Google Ads Automated Promotions Switch On 12 October: An Opt-Out and Discount-Licence Checklist for Arab Advertisers

Google Ads starts adding website promotions to eligible campaigns on 12 October 2026. The feature, called automated promotions, is on by default for Search and Performance Max campaigns with location assets and no manual promotion. Google’s help page gives a five-step path to switch it off. Saudi advertisers face a second date: the Ministry of Commerce’s exceptional sales season ends on 30 or 31 October, depending on the report.

This is a documentation piece, not a test. We have not run a hands-on test in any Google Ads account, and we have not seen the new setting on screen ourselves. Every Google step below is quoted from Google’s help pages as we read them on 11 October 2026, and every Saudi rule is attributed to the outlet that reported it.

What changes in Google Ads on 12 October 2026

From 12 October 2026, Google Ads can read a deal on your landing page and attach it to your ads as a promotion, with no setup from you. Google’s email, published by Search Engine Roundtable on 5 October, limits this to Search and Performance Max campaigns with linked location assets and no promotion assets attached.

The email says Google Ads will “automatically identify and extract high-quality promotions, such as coupons and deals, from your website and apply them directly to your campaigns.” Search Engine Roundtable notes that this is opt-out: an eligible account is switched on unless someone changes the setting.

Google’s help page on automated promotions, which Search Engine Roundtable first reported on 7 September, gives a plain example. If a landing page says “20% off on black sweaters”, Google extracts that and shows the discount in the ad. Each automated promotion can serve for less than 24 hours, after which Google re-enables it only if it can still see the offer on your site. Google says start and end dates are not extracted yet.

One detail is vaguer than it looks. Google’s account-level automated assets page says promotions come “from your website and other sources” without naming the other sources. A practitioner quoted by Search Engine Roundtable named Merchant Center and Google Business Profile; we did not find that on a Google page.

In Arab markets that covers more accounts than it sounds. Any business with branches that attaches location assets to its Search or Performance Max campaigns, from retail chains to clinics and car dealers, is in scope from the first day.

How to turn automated promotions off

Google’s help page gives the opt-out as five steps inside the Assets report. You open Assets, choose Account level automated assets from the three-dot menu, open Advanced settings, set Automated promotions to Off and give a reason if asked. The control sits in account-level settings, so the choice covers the whole account rather than one campaign.

This is the path exactly as Google’s About Automated promotions page words it under “How to opt out of Automated promotions”:

1. Go to Assets in the Campaigns menu.
2. From filter bar select the “More” (three-dot) icon and select Account level automated assets.
3. On the “Account level automated assets” page select the “More” (three-dot) icon.
4. Select Advanced settings.
5. Select the Automated promotions drop-down menu and choose the option Off, then provide a reason if prompted.

To see what Google has already added, open Assets and filter Asset type to Promotion. The same page says the Added by column labels automated promotions as Google AI. Hovering over that label shows sourcing details.

There is a second lever that keeps the feature on elsewhere. Google writes that “the automated system will bypass any campaign that currently has manual promotions running.” A dated manual promotion on your main sale campaigns gives you control there without switching anything off account-wide.

Manual details come from Google’s promotion assets page. If you would rather have someone set this up across several accounts before the sale weeks, get my Google Ads account ready for White Friday.

Why does Saudi Arabia’s discount season matter here?

Because Google lifts the offer from your own page, the ad is only as compliant as that page. In Saudi Arabia, a discount needs a Ministry of Commerce licence. The exceptional 2026 season lets stores discount from 1 August without using their annual allowance, but it closes at the end of October, three weeks after Google’s switch.

Riyadh Daily reported on 21 July 2026 that the ministry announced the season from 1 August to 31 October 2026, with permits applied for online. Gulf Business, citing a ministry circular to the Federation of Saudi Chambers reported by Okaz, gave the same dates on 22 July.

A later report disagrees by one day. TradeArabia, citing the Saudi Press Agency in a piece syndicated by Zawya on 17 August, says the campaign “will continue until October 30”. We could not settle it on an official page: the ministry’s sales licence platform returned no readable text when we fetched it, and we did not find the circular itself. Treat 30 October as the safe last day.

The licence itself works the same way across seasons. The ministry’s own news page for the 2025 National Day discounts says stores apply through sales.mc.gov.sa, print the licence and present it to consumers. Shoppers can scan its barcode to see the discount type, percentage, duration and the store’s details.

The same TradeArabia report says more than one million discounted products were on offer and that the ministry is monitoring stores and online shops for compliance. Gulf Business also describes the normal rules the season sits on top of. Stores can run discounts for up to 90 days a year, split into as many as three campaigns, and each licence covers at most 45 days.

Google checks that the offer is still on your page; it does not check that the offer is still legal. Nothing on Google’s help page mentions local licences. A sale banner left up after the season, or a discount on a page whose licence has run out, is exactly what the system is built to find and repeat in your ads.

This is not legal advice. Check your licence terms with the Ministry of Commerce through its sales platform before any discount ad runs.

Does Google’s AI write Arabic ad text yet?

Partly. Google says text customization in AI Max supports all Google Ads languages, and its new previews cover the same languages. The AI campaign localization beta does not include Arabic: its 10 target languages are European, its only source language is English (US), and budgets copy across with no currency conversion.

