Here’s another Google Ads setting I think SME owners should know about.
From 12 October, eligible advertisers could find Google automatically identifying promotions on their website and adding them to their advertising campaigns.
You don’t necessarily have to create the promotion inside Google Ads yourself.
Google can find the offer on your website and do it for you.
At first glance, that sounds useful.
And it probably will be.
But there’s something about this change that I think deserves more attention.
Google is increasingly using your website to make advertising decisions
The new Automated Promotions feature is designed to identify eligible offers on website landing pages and create promotion assets that can appear with Search and Performance Max campaigns.
That might be a percentage discount, special offer or another eligible promotion.
For an SME running frequent promotions, that’s convenient.
Change the offer on the website and Google potentially has another piece of information it can use to make the advertisement more compelling.
- Less administration.
- More relevant advertising.
- Potentially better response.
What’s not to like?
Quite a bit, actually, if nobody is watching.
Is that promotion still correct?
This is where I’d be cautious.
Websites aren’t always as tidy as we’d like to think they are.
- An old promotional landing page might still exist.
- A discount might apply only to selected products.
- An offer may have conditions attached.
- A promotion might have expired but still be mentioned somewhere on the website.
Or the business might simply not want a particular offer being used as the headline reason somebody clicks an advertisement.
Google says its systems will look for valid, high-quality promotions, and advertisers will be able to manage automatically created promotions from their Google Ads assets.
But ultimately, it is still your business making the offer.
Not Google’s.
Automation doesn’t transfer responsibility
I’ve written about this before because I think it’s becoming one of the most important principles in digital marketing.
Google is steadily taking on more of the work involved in running advertising campaigns.
- Bidding.
- Targeting.
- Keyword matching.
- Creative combinations.
- Landing-page selection.
- And now potentially promotions.
I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.
Automation can save SMEs an enormous amount of time.
But there’s an important distinction between:
“Google can do this for me.”
and
“I no longer need to check what Google is doing.”
Those are very different things.
If Google advertises 20% off, the customer doesn’t care whether Google found that promotion automatically.
They’ll expect you to honour it.
There’s a simple action I’d take this week
If you’re running Google Ads, particularly Search or Performance Max, I’d spend ten minutes checking two things.
First, look at your website.
- Search for old discounts, outdated promotional pages, expired coupon codes and offers that have complicated conditions attached.
- Make sure what’s published still represents what you’re prepared to sell.
Second, check your Google Ads automated asset settings.
- If Automated Promotions becomes available in your account, decide whether you actually want it switched on.
- Don’t simply accept the default because Google selected it for you.
For some businesses, I’d absolutely use it.
For others, particularly where pricing, discounts or eligibility conditions are complicated, I’d want much tighter control.
Your website is no longer just where the advertisement sends people
That’s the bigger point I take from this change.
For years, we thought about a website as the destination of digital advertising.
- Create the ad.
- Choose the audience.
- Send them to the website.
That relationship is changing.
Google is increasingly reading what’s on the website and using that information to help determine how the advertising itself is presented.
Which means an outdated website can potentially become an advertising problem as well.
So here’s the question I’d put to any SME running Google Ads this week:
If Google started advertising the offers currently published across your website tomorrow, would you be comfortable honouring every one of them?
If you’re not completely certain, I’d check before Google does.
References
Search Engine Land, 2 October 2026. Google Ads will automatically pull promotions from advertisers’ websites.
https://searchengineland.com/google-ads-will-automatically-pull-promotions-from-advertisers-websites-493225
Search Engine Land, 2 October 2026. Google Ads brings A/B testing to Performance Max asset groups.
https://searchengineland.com/google-ads-brings-a-b-testing-to-performance-max-asset-groups-493229