Google Ads in October 2026: Promotions Run Automatically, the Old API Is Off, Merchant Center Gets Stricter

Check now: three dates

Three of this month's changes take effect on their own if you do nothing. They come before everything else:

• October 12: automated promotions switch on by default for some Search and Performance Max campaigns. Google reads offers from your website for this.
• Since October 7: Google Ads API v22 is shut down. Scripts, connectors, and tools still calling v22 only get errors.
• Since September 1: the Content API for Shopping intermittently returns "410 Gone" without an approved extension. Product data can go stale without anyone noticing.

Automated promotions from October 12

On October 5 Google announced by email that from October 12 it will take offers directly from advertiser websites and attach them to campaigns as promotion assets. The system recognizes phrasing like "20% off this weekend" or "buy one get one free" on its own, with no manual setup. According to the notice, this applies to Search and Performance Max campaigns with linked location assets that do not yet carry their own promotion assets. Each promotion found this way stays eligible for less than 24 hours and is only renewed while the offer is still visible on the website.

The risk lies in interpretation. Expired offers still sitting somewhere on the site, conditional discounts ("orders over €100", "new customers only"), and regional prices can be misread. Assets without impressions also do not show up in the asset report, so you cannot fully see what Google found. The opt-out is at account level: Assets, account-level automated assets, advanced settings, set "Automated promotions" to off.

Our recommendation: if you maintain promotions carefully and have no orphaned campaign pages, let it run and monitor it. If you run many conditional or regional offers or have legally sensitive price claims, switch it off and keep managing promotion assets yourself.

Q4 tools: Promotion Mode and investment strategy

Ahead of Black Friday, Google has expanded two planning tools.

Promotion Mode (beta) is meant for Search and Performance Max campaigns using target ROAS. You set a window of a few days up to two weeks in which the ROAS target is relaxed by a tolerance, optionally with extra daily budget. Afterwards everything reverts automatically. Since late September one important restriction applies: while Promotion Mode is active, target ROAS cannot be edited, only the tolerance. If you still want to adjust the target before the promotion period, do it beforehand. This fits the logic Google has followed since August: targets are taken literally, as described in our post on Smart Bidding.

The investment strategy in recommendations gained two modes on September 24. "Holistic" moves budget from weaker or underused campaigns to the strongest ones. "Growth" adds budget to the strongest campaigns without cutting elsewhere. The forecast is based on the last seven days of trends, and excluded campaigns stay untouched. For Q4 this is a useful basis for discussion, nothing more: seven days of October data say little about Black Friday week.

AI Max: new columns, previews, AI Brief in German

After the forced migration in September (details in our September update), Google is mainly adding transparency:

• September 23, DMEXCO in Cologne: a new report covering the entire Search Ads journey, meant to show what AI Max contributes to a campaign. The AI Brief, used to steer messaging, creative guidelines, and audiences, now also supports seven more languages, including German.
• October 8: new columns for Brand Inclusions, Locations of Interest, Commission, and Optimized Targeting.
• October 9: previews for text customization. Google generates up to ten sample headlines and descriptions without you having to enable text customization, respecting your brand and text guidelines. German is supported. This lets you check upfront what the AI would write.
• AI Mode test: since early September, exact and phrase match keywords from standard Search campaigns can also serve text ads in AI Mode, according to Google only for "explicit and direct" user intent. Previously only AI Max, Performance Max, or broad match with Smart Bidding led there. Google has not named countries.
• Localization (beta, October 5): an AI tool translates entire Search campaigns, including text, keywords, and targeting, into ten languages, among them German, French, Italian, and Polish. It creates new, independent campaigns and leaves the original unchanged. For DACH companies with expansion plans that is a quick starting point; it does not replace a native-speaker review.

Measurement and data

For anyone who sees clean tracking as the foundation of Smart Bidding, this is the most interesting part of the month.

• Multi-source conversions (beta): an existing website conversion can be connected to a second data source, such as the CRM or order database, via Data Manager or the Data Manager API. Matching happens on transaction_id. This recovers conversions the tag missed because of ad blockers or aborted page loads, and the CRM can correct values afterwards, for example for cancellations or upsells. No general availability has been announced. The principle is familiar from our Conversion API setups: server and browser data complement each other, deduplicated via a shared ID.
• Customer Match with IP addresses: since September 25 the upload accepts IP addresses and interaction timestamps, unhashed, alongside email, phone, and address. For DACH this is practically irrelevant: Google explicitly excludes users in the EEA, the UK, and Switzerland.
• Self-service Conversion Lift (October 8): incrementality studies can now be set up without a Google rep, for Search, Display, Video, Demand Gen, Performance Max, and App campaigns. Requirements: at least 1,000 conversions, at least 5,000 US dollars campaign budget, and a compatible conversion action. Each campaign can only be part of one study at a time.
• Loyalty Customer Match runs in AI Mode and Gemini since October 2, in 14 countries including Germany. Members of a loyalty program then see member prices directly in product listings, for example. Since September 24 the program is open to all merchants via the Merchant API.

