Google Ads automated promotions: what changes on October 12, 2026
Partner · Strategy, advertising and measurement
Starting October 12, 2026, Google Ads will look for the promotions published on your site (coupons, discounts) and show them in your ads without you creating them. The feature is called "Automated promotions" and it is turned on by default for Search and Performance Max campaigns. If you are preparing for Black Friday, this is the week to decide who chooses the offers your ads display.
What Google announced
Google notified advertisers by email on October 5, 2026. According to that message, Google Ads will automatically detect the promotions on your site starting October 12, then apply them directly to your campaigns. The feature has existed since early September. What changes on October 12 is that it will apply without you doing anything.
Which campaigns are affected
- Search and Performance Max. Only active campaigns with linked location assets are eligible.
- No manual promotion. A campaign already serving a promotion you created is not affected.
- The whole account at once. The setting is turned off at the account level, not campaign by campaign.
- A check every 24 hours. Each promotion stays eligible for less than 24 hours. Google then checks it again on your site before showing it again.
- A label to spot them. Promotions added by Google show "Google AI" in the "Added by" column.
Google's help page names no country or language restriction, and it is published in Canadian French. Your account is not necessarily spared because you did not receive the email.
Why it is more sensitive in Quebec
Quebec's Consumer Protection Act prohibits charging a higher price for goods or services than the advertised price (section 224 c). A promotion shown in your ad is read by the customer as your offer, even if Google pulled it from your site.
The 24-hour check reduces the risk of showing an expired offer. It does not say how Google renders an offer's conditions in the short format of an ad. Members-only offers, in-store-only offers and offers limited to one category need the most attention. Google also does not say which version it uses when your site shows the same offer in French and in English.
What to decide before October 12
| Your situation | Our recommendation |
|---|---|
| Simple promotions, valid online for everyone, removed from the site as soon as they end | Leave the feature on and review the promotions labelled "Google AI" every week |
| Offers with conditions (members, in store only, limited quantities, personal code) | Turn the feature off and create your promotions yourself |
| Black Friday calendar already planned | Create manual promotions with their start and end dates: a campaign serving one is not eligible for automated promotions |
| Industry where prices or advertising are regulated | Turn the feature off |
The five-minute check
- In Google Ads, open Campaigns, then Assets.
- In the "More" menu (three dots), choose "Account level automated assets", then "Advanced settings".
- Set the "Automated promotions" menu to On or Off.
- Write down the decision and the name of the person who made it, so nobody reverses it without knowing.
A promotion Google shows in your ad commits your business to the customer as if you had written it. In Quebec, the law makes no distinction.
Reviewing an account's automated settings before a peak period is part of what we cover in a marketing consultation.
With this setting, Google writes a growing share of what your ads display. The decision to keep it or not is made once for the whole account, and it deserves to be written down.
Headlines and descriptions generated by Google follow the same logic, described in Google Ads: how to control automatically generated ad text. For the timing of year-end campaigns, see Black Friday and holiday ads: when should you prepare your campaigns?
- Search Engine Roundtable, Barry Schwartz, Google's email about automated promotions, October 5, 2026. Source of the announcement and the October 12 date.
- Google Ads Help, About automated promotions, accessed 2026. Source of the eligible campaigns, the 24-hour check, the "Google AI" label and how to turn the feature off.
- PPC News Feed, automated promotion assets launched, September 2, 2026.
- PPC Land, Luis Rijo, Google Ads will auto-apply website coupons from October 12, October 6, 2026. Source of the account-level setting.
- Consumer Protection Act, CQLR, c. P-40.1, section 224, accessed 2026.
Gabriel almost always takes your first call and carries out your audit. He builds the strategy starting from your growth goal: where to put your budget, which market to test and how to connect each lead to a real sale in your CRM. He mainly leads engagements for three goals: Optimize the profitability of your digital campaigns, Develop a new market, and Generate demand and growth. With Geneviève, he also works on organic search (SEO), AI visibility (GEO) and conversion rate optimization (CRO). The sales a Google Ads or Meta Ads campaign brings in depend on the page that receives the click. He writes mainly about marketing strategy, paid advertising and measurement.
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