Google’s localization page lists Dutch, French, French (Canada), German, Italian, Polish, two Portuguese and two Spanish variants. It says more target languages will come “by the end of 2026” without naming them. Its own example warns that “a $100 USD budget becomes a $100 USD budget”, so a localized copy keeps the original budget figure unchanged. For Arabic copy today, the manual work in our guide to Arabic spelling variants in Google Ads still applies.

Text customization is the part that reads your offers. Google’s text customization page says it takes snippets from landing page titles, descriptions and meta tags and refreshes assets at least every 48 hours. It also asks advertisers to keep site content “not in violation of Google Ads policies or applicable laws.” The previews reported on 9 October show up to 10 sample headlines and descriptions before you opt in.

Google’s list of preview languages names English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, German, Japanese and Dutch, then says previews work in every language text customization supports. Arabic is not named, and we have not opened a preview in Arabic. If you split budgets by language, our data on English versus Arabic ads in the Gulf covers the cost side.

A pre-White-Friday checklist for Arab advertisers

The checklist below runs from the 12 October switch to the end of the sale weeks. Rows 1 to 3 decide where Google can add promotions, and row 4 is the Saudi licence check. Rows 5 to 10 keep your landing pages fit to be quoted by a machine. Each row rests on a source named earlier.

Rows 6 and 7 rest on Google’s promotion asset requirements, which say products should be “priced accurately, easily found at the ad’s destination”. For Saudi price-display rules beyond the licence, check the ministry’s current wording; we did not read it on an official page for this piece.

Our read

For any account that targets Saudi Arabia and uses location assets, we would switch automated promotions off before 12 October and run manual, dated promotions tied to each licence. Google’s version has no dates yet, no licence awareness and a re-check cycle that follows your website rather than the law.

The feature is not reckless by design. Google re-verifies each offer in under 24 hours, which is stricter than a manual asset someone forgets to end. The problem is what it verifies against. An automated promotion is only as compliant as the page it was copied from. Old sale banners, Arabic and English offer pages that disagree, and discount text left in page titles are exactly what it will read.

Outside Saudi Arabia the case for switching off is weaker, because we have not verified an equivalent licence rule. There, the deciding question is whether your offer pages are controlled. If one team owns every sale banner and removes it on time, leaving the feature on is a reasonable test. For click costs in the same markets, see our Google Ads CPC data for Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

What about the UAE, Egypt and other Arab markets?

Google’s help page sets no country limit, so the 12 October switch applies to eligible campaigns everywhere. What we could not verify is a UAE or Egyptian discount-permit rule on an official page in this pass, so this article makes no claim about one. Rows 1 to 3 and 5 to 10 of the checklist apply in every market.

If you sell in the UAE, Egypt, Kuwait or Qatar, ask your legal adviser or the relevant economic authority whether a sale needs a permit before the ad runs. Add the answer as your own row 4. Licences are also only one of the Saudi rules a sale campaign touches; the consent rules in our Saudi PDPL marketing guide cover the messages that announce it.

Two limits apply to everything above. Google’s pages change often, and the help text we quote was read on 11 October 2026. And because we did not test the setting in an account, we cannot show you the menu or confirm that the wording on screen matches the help page.

FAQ

Google added a promotion to my ads that I never created. Where did it come from?

From automated promotions, if the campaign is eligible. Google Ads extracts deals from your landing pages and attaches them to Search and Performance Max campaigns with location assets and no manual promotion. Open Assets, filter Asset type to Promotion and look for Google AI in the Added by column. Hovering over that label shows where Google sourced the offer.

How do I turn off Google Ads automated promotions?

Go to Assets in the Campaigns menu, open the three-dot menu in the filter bar and choose Account level automated assets. On that page, open the three-dot menu again, select Advanced settings, set the Automated promotions drop-down to Off and give a reason if prompted. Google’s help page lists these five steps.

Does the Saudi 2026 sales season end on 30 or 31 October?

Sources differ. Riyadh Daily and Gulf Business, citing the ministry’s announcement and circular, give 1 August to 31 October 2026. TradeArabia, citing the Saudi Press Agency, says the campaign continues until 30 October. We could not confirm either date on an official ministry page, so plan for 30 October as the last safe day.

Can Google’s AI localization tool translate my campaign into Arabic?

Not yet. Google’s beta lists 10 target languages, all European, and accepts only English (US) as the source language. Google says more languages will arrive by the end of 2026 but does not name them. Budgets and bids copy across unchanged with no currency conversion, so check every figure before you publish a localized campaign.

If I add my own promotion asset, will Google still add automated ones?

Not to that campaign, according to Google. Its help page says the automated system bypasses any campaign that has manual promotions running. A manual promotion lets you set the occasion or custom dates, language and currency yourself, which matters in Saudi Arabia, where each discount should match a licence and its dates.

The better question

Trusting Google’s AI with your offers matters less than a plainer question: are your landing pages fit to be read by a system that quotes them in ads within a day? In Saudi Arabia that also means every offer on those pages needs a licence behind it until the season closes.

If every live offer page maps to a licence number and an end date, and one person removes expired banners on time, keep automated promotions on. Then check the Google AI rows in your Assets report daily through White Friday. If not, switch the feature off before 12 October and fix the pages first. Either way, check my promotion settings and offer pages with me.