Google Ads Now Adds Promotions for You. Who’s Watching Your Account?

Starting October 12, Google Ads began scanning advertisers’ websites for coupons and deals and adding them to eligible campaigns automatically, no setup or approval required. The feature arrived just as businesses started loading their sites with holiday offers, and it’s on by default. 

For many advertisers, it’s a timely reminder that a growing number of decisions inside their accounts now happen without them, which is exactly why more businesses lean on a Google Ads agency to keep an eye on things. Strong Google Ads management today means watching what automation adds as closely as what you build yourself.

Google Ads Now Writes Promotions Into Your Campaigns

Automated promotions aren’t a brand-new idea, but October’s rollout changed how many advertisers encounter them. Here’s what happened and why the timing matters.

What Changed on October 12

In early October, Google emailed advertisers to say it would start identifying promotions on their websites, such as coupons and deals, and applying them directly to their campaigns. As Search Engine Roundtable reported, the change applies to Search and Performance Max campaigns with linked location assets that don’t already have promotion assets associated with them.

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Because the feature is opt-out, eligible accounts were automatically enabled. Google’s help documentation on account-level automated assets describes automated promotions as an AI-powered feature that sources, validates, and displays offers from your website and other sources. In other words, Google decides which of your deals look ad-worthy, and the promotion can appear in your ads without anyone on your team writing it.

Why the Holiday Timing Matters

November and December are the busiest promotional months of the year for most businesses. Websites fill up with Black Friday banners, Cyber Monday codes, gift card bonuses, and end-of-year specials, often added quickly and sometimes left up longer than intended.

That creates more raw material for Google to pull from and more room for mismatches. An offer meant only for email subscribers, a discount limited to one location, or a deal with fine print that doesn’t fit in an ad could all end up in front of searchers. Even when the promotion is accurate, it might not be the message you’d choose to lead with during your most competitive season, when every click costs more and every impression counts.

Automation Is Making More Decisions by Default

Automated promotions are one example of a much larger shift. Ad platforms increasingly build, edit, and expand campaigns on the advertiser’s behalf, and the default setting is usually “on.”

Automated Promotions Join a Growing List

Google already generates dynamic sitelinks, callouts, and structured snippets at the account level, and it can create new headlines and descriptions from your landing pages. Other platforms are moving in the same direction, too. Meta’s AI ad editing now lets the platform adjust creative inside Facebook and Instagram campaigns.

None of these features is bad on its own. Many of them improve performance, and Google says it shows account-level automated assets when it predicts they’ll help your results. The challenge is that every automated decision is a decision someone should review. When features launch quietly and switch on by default, accounts change even when no one logs in.

Performance Max takes this even further. The campaign type relies on Google’s AI to decide where ads appear across Search, YouTube, Display, Gmail, and Maps, as well as which combinations of headlines, images, and assets to show. Advertisers set the goals and guardrails, so the quality of those guardrails shapes everything the system does next.

Even Google’s Outreach Deserves a Second Look

Automation isn’t the only thing advertisers need to verify. In late October, SEO consultant Joe Youngblood shared that he received an email from a “Google Ads Strategist” whose name he couldn’t find on LinkedIn and whose profile photo appeared to be AI-generated. Search Engine Roundtable covered the story and noted that Google hadn’t responded to its request for comment.

The outreach came from Google’s extended workforce, a team of contractors who contact advertisers on Google’s behalf. Google’s own guidance on verifying representatives advises advertisers to confirm the identity of anyone claiming to act on behalf of Google and notes that legitimate representatives use email addresses ending in @xwf.google.com.

The takeaway isn’t that every call from Google is suspicious. It’s that platform outreach typically centers on adopting Google’s recommended features, and those recommendations come from someone who isn’t accountable for your results. Before accepting suggested changes, especially during a high-spend season, run them past someone who knows your goals, margins, and history.