We have been setting up Google Ads around clean data since 2006, because every bidding strategy is only as good as the conversions it receives. If you want to evaluate multi-source conversions or a Conversion Lift test for your account, reach out via contact.

Merchant Center and Shopping

• Content API: officially sunset since August 18. Since September 1, requests without an approved extension intermittently fail with "410 Gone", and it will be shut down completely in early 2027. Only API integrations are affected. Feeds via file upload, scheduled fetch, or Google Sheets keep working. If you use a shop connector or feed tool, ask the vendor whether it has already moved to the Merchant API.
• Frequent price changes: since September 27 Google's help states that automatic item updates do not work reliably for products whose price or availability changes more than once a day. Instead of being updated, such products are disapproved when a mismatch is detected. Shops with dynamic pricing should send the feed accordingly often instead of relying on the automation.
• New policy structure: since September the policies for Shopping ads and free listings are merged into one set of rules. According to Google nothing was tightened in substance.
• Conversational attributes: on September 16 Google extended the specification for attributes such as question_and_answer, popularity_rank, variant_option, item_group_title, and document_link with technical names and format examples. They are meant for conversational shopping experiences. OpenAI is moving in a similar direction, whose product feed we covered in our post on the OpenAI Commerce Feed.
• US only: for Shopify merchants, native checkout in AI Mode and Gemini was switched on automatically in late September; customers then buy with Google Pay directly on Google. Since October Merchant Center has an integration hub for the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP). Australia and Canada are to follow in 2027; there is no date for DACH.

Correction to our September update: it said product images already needed at least 500 by 500 pixels. Correct is: the minimum resolution applies from January 31, 2027. Until then Google optimizes some smaller images itself, using high-resolution duplicates or AI upscaling. We have updated the September post accordingly.

Google Ads API: v22 off, v25.2 out

The Google Ads API has been released monthly since January 2026. On October 7 version 22 was shut down, and all v22 requests have failed since. In public projects such as Looker actions, Jitsu, or Dub, error reports appeared in the days before because v22 was still configured. If you run your own scripts, reporting connectors, or bidding tools, check the version now.

Version 25.2 from September 23 brings, among other things, settings for automated video crawling in Performance Max (landing pages, social media, or YouTube as source), tracking templates and custom parameters at asset group level, and a method to convert Smart campaigns into Performance Max drafts. Version 26 has been announced for October but has not been released as of this post.

Other news at a glance

• Business name in ads (from October 16): advertisers may use a name that differs from the destination domain if it reflects the recognized brand, there is a verified direct relationship with the domain owner, and the products are offered directly through the domain. Resellers, intermediaries, and affiliates are excluded.
• Demand Gen: view-through conversions will only count for bidding on video assets. Image assets are still reported as secondary conversions but no longer drive bids. At the same time Google extends view-through optimization to the Display Network, where display video ads are billed per impression instead of per click. Google only gives "the coming months" as a timeframe.
• SEO: the spam update, the new AI report, and the opt-out switch in Search Console are covered in our Google SEO update for fall 2026.
• Click quality: how much invalid traffic automated formats like AI Max attract and what Google's new Credit Report shows is covered in our post Click Fraud in Google Ads.

Our prioritized to-do list

1. Today: decide whether automated promotions should run. If not, switch them off at account level before they kick in on October 12. If yes, check old campaign pages and conditional offers on the website.
2. This week: check the API versions of all scripts, connectors, and tools; v22 no longer works.
3. E-commerce: find out whether the feed still runs through the Content API and migrate if needed. For products with frequent price changes, increase the feed frequency.
4. Before Black Friday: finalize target ROAS before Promotion Mode starts, because afterwards only the tolerance can be changed.
5. AI Max: add the new columns and use the text preview before enabling text customization.
6. Medium term: test multi-source conversions once the beta is available in your account, and plan a Conversion Lift test if volume allows.

If you want to know which of these points affect your account: details on our management on the Google Ads agency page.

FAQ

How do I switch off automated promotions?

Assets, account-level automated assets, advanced settings, set "Automated promotions" to off. Active from October 12.

What happens to tools on API v22?

Since October 7 all requests fail. Update to a current version, currently v25.2.

Does the end of the Content API affect me?

Only with an API integration. File uploads, scheduled fetch, and Google Sheets keep working.

Does Customer Match IP matching apply in Germany?

No, the EEA, the UK, and Switzerland are excluded.