Today, Google starts putting coupons from your website into your ads. If you run Search or Performance Max campaigns with linked location assets and no promotion asset, Google will find the deals on your site and apply them, unless you already switched the setting off. Search Engine Roundtable reported the October 12 date from Google’s email, which said the system would “automatically identify and extract high-quality promotions, such as coupons and deals, from your website and apply them directly to your campaigns.” The opt-out lives in account-level automated assets settings, under Automated Promotions, as PPC Land documented.
That is one default. It is also one of at least six that landed this year. In 2026 the ad platforms stopped shipping new features as options and started shipping them switched on. The most important setting in your account may be one you never touched.
What got switched on in 2026
Through September, Google upgraded Search campaigns that used automatically created assets or campaign-level broad match to AI Max, with search term matching enabled by default. Those upgrades were scheduled to run from September 1 through the end of the month. Dynamic Search Ads upgrades were a separate case, pushed to February 2027.
In June, Google auto-enabled conversion-based customer lists for accounts using Enhanced Conversions and Customer Match, turned on beginning June 17 with data processing set to begin August 18.
In September, Google matched Shopify stores to Merchant Center and switched on native checkout in Google AI Mode and Gemini. Merchants got an email on September 22 and can opt out in the Shopify admin under Sales channels, Agentic.
On TikTok, GMV Max became, in TikTok’s words, “the default and only supported campaign type for TikTok Shop Ads,” a change its help center dates to July 2025.
On Meta, the Marketing API version released in the first quarter deprecated the legacy Advantage+ Shopping and app campaigns, and a campaign now counts as Advantage+ only when its budget, audience and placements are all set to Advantage+.
The full list, with where to check each one, is at the end of this piece.
Every default moves a decision, and the platform keeps the scorecard
Each of these defaults moves a decision from you to the platform. Automated promotions move pricing: the platform decides which discount to show and to whom. That is a margin decision, and it is now made by the system that will also report the revenue it produced. AI Max moves query selection. Native checkout moves the point of sale, and with it part of the customer relationship, onto the AI surface. GMV Max moves creative and budget; TikTok describes it as automatically pushing spend behind content that is performing well, and says it will factor in affiliate commissions, coupons and referral fees.
In each case the party that makes the decision also reports the result. GMV Max is the clearest example. TikTok states that “all orders resulting from products you advertise will be attributed to Product GMV Max, including those from organic content and affiliate orders,” in its own documentation. The campaign takes credit for sales it did not necessarily cause, and that credit is the number you would use to decide whether to keep spending. This is the same problem I have written about before, where platform reporting grades its own homework, and where an automated system optimizes to the scorecard it also keeps.
The fine print moved the risk to you
The terms changed too. Google’s Ads terms of service rewrite, effective July 1, put a “continued obligation to review, approve, or remove all campaigns and ad assets generated automatically by Google Ads features” on the advertiser. Read that next to the defaults. The platform turns a feature on for you, generates the assets, and then makes you responsible for reviewing what it produced. Switching the work on by default and assigning you the liability for its output is itself a choice, and it is not one made in your favor.
Be fair: some defaults earn their place
Automation is not the enemy here, and some of these defaults will pay off. Google says the full AI Max feature suite delivers an average of 7% more conversions or conversion value at a similar CPA or ROAS, based on its internal 2026 data. An independent review by Smarter Ecommerce of more than 250 Search campaigns roughly matched the volume claim, finding a median 13% more conversion value, but the cost showed up in efficiency: a median 16% higher CPA. On TikTok, the company says merchants using GMV Max saw a 20% uplift in GMV, from internal 2025 data it labels “results may vary.”
So some advertisers come out ahead, and some of the added volume is real. The question is what it costs and whether it is incremental. In one account Smarter Ecommerce examined, the queries AI Max matched were already covered by the account’s existing broad match keywords 63% of the time, which is the overlap that makes a volume lift look bigger than the new demand behind it. That is the same reason branded search can report conversions it did not create. You find out which it is with a test, not with a launch email.
I have been on the side of the account where that discipline is enforced. I owned a $36M annual paid media budget at a large retailer, run through three agencies. We managed it to CAC, contribution margin and payback, not to what each platform reported about itself. That is the only position from which you can say no to a default.
What a coupon in a stranger’s first ad costs
Google describes automated promotions as an AI feature that sources, validates and displays deals from your website with zero manual effort. The manual effort it removes includes the judgment about who should see the discount. Validation here means confirming the coupon is real and current, not deciding whether it is the right thing to put in front of a first-time buyer.
A promotion on your site was almost always written for a shopper who is already there, comparing, close to buying. Automated promotions can lift that same code into an ad and show it to someone who has never heard of you. A discount handed to a first-time buyer is an acquisition cost, and now it is one the platform chose for you rather than one you decided to pay. That is the whole argument behind the luxury playbook for a $99 dress: the first price a new customer sees sets what they will pay next time, and a coupon in the first ad trains them to wait for the next one.
The quarterly default audit
The answer is not to turn everything off. It is to know what changed and decide on purpose. A default you reviewed and kept is a decision you made. A default you never saw is the platform deciding for you. Once a quarter, go through this list.
| Platform | Default | Date | Where to check | What to test |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Automated promotions | Oct 12, 2026 | Account-level automated assets, Automated Promotions | New-customer margin with it held off | |
| AI Max upgrade | From Sept 1, 2026 | Campaign settings, search term matching | Query overlap with existing broad match | |
| Conversion-based customer lists | From June 17, 2026 | Audience and data-sharing settings | Whether it changes targeting you approved | |
| AI Mode and Gemini native checkout (via Shopify) | From Sept 2026 | Shopify admin, Sales channels, Agentic | Whether you want the sale on that surface | |
| TikTok | GMV Max | Since July 2025 | TikTok Shop Ads campaign type | Incrementality of credited organic and affiliate orders |
| Meta | Advantage+ campaign structure | Q1 2026 (API v25.0) | Campaign budget, audience, placement toggles | Performance against your own non-Advantage+ control |
Three moves make the list useful. First, once a quarter, read every platform’s change emails and settings pages and write down what turned on; nobody gets this from a dashboard. Second, for each default that touches price, query coverage or checkout, run a holdout before you accept it, the same way you would have tested the bidding change that quietly ended target outperformance. Third, judge the result on new customers and contribution margin, not on the platform’s own conversion report.
Defaults are the platform’s opinion about your business. Some of those opinions are right. The ones that touch price, targeting, checkout and the customer relationship are decisions, and a decision the platform makes and then grades for you is not one you have delegated. It is one you have lost track of. Who on your team owns knowing what the platforms turned on this quarter?