Blog Playbooks · What You Missed: Oct 5 to 11, 2026 · Part 2
Starting Monday, Google can put your website's deals into your ads
From October 12, Google Ads can find a promotion on your website and add it to your Search and Performance Max ads on its own. Eligible accounts are switched on by default. Here is how to check, and how to turn it off.
Say you run a salon with three locations. Last spring someone put "20% off your first color" on a page of your website. The offer ended in June. The page is still there.
Starting Monday, Google may find that offer and put it in your ads.
That is the short version of a change Google emailed to some advertisers this week. Nobody on your team has to approve it. If your account qualifies, you are opted in unless you say otherwise.
What happened
According to Google's notice, as quoted by Search Engine Roundtable on October 5: "Starting October 12, 2026, Google Ads will automatically identify and extract high-quality promotions" from your website and apply them to your campaigns. Google calls the feature automated promotions.
It does not apply to every campaign. Google's own help page lists the rules:
- The campaign is an active Search or Performance Max campaign.
- It has location assets attached (your business addresses linked to the ads).
- It has no manual promotion of its own running.
- It follows Google Ads policies.
Search Engine Roundtable and Granular Marketing both report the feature is on by default, so eligible advertisers are opted in unless they switch it off. Google's help page describes the setting with the label "On (recommended)."
Two more details from Google's help page matter. Each automated promotion is eligible to serve "for a limited time (less than 24 hours)." After that, Google can turn it back on if it keeps confirming the offer is still on your site. And any promotion Google created this way shows up in your account with "Google AI" in the "Added by" column.
Source: Google Ads Help, "About Automated promotions"; Search Engine Roundtable, October 5, 2026
What it means for your business
On paper this is helpful. A real, current offer next to your ad gives a shopper one more reason to pick you. Plenty of owners never get around to adding promotions by hand, and now Google will do it for them.
The catch is the word "finds." Google reads your website. It does not read your mind. It cannot know that the banner on your homepage is for one location only, that the deal on the blog post expired, or that your franchise agreement limits which discounts you can advertise.
Your website just became your ad copy. If it is out of date, so are your ads.
Google does say it rechecks the offer before turning it back on, which helps. But it can only recheck what is on the page. If the old page is still live, the old offer is still "on your site."
This matters most for businesses with more than one location. A gym chain that runs a $1 enrollment special at its newest club does not want that price showing up on ads for the other four. A dental group that ran a new patient special in one town does not want callers in the next town asking for it at the front desk.
There is also a quieter cost. Every time a customer walks in quoting a price you do not offer, your staff has to say no. That is a bad first visit, and it started with an ad you never saw.
What Google does
Reads your landing pages, picks an offer it judges to be valid, attaches it to eligible Search and Performance Max ads, and rechecks it before it runs again, since each one serves for less than 24 hours.
What you control
Whether the setting is on. Which offers live on your website and for how long. Whether a campaign runs its own manual promotion, which Google says makes it skip that campaign.
We have written before about approving exactly what will run. This change is the opposite: a piece of your ad that nobody on your team approved. That is not a reason to panic. It is a reason to look.
What to do this week
You do not need to turn it off. You need to decide, on purpose, before Monday.
- Check whether you are eligible
In Google Ads, look for Search or Performance Max campaigns with location assets and no promotion of their own. If you have none, this change does not touch you.
- Clean up your website offers
Search your own site for "off," "free," "special" and "%." Take down or date-stamp anything that has ended or only applies to one location.
- Decide on or off
Go to Assets, open the three-dot menu, choose Account level automated assets, then Advanced settings. Set Automated promotions to On or Off. Google may ask for a reason if you switch it off.
- Check what Google added
In Assets, filter by Asset type, then Promotion, and look for "Google AI" in the Added by column. Hover over it to see where Google found the offer. Granular Marketing notes that assets with zero impressions may not show up.
- Prefer your own promotion where it matters
If a campaign needs a specific offer, add it as a manual promotion. Google's help page says campaigns with a manual promotion running are not eligible, so yours wins.
If you run a franchise system, add one more step: tell every location that offers on their local pages can now become ad copy. The person who updates the location page is now, in effect, writing your ads.
This is part of What You Missed, our weekly read on the marketing news that matters to business owners. See the full week: /blog/what-you-missed-week-of-october-5-2026
Sources
- Google Ads Help, "About Automated promotions," undated help page, accessed October 11, 2026. support.google.com
- Search Engine Roundtable, "Google Ads To Automated Promotions For Search & PMax Campaigns Soon," Barry Schwartz, October 5, 2026 (quotes Google's email to advertisers). seroundtable.com
- Granular Marketing, "October 2026 Google Ads Update: Automated Promotions from Your Website," October 1, 2026. granularmarketing.com
