Google may be adding your website's coupons to your ads

Since October 12, Google can find a coupon or deal on your website and show it in your ads without asking. That's handy if the offer is current, and awkward if it's last spring's "20% off drain cleaning" still sitting on an old page.

What changed

Google emailed advertisers that it would start using automated promotions: it scans your website for promotions such as coupons and deals, and adds them to your ads as a promotion asset (the little tag under an ad that says something like "$50 off first service").

It applies to:

• Search and Performance Max campaigns. Performance Max is Google's campaign type that runs across Search, YouTube, Maps and more from one setup.
• Campaigns with a linked location asset. That's your business address connected from your Google Business Profile.
• Campaigns that don't already have a promotion asset. If you added one yourself, Google leaves it alone.

It's opt-out. Eligible accounts were switched on automatically starting October 12.

What it means for you

If you run a local business with your address linked to your ads, you're probably eligible. Whether that's good depends on one thing: how tidy your website is.

• Your offers are current and real: this could help. Ads with a concrete offer tend to get more attention than ads without one.
• Your site has old or conditional offers: Google may show a deal you no longer honor, or drop the fine print ("new customers only", "weekdays"). Then you either eat the discount or have an awkward call with a customer who saw it in your ad.
• You don't run promotions at all: nothing changes unless Google mistakes something on your site for one, like a financing banner.

Google hasn't said how it decides which text on your site counts as a promotion, or how often it rechecks your pages.

What to do

1. Check whether it's on. In Google Ads, open the account-level automated assets settings and look for Automated promotions. Google moves menus around, so the fastest route is typing "automated assets" into the search bar at the top of Google Ads.
2. Decide on purpose. If your website's offers are current and you're happy to honor them anywhere, leave it on. If not, set it to Off.
3. Audit your site's offers either way. Delete or date expired deals. Put conditions next to the offer itself, not in a footer three pages away.
4. Prefer your own promotion asset. If you do want an offer in your ads, add it yourself under Assets. You choose the wording and the end date, and Google's automatic version stays out.
5. Glance at your ad previews once a week for the next month. If a promotion shows up that you didn't write, you'll know where it came from.