Google Ads Automated Promotions Explained (and When to Switch Them Off)

Picture the scene. It’s Black Friday morning. Your campaigns are primed, budgets are up, and the team is watching the dashboard like hawks. Then a customer rings to ask why your ad promised them 20% off.

You haven’t run a 20% off offer since August.

Somewhere on your website, a forgotten summer banner is still live. And from 12 October, Google Ads can find it, turn it into a promotion and show it to shoppers without anyone on your team pressing a button.

That’s the short version of Google Ads automated promotions. As Search Engine Roundtable reported, Google has been emailing advertisers to say it will automatically pull coupons and deals from their websites and attach them to ads. It’s opt-out rather than opt-in, and the notice landed barely a week before the switch flips.

None of this is a reason to panic. It is, however, a very good reason to spend twenty minutes in your account before peak trading begins. Here’s what’s changing, who it affects, and the wider audit we’d run while you’re in there.

What automated promotions actually do

Google will scan your website for promotional signals, such as coupon codes, percentage-off banners and seasonal deals. It then builds promotion assets from what it finds and attaches them to your ads. Think of it as Google writing your promotion assets for you, based on whatever happens to be on your pages.

Before you rush off to switch it off, it’s worth knowing the boundaries, because this one won’t touch every account (yet):

• It only applies to some campaigns. Specifically, Search and Performance Max campaigns with linked location assets. Location assets come from your Google Business Profile, so this mainly affects businesses with physical premises.
• Your own promotions take priority. Campaigns that already have promotion assets attached are excluded.
• Google re-checks what it finds. According to PPC Land, each sourced promotion is re-verified, reportedly within 24 hours.
• It isn’t the Merchant Center feature. If you run Google Shopping promotions through Merchant Center, that’s a separate system with a similar name. Don’t assume one setting controls both.

If you don’t use location assets, this particular change won’t affect you for now. The rest of this audit still applies, though, so don’t close the tab just yet.

Why it matters in peak season

Automation is brilliant at saving time. It’s less brilliant at knowing which of your offers are still valid, who they were meant for, and what small print comes with them. Three risks stand out.

Out-of-date offers. A forgotten banner or an old campaign page can be picked up and served alongside your Black Friday ads. Google’s re-check only confirms the offer is still on your page. If that old banner is still live, Google has no way of knowing you’ve moved on.

Missing conditions. “Minimum spend £100” and “selected lines only” don’t always survive being squeezed into a short ad asset. The shopper sees the discount, the checkout doesn’t honour it, and you’re left with an abandoned basket and an unhappy customer.

Margin you never meant to give away. The code you created for email subscribers or loyalty members could end up in front of everyone searching for your products, including people who would happily have paid full price.

How to switch it off (or keep it on)

Checking takes a couple of minutes:

1. In Google Ads, go to Campaigns, then Assets.
2. Open the More menu (the three dots, top right) and choose Account-level automated assets.
3. Find Automated promotions, set it to Off and save.

If you look after several accounts, check every one before 12 October. This setting is applied account by account, and it only takes one forgotten account to cause a headache. And if someone else handles your Google Ads management, a quick message asking them to confirm is all it takes.

While you’re in there: the wider Q4 opt-out audit

Automated promotions are the headline, but they’re far from the only setting Google has switched on, expanded or quietly nudged towards “on” this year. Since you’re already logged in, run through the rest:

• Other automatically created assets. Sitelinks, callouts, images, business names and logos can all be generated for you. Check they’re current, accurate and on brand.
• AI Max settings. If your Search campaigns were upgraded to AI Max in September, review text customisation, final URL expansion and brand controls. Our guide to the AI Max upgrade walks through each one.
• Auto-apply recommendations. See which recommendations are set to apply automatically, and who approved them. Keywords, bids and budgets shouldn’t change in peak week without a human saying yes.
• Performance Max final URL expansion and brand exclusions. Check where PMax is sending your traffic, and that brand exclusions are in place. If PMax is a big part of your spend, this is where specialist Performance Max management earns its keep.

A useful way to think about it: every setting on this list is perfectly fine on a quiet Tuesday in March. Peak trading is when small mistakes get expensive.

Keep it on or switch it off? Our view

We’re not anti-automation, and we don’t think you should switch everything off by reflex. The right call depends on how tidy your website is and how complicated your offers are.

For retailers running ecommerce PPC at any real scale, our preference is still manual promotion assets tied to a proper promotional calendar. More work up front, far fewer surprises in November.

Fix the source: your website

Here’s the bit most people miss. Whether you keep automated promotions on or not, Google is reading your website more and more to build your ads, from AI Max’s final URL expansion to these new promotion assets. Your website has effectively become part of your ad copy.

So before Black Friday:

• Take down expired banners, notification bars and pop-ups showing old codes.
• Retire old campaign pages, or redirect them to products that are actually live.
• Put conditions where people can see them, right next to the offer rather than buried in the footer.

If your site needs a proper tidy before peak, our website maintenance team can take it off your hands.

Automated promotions aren’t a disaster. For a retailer with one clean, sitewide offer, they might even save a little time. But they’re another default setting that arrived quietly, a week before it takes effect, right as the busiest weeks of the year begin.

Spend twenty minutes in your account this week, and make the decision on purpose rather than by default. And if you’d like a second pair of eyes before the Black Friday rush, book a PPC account audit and we’ll go through every automated setting with you.