Google AdsGoogle Ads · Black Friday 2026
Google Ads Automated Promotions: What to Check Before Black Friday 2026
Since October, Google Ads can find deals on your website and add them to your ads without asking. Here's how that works, which campaigns it touches, how to switch it off, and the other settings to settle before November 27.
- Written by
- The Social Stellor Studio · Creative Team
- Published
- Reading time
- 14 min
Last verified November 4, 2026 against Google Ads Help. Where a detail comes from trade press rather than Google, the article says so. Sources are listed at the end.
Picture the banner at the top of your website. Maybe it still says "20% off your first visit" from a campaign you ran in the summer and forgot about. Now picture that offer appearing under your Google ad on Black Friday, when you're running a completely different deal.
That's the risk behind a quiet change in Google Ads. A feature called automated promotions lets Google find deals on your website and show them in your ads, without you creating anything. According to Google's emails to advertisers, it was switched on by default in October. If you run Search or Performance Max campaigns for a local business, it may already be working on your account.
This guide explains what the feature does according to Google's own documentation, which campaigns it touches, how to check it and how to turn it off. It then covers the other Google Ads settings worth settling before Black Friday on November 27 and Cyber Monday on November 30. The steps are the same in the US and the UK.
- Automated promotions take active deals from your website and attach them to eligible Search and Performance Max campaigns.
- Only campaigns with location assets attached and no manual promotions running are eligible, so this mainly affects businesses with physical locations.
- Google labels these promotions "Google AI" in the Added by column, and each one serves for less than 24 hours before it's checked again.
- You can turn it off at account level under Account level automated assets, then Advanced settings. Google's help page describes no campaign-level switch.
- For Black Friday, a manual promotion asset with your own dates gives you exact control, and a running manual promotion makes that campaign skip automated ones.
What Changed With Google Ads Automated Promotions?
Google's help page, About Automated promotions (opens in new tab), describes the feature simply: Google "automatically finds deals on your website", such as "Buy one get one free", and shows them in eligible ads. It lists automated promotions among the account-level automated assets (opens in new tab), alongside dynamic sitelinks, dynamic callouts, seller ratings and others.
What changed in October was the default. Google emailed some advertisers that they would be opted in automatically from October 12, 2026, unless they switched the feature off. The reports don't say how many accounts were included. That date comes from Google's email as reported by PPC Land (opens in new tab) and Search Engine Roundtable (opens in new tab). It isn't on the help page itself, so treat it as reported rather than documented.
It helps to keep those two kinds of information apart, because some coverage blurs them.
| What we know | Where it comes from | How sure |
|---|---|---|
| Google extracts promotions from your website and attaches them to eligible Search and Performance Max campaigns | Google Ads Help: About Automated promotions | Documented |
| Eligible campaigns need location assets attached and no manual promotions running | Google Ads Help: About Automated promotions | Documented |
| Each automated promotion serves for less than 24 hours, and may be re-enabled if Google can verify it's still visibly available on your site | Google Ads Help: About Automated promotions | Documented |
| Automated promotions are labelled "Google AI" in the Added by column | Google Ads Help: About Automated promotions | Documented |
| The setting is controlled at account level, under Account level automated assets | Google Ads Help: About Automated promotions and About account level automated assets | Documented |
| Some advertisers were told they'd be opted in by default from October 12, 2026 | Google's email to advertisers, as reported by PPC Land and Search Engine Roundtable | Reported |
| Which countries the feature is live in | Not stated on Google's help page | Unknown: check your own account |
- Where it comes from
- Google Ads Help: About Automated promotions
- How sure
- Documented
- Where it comes from
- Google Ads Help: About Automated promotions
- How sure
- Documented
- Where it comes from
- Google Ads Help: About Automated promotions
- How sure
- Documented
- Where it comes from
- Google Ads Help: About Automated promotions
- How sure
- Documented
- Where it comes from
- Google Ads Help: About Automated promotions and About account level automated assets
- How sure
- Documented
- Where it comes from
- Google's email to advertisers, as reported by PPC Land and Search Engine Roundtable
- How sure
- Reported
- Where it comes from
- Not stated on Google's help page
- How sure
- Unknown: check your own account
How Automated Promotions Work
Google's help page gives a simple example. Your landing page says "20% off on black sweaters". Google extracts that deal and shows it as a discount alongside your ad in search results. You don't write the promotion, choose the wording or pick the dates.
Three details from the help page matter more than the rest.
- It's short-lived by design. Each automated promotion can serve for less than 24 hours. Google may switch it back on if it can verify the offer is "still visibly available" on your site. Google says this should change once it can extract promotion start and end dates.
- It can travel further than you'd expect. Google says sourced promotions "may serve alongside your ads on Google Search or across Google's broader ad inventory".
