ads promotions

1. Confirm whether you are in scope

List every Search and Performance Max campaign with location assets attached and no manual promotion assets. Then make a deliberate on or off decision on the account setting, and note who made it and why.

2. Audit your landing pages for live offers

Search your site for words like "off", "sale", "code" and "save". Remove or update anything expired, conditional or not meant for paid traffic, including pop-ups and banners.

3. Build manual promotion assets for your key offers

For Black Friday and Christmas, create promotion assets yourself with exact wording, codes and dates. Google lets you choose occasions such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

4. Make sure terms are clear on the landing page

If the ad shows the offer, the page it links to should show the significant conditions clearly and up front, not buried at the bottom.

5. Check the Assets report weekly through Q4

Filter for promotions added by Google AI and check each one against your current offers. Pause or remove anything that is wrong.

6. Brief everyone who changes the website

Your developers, ecommerce team and store managers now affect what appears in your ads, so tell them.

The wider pattern: more Google Ads automation this autumn

Automated promotions are one of several recent Google Ads changes that hand more control to automation unless you act.

• AI Max for Search. Google said that from September 2026, Search campaigns using automatically created assets or campaign-level broad match would be upgraded to AI Max automatically, with the Dynamic Search Ads upgrade moved to February 2027. We covered what that means in our guide to Google AI Mode and paid search.
• Performance Max defaults. Google's feature table lists text customisation, final URL expansion and image enhancements as on by default.
• Bidding targets. From 17 August 2026, Google began updating bidding target optimisation for budget-limited campaigns and said some advertisers may need to adjust CPA or ROAS targets.
• Promotion mode. A separate beta for Search and Performance Max that schedules temporary ROAS tolerance changes and extra daily budget during peak periods. Despite the name, it adds no offer to your ads.

Meta is moving the same way, as our post on Meta Advantage+ creative automation explains. Automation works best when someone checks it against commercial goals. Growing spend into Q4? See how to scale paid ads without doubling budget, and our Meta Ads vs Google Ads comparison if you are deciding where extra budget should go.

FAQ

They are promotion assets Google creates from offers on your website and attaches to eligible Search and Performance Max campaigns with location assets. Once served, they show in your Assets report with "Google AI" in the "Added by" column.

Go to Assets, open Account level automated assets, select the three-dot icon, choose Advanced settings and set Automated promotions to Off. You can also add your own promotion asset to a campaign, because campaigns with manual promotions running are skipped.

No. Automated promotions add website offers to your ads. Promotion mode is a separate beta bidding feature for peak periods and shows no offer to users.

Next step

Automated promotions are a small setting with a big effect on what your ads promise. If you want a second pair of eyes on your Google Ads account before Black Friday, from promotion assets and AI Max settings to bidding targets and landing pages, talk to our paid media team. We will help you keep every offer accurate, compliant and profitable, and our SEO team can pick up any landing page or local search issues the audit finds.