Google Ads Automated Promotions: What To Know

Google Ads is writing part of your ad copy now. It's called automated promotions, and if you run Search or Performance Max campaigns with a location asset attached, there's a good chance it's already turned on in your account.

Here's what it does. Google scans your site for anything that looks like a deal: a discount, a coupon code, a seasonal offer. It pulls that content, builds a promotion asset, and starts showing it in your Search and PMax ads. No draft, no approval step. Google's own support documentation describes it as sourcing and displaying "high-quality deals and offers from your website and other sources" with "zero manual effort." That's the feature working as intended. The catch: "zero manual effort" includes zero effort from you, too.

We manage Google Ads for home services, movers, landscapers, and trade businesses across the US and Canada, and we've started finding this live in accounts we never turned it on for. It ships on by default as an account level automated asset, the same bucket as auto-generated sitelinks and callouts. If you've never gone looking, you've probably never seen it.

Who this actually affects

This isn't a Shopping or ecommerce feature. It runs on Search and Performance Max campaigns that use location assets, which covers most service business accounts running local campaigns, including anything that's moved over from standalone Local Services Ads or was set up as LSAs from scratch. If your site has a quote form, a financing page, a "current promotions" section, or even a single old banner about a spring discount, that's fair game for Google to scrape and run.

None of that is catastrophic on its own. But it's your brand's word going out in paid media, generated by a model reading your site instead of by you.

Why we don't love it by default

We believe the business should have full discretion over what their account does in real time, not just what strategy we recommend. An automated feature that writes and runs ad copy without a review step works against that, even when the copy it writes happens to be accurate.

It also creates a measurement problem. If a promotion asset you didn't write starts pulling clicks, your data strength and conversion setup needs to be solid enough to tell you whether that asset is actually driving booked jobs or just adding noise to your auction performance. Most service business accounts we audit aren't tracking assets at that level of granularity, which means a bad automated promotion can run for months before anyone notices it's dragging down cost per lead.

This sits in the same family as AI Max, where Google keeps expanding what the system can do on its own inside your account. Automated promotions is a smaller feature, but the pattern is the same: more defaults turned on, fewer prompts asking first.

How to check if it's on

Open Campaigns, go to Assets, and click the three-dot menu. Select "Account level automated assets," then open Advanced settings. You'll see a list of every automated asset type Google can generate for your account, promotions included. Select the ones you want off, give a reason when prompted, and save. It's a two-minute fix once you know where to look.

We'd pair that check with a pass over your negative keyword list and your brand bidding setup while you're in there. Account level automated settings tend to pile up unreviewed, and promotions is rarely the only one worth a second look.

Our take

Turn it off unless you're actively running a real, current, intentional promotion you want in market. If you are running one, write it yourself and set it as a manual promotion asset instead of letting Google guess at it from your site copy. That way you control the offer, the terms, and when it expires, which matters more for a landscaping or HVAC account than it does for a retailer running a weekend flash sale.

Call tracking and clean conversion data matter more than ever here. If an automated asset is going to run in your account whether you wrote it or not, you at least need the reporting to catch it fast. That's the same discipline we bring to ROAS targets for every account we manage: know what's running, know what it's doing, and don't let a default setting make that decision for you.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are Google Ads automated promotions?

They're AI-generated promotion assets that Google creates by scanning your website for deals, discounts, and offers, then automatically runs in your Search and Performance Max campaigns.

Which campaigns are affected?

Search and Performance Max campaigns that use location assets. That covers most local service business accounts, including ones running Local Services Ads inside Google Ads.

Is automated promotions on by default?

Yes. It's part of account level automated assets, which are opted in by default unless you turn them off manually.

How do I turn off automated promotions?

Go to Campaigns, then Assets, then the three-dot menu, then Account level automated assets, then Advanced settings. Select the asset type to turn off, give a reason, and save.

Will turning it off hurt my ad performance?

Not if you weren't running an intentional promotion. You're removing an asset Google generated without your input, not a strategy you built on purpose.

Should service businesses ever use automated promotions?

Only if the offer it would find on your site is current, accurate, and something you actually want in market. Most service business sites have old or conditional offers sitting around, which makes this riskier than it looks.

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