The same caution applies inside the platform. Google Ads lets advertisers set certain recommendations to apply automatically, which can quietly adjust bids, keywords, or ad copy over time. Those settings deserve the same scrutiny as any rep’s phone call.

Vetting who contacts you is only half the job; the other half is knowing who can actually make changes. Under Access and security in your Google Ads admin settings, review every user with access to your account. Remove former employees and past vendors, and give anyone outside your core team the lowest access level they need, such as Read only, or none at all.

How to Stay in Control This Holiday Season

The good news is that a few focused habits keep automation working for you rather than around you. None of them requires turning automation off entirely; they put a person back in the decision loop.

Decide Whether Automated Promotions Belong in Your Account

Start by checking whether any of your campaigns qualify. If you run Search or Performance Max campaigns with location assets and no manual promotions attached, automated promotions may already be active.

From there, you have two clear paths. You can turn the feature off in your account-level automated assets settings by finding Automated Promotions and selecting Off. Or you can take control of the message by creating your own promotion assets in Google Ads, since Google only applies automated promotions to eligible campaigns that don’t already have manual ones attached.

For businesses with strict offer terms, regulated messaging, or multiple locations running different deals, manual promotions are often the safer choice.

Audit Every Offer on Your Website

If Google can read it, Google may advertise it. Before the holiday rush peaks, review every page where a promotion appears and look for:

• Expired deals still visible in banners, pop-ups, or footers
• Offers meant for a specific audience, like email subscribers or returning customers
• Location-specific specials that don’t apply everywhere you operate
• Promotions with important terms that wouldn’t survive being shortened into an ad
• Conflicting offers on different pages for the same product or service

Clear, current promotion pages help both your ads and your customers. If outdated offers keep lingering, it may be time to look at how your website design and development handles seasonal content, so specials go live and come down on schedule.

Map Out Holiday Offers Before They Go Live

Automation reacts to whatever it finds, so the best defense is a clear plan. Before each major promotion launches, decide which offer you want searchers to see, which campaigns should feature it, and exactly when it starts and ends.

Share that calendar with everyone who touches your website, ads, email, and social media. When your web team, ad manager, and marketing staff work from the same schedule, Google is far less likely to find a stale coupon or a half-finished landing page and turn it into an ad.

Keep Your Location Data Accurate

Automated promotions apply only to campaigns with linked location assets, which typically come from your Google Business Profile. That makes your profile more than a local search listing; it’s now part of your ad setup. Confirm that holiday hours, addresses, and service details are up to date, and keep your local SEO strategy aligned with what your ads promise.

Review What Google Added Every Week

Google lets advertisers filter their assets by “Added by” to see which were generated by automation. During the holidays, a weekly check is worth the time. Look at which automated assets are running, read them the way a customer would, and compare their performance with the assets your team created.

Remove anything that misrepresents your offer, and note what works so you can intentionally build on it. Pair that review with a quick look at your change history, which shows every adjustment made to the account and who or what made it.

Know What to Expect From Professional Oversight

Not every business has the time to monitor platform changes every week, and that’s where outside expertise pays off. A capable Google Ads agency tracks new default settings as they launch, reviews automated assets before they affect results, and evaluates platform recommendations against your actual goals instead of accepting them by default. It should also explain those changes in plain language, so you always know what’s running in your account and why.

If you’re weighing your options, our guide on choosing a digital marketing agency covers the questions worth asking before you sign. Add one more to the list: how does the team monitor automated changes, and how will they report on them?

Partner With a Google Ads Agency That Watches the Details

Automation can absolutely make campaigns smarter, faster, and more efficient. It works best, though, when experienced people decide which features to use, review what those features produce, and step in when something doesn’t fit. With holiday spending at its peak and new defaults arriving with little notice, that oversight matters more than ever.

Digital Resource’s digital ads team helps businesses leverage Google Ads automation while keeping their promotions, budgets, and messaging aligned with their goals. Want a second set of eyes on your account before the holiday rush? Schedule a free strategy call with our team, and we’ll help you make every automated decision a deliberate one.