- Manual promotions win. Campaigns with a manual promotion running are skipped. Google's own advice is to keep promotional details on your site current, or upload promotions manually "for exact control".
Does This Affect Your Account?
The eligibility rules are narrower than the headlines suggest. Google's help page lists three requirements: an active Search or Performance Max campaign, location assets (opens in new tab) attached to it (including Local Ad campaigns), and no manual promotions currently running on that campaign. The promotions must also comply with standard Google Ads policies.
Location assets are the address details that can appear with your ads. Most businesses get them by linking a Google Business Profile in Google Ads. They're added at account level and can be narrowed at campaign or ad group level. In practice, that means automated promotions are mainly a question for businesses with physical locations: shops, clinics, salons, gyms, restaurants and service businesses with a storefront.
Are you running an active Search or Performance Max campaign?
Does that campaign have location assets attached, usually from a linked Google Business Profile?
Is there a manual promotion running on that campaign?
If your profile has never been linked, it's worth checking that it's accurate before any of this matters. Our guide to fixing a business that isn't showing up on Google Maps covers the profile basics.
Should You Keep Automated Promotions On?
Google recommends keeping it on, and the help page claims broader campaign performance "often improves" even when clicks on the promotion itself are low. That's Google's claim, not independent evidence. Whether it suits you depends less on the feature and more on how tidy your website's offers are and how precise your sale needs to be.
One clear, current offer on your site
Keep it onYour site already says what you'd want the ad to say. Check the Google AI promotions weekly through the sale.
Old coupons and banners you're not sure about
Clean up first, or turn it offStale offers in banners, footers, pop-ups and old landing pages are the main risk.
A precise Black Friday deal with exact dates
Use a manual promotionYou set the wording and dates, and Google skips automated promotions on that campaign. See the promotion asset section below.
Different offers at different locations
Check each location's pageEach page should show only that location's current deal. If that's hard to guarantee, use manual promotions.
Regulated or price-sensitive services
Off unless someone checksAn extracted offer may lose terms you're required to show. This applies especially to healthcare, finance and legal advertisers.
Whatever you choose, make it a decision rather than a default. A setting nobody chose is the one nobody checks when something goes wrong in the busiest week of the year.
How to Check and Turn Off Automated Promotions
These steps are from Google's help pages as of November 4, 2026. Google moves menus from time to time, so if a label looks different in your account, the help page is the place to check.
See whether Google has added any
- In Google Ads, open Campaigns, then Assets.
- In the filter bar, select Asset type and choose Promotion.
- Look at the Added by column. Automated promotions are labelled Google AI.
- Hover over Google AI to see where the promotion was sourced from, and hover over the promotion's name to see its details, such as the headline.
Turn the feature off
- Go to Assets in the Campaigns menu.
- In the filter bar, select the More (three-dot) icon and choose Account level automated assets.
- On that page, select the More (three-dot) icon again.
- Select Advanced settings.
- In the Automated promotions dropdown, select Off, and give a reason if Google asks for one.
This is an account-level setting. Google's help pages describe no campaign-level switch for automated promotions. If you want them on one campaign but not another, the documented route is to run a manual promotion on the campaign you want to control, since campaigns with manual promotions are skipped.
While you're on the Advanced settings page, look at the rest of the list. Google's account-level automated assets (opens in new tab) also include dynamic sitelinks, dynamic structured snippets, automated location assets, seller ratings, dynamic callouts, dynamic business information, dynamic image assets and site visits. Each can be turned off on the same page. You don't need to switch them all off, but you should know which ones are on.
Check What Your Website Says Before Google Does
If you keep automated promotions on, your website becomes the source of your ad copy. Spend twenty minutes reading it as a stranger would, looking only for offers.
- Announcement bars and banners
- Footers and pop-ups
- Old campaign landing pages that still load
- Service pages with "introductory" prices
- One headline offer per page
- Visible dates or "ends Sunday" wording
- Terms close to the offer
- The same price on the page and at checkout
- Expired codes still shown on the site
- Pages for finished campaigns
- Offers you can't honour at every location
This matters beyond Google Ads. An ad that promises one thing and a page that says another is one of the most common reasons paid clicks don't turn into sales. Our guides to Google Ads clicks that don't convert and website traffic that doesn't convert go into that gap in detail.
