Google Ads now reads promotions off your website and adds them to your ads for you. Google Ads Automated Promotions is the name of the feature, and Google describes it in a new Google Ads help page: it “identifies and sources promotions from your website landing pages” and attaches them to eligible Search and Performance Max campaigns. Search Engine Roundtable reported it on September 7, 2026.
This is useful when your offer pages are current. When they aren’t, it’s a problem. If an old “20% off through August” banner is still on your site, that banner is exactly the kind of text this feature is built to find. You didn’t write the ad, and you may never have seen it, but it runs under your name and on your budget.
What Google Ads Automated Promotions Does
Automated promotions is the newest of Google’s account-level automated assets. It belongs to the same group as dynamic sitelinks and seller ratings, the ad add-ons Google builds from your site and account data instead of from anything you typed into a campaign.
Here is how Google’s help page says it works:
- Where the offer comes from: Google reads your website landing pages and pulls out promotional offers. Its example is a page advertising “20% off on black sweaters,” which becomes a promotion asset showing the discount in search results.
- Which campaigns qualify: Active Search or Performance Max campaigns that have location assets attached (that includes Local Ad campaigns), that don’t already run a manual promotion, and that follow standard Google Ads policies.
- Manual promotions win: Google says the system “will bypass any campaign that currently has manual promotions running.”
- How long each promotion runs: Each automated promotion can serve “for a limited time (less than 24 hours).” After that, Google may turn it back on “so long as our systems can continuously verify that the promotion is still visibly available on your website.”
The location-asset requirement matters. It means this feature mainly reaches businesses with a physical location tied to their ads, usually through a linked Google Business Profile. That describes a large share of local businesses running Google Ads.
One thing isn’t clear: whether accounts start with Automated promotions turned on. Google’s help page shows the setting as “On (recommended)” but doesn’t say what the default is. After SER’s original post, it added an update quoting a PPC practitioner who said every account was opted in automatically. Google hasn’t confirmed that. Until you’ve checked your own account, assume it’s on.
Why Stale Offer Pages Are Now a Paid Ad Problem
Google’s pitch is that your ads show your current deals without extra work, which holds up if someone keeps your promotions page tidy. Most small business websites collect old offers instead. A seasonal banner goes up in May and is still there in October, or a “new patient special” that ended two years ago is still linked from the footer.
Your Website Is Now Ad Copy
Until now, stale promotional text on your site was a small credibility problem. A few visitors saw it, and some called to ask. With Automated promotions, that same text can show up in a paid ad and bring you clicks you pay for. So every page Google can read is now a possible source of ad copy, including pages your marketing team forgot about years ago.
The 24-Hour Window Doesn’t Protect You From Your Own Website
The short serving window sounds like a safeguard, and it is one, but only against a single failure. It stops Google from showing an offer after you’ve removed it from your site. It does nothing about an offer that is still on your site after the deal ended. Google’s check is whether the promotion is “still visibly available on your website.” If your expired banner is still there, it passes.
Google also says this about dates: the current behavior “is expected to change in the future when Google can extract promotion start and end dates.” So a banner that says “through August 31” doesn’t expire on its own in Google’s eyes. It expires when you take it down.
The Customer Holds You to the Ad
When someone calls about a discount they saw in your ad, “Google made that ad, not us” is a hard thing to say to them. The money side matters too. Google’s July 2026 Terms of Service update put responsibility for AI-generated ad content on the advertiser. An automated promotion is Google’s wording running in your account.
This Fits a Bigger Pattern
Automated promotions isn’t a one-off. Throughout 2026, Google has been turning automation on and asking advertisers to opt out if they don’t want it. Local Inventory Ads are now on by default in Shopping campaigns, and older automation features are being moved into AI Max. The practical result is that your account does more without asking you, so someone has to check what it did.
How to Review the Promotions Google Has Created
- See what Google has already created. In Google Ads, go to Campaigns, then Assets. In the filter bar, set Asset type to Promotion. Google says automated promotions are labeled Google AI in the Added by column. Hover over that label to see where the offer came from, and hover over the promotion name to see details like the headline. Write down every offer, and check each one against what you’re actually offering today.
- Clean up the source pages. Search your own site for the words that signal a deal: “off,” “save,” “special,” “free,” “coupon,” “limited time,” “through,” and the names of past months. Look hardest at site-wide banners and at old campaign landing pages that were never unpublished. Remove or update anything that has expired. Google reads your website, so the fix belongs there, not only in the ad account. We’d make this a monthly task, not a one-time cleanup.
- Decide whether to keep it on. Keep Automated promotions on if you run frequent, short promotions and have someone who reliably takes old ones down. Turn it off if promotions are rare, if your website has several people editing it, or if your pricing is quote-based and a blanket discount would mislead people. To opt out, go to Assets, open the More (three-dot) menu in the filter bar, choose Account level automated assets, open the More menu again, select Advanced settings, and set Automated promotions to Off.
There’s also a middle path. Google skips any campaign that already runs a manual promotion. If you have one real offer you want in your ads, add it yourself as a manual promotion asset with correct dates. You control the wording and the end date, and Google leaves that campaign alone.
What We Don’t Know Yet
Google hasn’t said whether the feature starts on for every account, and it hasn’t said when date extraction will arrive. We also don’t know yet whether promotion codes or spending minimums get pulled into the ad. The help page names your website as the only source of offers. Practitioner reports mention Merchant Center and Business Profile offers too, but Google hasn’t confirmed that. We’ll update our guidance as Google adds detail.
Keep Your Offer Pages Current
Automated promotions is a small feature, and it follows the same rule as every other automated asset: Google can only be as accurate as the website it reads. If your offers are current, it may help your ads stand out. If they aren’t, it can promote a deal you no longer honor. Check what Google has already built from your pages, and fix the pages before you decide on the setting.
If you want a second set of eyes on what Google is doing in your account, our Google Ads management team checks automated assets as part of every account review. Because this feature only runs on campaigns with location assets, it also depends on a Business Profile that is accurate, which is part of our local SEO work.