Other Google Ads Settings to Check Before Black Friday
Automated promotions are one of several places where Google Ads can change what your ads show or how your account behaves without a fresh decision from you. These are the ones worth checking before November 27, all taken from Google's own documentation.
| Setting | Where to find it | What to decide before Black Friday |
|---|---|---|
| Automated promotions | Assets → More menu → Account level automated assets → Advanced settings | On or off, based on how clean your site's offers are |
| Other account-level automated assets | Same Advanced settings page | Which automated sitelinks, callouts, images and other assets you're happy for Google to create |
| Auto-apply recommendations | Campaigns → Recommendations → Auto-apply settings | Which changes Google may make to your account without asking, especially anything touching budgets, bids or keywords |
| Manual promotion asset | Assets → Promotion | Your exact Black Friday wording, code, terms and dates |
| Seasonality adjustment | See Google's "Create a seasonality adjustment" help page | Whether you expect a big, short-lived jump in conversion rate that Smart Bidding should know about |
- Where to find it
- Assets → More menu → Account level automated assets → Advanced settings
- What to decide before Black Friday
- On or off, based on how clean your site's offers are
- Where to find it
- Same Advanced settings page
- What to decide before Black Friday
- Which automated sitelinks, callouts, images and other assets you're happy for Google to create
- Where to find it
- Campaigns → Recommendations → Auto-apply settings
- What to decide before Black Friday
- Which changes Google may make to your account without asking, especially anything touching budgets, bids or keywords
- Where to find it
- Assets → Promotion
- What to decide before Black Friday
- Your exact Black Friday wording, code, terms and dates
- Where to find it
- See Google's "Create a seasonality adjustment" help page
- What to decide before Black Friday
- Whether you expect a big, short-lived jump in conversion rate that Smart Bidding should know about
Auto-apply recommendations
Auto-apply recommendations are changes you, or someone on your account, once agreed Google could make automatically. Google's help page (opens in new tab) explains how to review them: open Recommendations in the Campaigns menu, select Auto-apply settings, untick anything you don't want and select Save. The History tab shows when each one was turned on, how often it was applied in the past week and when it was last applied. Change history shows which user opted in. Settle these before the sale. Changes that land in the middle of Black Friday week are hard to untangle afterwards.
Use a manual promotion asset for your real offer
If you have a Black Friday deal, a manual promotion asset (opens in new tab) is the most precise way to show it. You choose the occasion, the discount, the promo code, the final URL and the dates. Google's Black Friday and Cyber Monday occasions each run from October 15 to December 15. You can narrow those dates but not go outside them, and you can set specific days and hours. Google says occasion-specific assets are preferred over non-occasion ones at the same level. For local promotions, Google asks you to include terms such as the expiry date and whether the offer is in-store, online or both.
There's a useful side effect. Because campaigns with a manual promotion running are skipped by automated promotions, adding your own Black Friday promotion to a campaign also stops Google from picking a different offer from your site for that campaign.
Seasonality adjustments, used sparingly
If you use Smart Bidding, Google's seasonality adjustments (opens in new tab) let you tell it to expect a big change in conversion rate for a short period. Google says they're "ideal for short events of 1–7 days" and may not work as well beyond 14 days. It also says to use them only when you expect major changes to conversion rates, because Smart Bidding already handles normal seasonal patterns. They work with Search, Shopping, Demand Gen and Display campaigns using target ROAS or target CPA, and with Performance Max on all bid strategies.
For most small businesses, the honest answer is to leave this alone unless you have last year's data showing a sharp, short spike. Guessing a conversion-rate jump that doesn't happen can push your bids in the wrong direction during your most expensive week.
If you also run Demand Gen campaigns, our guide to Google's October Demand Gen updates has a separate pre-holiday plan. The timing advice is the same: make structural changes early, then hold steady through Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Google announced on October 28 (opens in new tab) that ads can now appear in follow-up questions in AI Mode in the US, and that it plans to bring ads in AI Mode to the UK in Q4 2026. Google's announcement doesn't describe separate settings for these placements, so there's nothing new to switch on or off for Black Friday. It's another reason to make sure your website and your ads say the same thing.
A 20-Minute Pre-Black Friday Google Ads Check
Work through these in order. Each one takes a few minutes, and most need only your Google Ads login and a browser tab on your own website.
- Minutes 0–3. Open Assets, filter by Promotion, and look for anything added by Google AI.
- Minutes 3–6. Open Account level automated assets, then Advanced settings, and decide on automated promotions. Note which other automated assets are on.
- Minutes 6–10. Read your website for offers: banners, footers, pop-ups and old landing pages. Remove or update anything that's ended.
- Minutes 10–13. Open Recommendations, then Auto-apply settings. Untick anything you wouldn't approve by hand this week.
- Minutes 13–17. If you have a Black Friday offer, create a manual promotion asset with your own dates and terms.
- Minutes 17–20. Write down what you changed and when, so you can read your results after Cyber Monday.
Black Friday Google Ads self-check
Your answers stay in this browser tab. Nothing is sent, saved or tracked, and there's no score: just a list of what's in place and what to fix first.
Your result
Answer the questions above and your list appears here. Answer “Not sure” honestly: if you're not sure, assume it isn't in place.
Mistakes to Avoid
| Mistake | Why it causes trouble | Better approach |
|---|---|---|
| Assuming you'd have been asked first | Google told some advertisers they'd be opted in by default from October 12 | Check the Added by column for Google AI today |
| Turning everything off in a panic | Some automated assets may be useful, and Google says broader performance often improves | Decide asset by asset, and write down why |
| Leaving old offers on your website | Your site is the source Google reads for automated promotions | Remove or update every expired offer before the sale |
| Looking for a campaign-level switch | Google's help pages describe the control at account level only | Use a manual promotion on the campaigns you want to control |
| Making big changes in Black Friday week | Auto-applied changes and new settings make results hard to read | Settle settings now, then hold steady through Cyber Monday |
| Adding a seasonality adjustment on a hunch | A wrong conversion-rate estimate can push bids the wrong way | Use it only for a short, expected spike you can back with past data |
- Why it causes trouble
- Google told some advertisers they'd be opted in by default from October 12
- Better approach
- Check the Added by column for Google AI today
- Why it causes trouble
- Some automated assets may be useful, and Google says broader performance often improves
- Better approach
- Decide asset by asset, and write down why
- Why it causes trouble
- Your site is the source Google reads for automated promotions
- Better approach
- Remove or update every expired offer before the sale
- Why it causes trouble
- Google's help pages describe the control at account level only
- Better approach
- Use a manual promotion on the campaigns you want to control
- Why it causes trouble
- Auto-applied changes and new settings make results hard to read
- Better approach
- Settle settings now, then hold steady through Cyber Monday
- Why it causes trouble
- A wrong conversion-rate estimate can push bids the wrong way
- Better approach
- Use it only for a short, expected spike you can back with past data
What Should You Do Next?
Do the 20-minute check this week, while there's still time to fix what you find before November 27. If you only have five minutes, do the first two steps: look for Google AI promotions, and make a deliberate choice about the setting.
If you'd rather not manage these settings yourself, it's worth knowing what Google Ads management usually costs and what a good manager should be checking on your behalf. Settings like these are exactly what tends to slip when nobody owns the account.
Social Stellor manages Google Ads for small businesses in the US and UK, including the settings Google changes in the background. If you want a second pair of eyes on your account before Black Friday, tell us what you're running and what you're worried about.
Talk to us about Google AdsTo see how we handle campaigns from setup to reporting, visit our Google Ads service page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are automated promotions in Google Ads?
They're promotions Google creates by finding active deals on your website and showing them with your Search and Performance Max ads. They're one of Google's account-level automated assets, and they're labelled "Google AI" in the Added by column under Assets.
Did Google turn automated promotions on without asking?
According to Google's emails to advertisers, as reported by PPC Land and Search Engine Roundtable, some advertisers were told they'd be opted in by default from October 12, 2026 unless they opted out. Google's help page doesn't state that date, so check your own account rather than assuming either way.
Which campaigns can show automated promotions?
Active Search or Performance Max campaigns with location assets attached, including Local Ad campaigns, and no manual promotions running. Campaigns with a manual promotion are skipped.
How do I turn off automated promotions?
Go to Campaigns, then Assets. Select the More (three-dot) icon in the filter bar and choose Account level automated assets. Select the More icon again, then Advanced settings, and set Automated promotions to Off.
Can I turn automated promotions off for just one campaign?
Google's help pages describe the control at account level only. A campaign with a manual promotion running is skipped, so adding your own promotion to a campaign is the documented way to keep automated ones off it.
Can Google show an expired offer from my website?
Google says it verifies that only active, non-expired offers are shown, and that each automated promotion serves for less than 24 hours before it's checked again. The check relies on what's visible on your site, so the safest step is to remove offers that have ended.
Does this apply to UK advertisers?
Google's help page doesn't limit the feature to particular countries, and the settings are the same wherever your account is. Black Friday falls on November 27 in both the US and the UK this year, so the same checks apply. Look for Google AI promotions in your own account to see whether it's active for you.
Sources
- Google Ads Help, About Automated promotions (opens in new tab): how the feature works, requirements, labels, opt-in and opt-out steps.
- Google Ads Help, About account level automated assets (opens in new tab): asset types and how to turn them off.
- Google Ads Help, Manage auto-apply recommendations (opens in new tab).
- Google Ads Help, About promotion assets (opens in new tab): fields, occasions and date rules.
- Google Ads Help, About seasonality adjustments (opens in new tab).
- Google Ads Help, About location assets (opens in new tab).
- PPC Land, Google Ads will auto-apply website coupons to some campaigns from October 12 (opens in new tab): reporting on Google's email to advertisers.
- Search Engine Roundtable, Google Ads to automated promotions for Search and PMax campaigns (opens in new tab): reporting on the same email.
- Google Ads & Commerce Blog, Ads in AI Mode expand to 10 new countries (opens in new tab), October 28, 2026.
All sources were checked on November 4, 2026. The menu steps are Google's documented steps on that date. Google changes its interface without notice, so check the linked help pages for current wording.