On September 25, 2026, Search Engine Roundtable reported that Google Ads now blocks Target ROAS edits while promotion mode is active, showing the message “You can’t edit your Target ROAS while promotion mode is active.” Advertisers can still change ROAS tolerance during the window, but the target itself is frozen until the scheduled promotion ends.
That turns promotion mode, the Search and Performance Max beta Google announced on June 15, 2026, into a decision you make before a sale starts, not during it. For Michigan retailers heading into deer season and Black Friday, the target you set in early November is the one you live with for up to two weeks.
What is Google Ads promotion mode?
Promotion mode is a scheduled window of 3 to 14 days during which a Target ROAS campaign runs with extra ROAS tolerance and, optionally, extra daily budget, then reverts on its own. It is in beta for Search and Performance Max campaigns using Target ROAS.
Google pitched it as a way to “capture more queries and conversions during demand spikes.” As Google Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin explained in comments reported by PPC Land, the first setup prompt asks for start and end dates, so the window closes automatically. It works with daily budgets and campaign total budgets.
Why can’t you edit Target ROAS while promotion mode is active?
Google hasn’t explained it publicly, but the lock follows from how the feature is built: tolerance is measured against the target, so changing the target mid-window would move the floor underneath the tolerance you scheduled. The restriction was spotted by Arpan Banerjee, shared by Adrian Dekker on LinkedIn, and reported by Search Engine Roundtable. Google has not issued a statement.
How does ROAS tolerance change what Smart Bidding pays for a click?
Tolerance lowers the effective return the bidder must hit, which lets it bid higher on auctions it would otherwise skip. If tolerance works as a percentage allowance below target, as third-party guides describe it, a 400% target with 20% tolerance behaves roughly like a 320% target for the length of the window.
Now stack that on the August 17, 2026 bidding change. Google said budget-limited campaigns using Target CPA or Target ROAS would “more consistently perform toward your bid target.” Its own example: a campaign with a $10 Target CPA that had been delivering at $5 would move toward a $10 actual CPA. We covered what that did to over-performing accounts in our breakdown of Google Ads target enforcement after August 17.
Put the two together and you can predict the outcome for any campaign. Before August, a campaign with a 400% target that actually returned 600% had a cushion of 200 points. After August 17, the bidder is built to spend that cushion down toward 400%. Turn on promotion mode with 20% tolerance and the bidder is permitted to go to about 320%. The campaign’s actual return during the window will land near the loosened floor, not near its old habits. If your breakeven sits anywhere between 320% and 600%, you will be buying unprofitable sales and the report will still call the campaign “on target.”
Does promotion mode actually make sense for a discount sale?
Often it doesn’t, unless you raise the baseline target first. A discount lowers your margin, which raises the ROAS you need to break even, while promotion mode lowers the ROAS the bidder aims for. Those two forces pull in opposite directions.
Here’s the arithmetic. A product sells for $100 and costs you $60, a 40% gross margin, so breakeven ROAS is 250%. Run it at 20% off and it sells for $80 with the same $60 cost. Margin drops to 25%, and breakeven ROAS jumps to 400%. At 30% off, margin falls to about 14% and breakeven reaches 700%.
Google’s pitch is that promotion mode captures more conversions during demand spikes. That’s true, and it’s also incomplete. A demand spike already lifts conversion rates, and Smart Bidding reacts to higher predicted conversion rates by bidding up without any help. Promotion mode adds a second push, a lower required return, at the exact moment a discount has made each sale worth less to you.
Our view: promotion mode fits full-price demand spikes, where margin holds and the only question is how aggressively to chase volume. For discount events, the safer setup is to raise Target ROAS to reflect the discounted margin before the window, then add only modest tolerance. Because of the September 25 lock, you can’t fix a wrong target on day two of Black Friday week.
Which Michigan businesses are most exposed?
Retailers with two back-to-back peaks, thin margins and big catalogs. Michigan’s regular firearm deer season opens every November 15, twelve days before Black Friday on November 27. Outdoor and sporting-goods sellers from Grand Rapids to Traverse City see a full-price rush on blinds, optics, heaters and cold-weather gear, followed almost immediately by a discount rush.
Those are two different kinds of peaks. The deer-opener spike is the textbook case for promotion mode: demand jumps, prices hold, margin holds. The Black Friday spike carries discounts that raise breakeven ROAS. A shop that copies one promotion-mode setup across both windows will either under-bid the opener or overspend on Black Friday.
Automotive aftermarket and powersports sellers around Sterling Heights and Livonia face a related problem. Winter tires, batteries and snowmobile parts spike with the first hard cold snap, which ignores the calendar. Promotion mode needs dates up front, so a short-notice seasonality adjustment fits weather-driven spikes better.
How should you set up promotion mode before Black Friday 2026?
Decide targets from margin math first, test the feature on one small campaign in October, and lock final targets at least a week before each window opens. Here’s the pre-flight checklist a three-person team can run this week.
- Calculate discounted breakeven ROAS for each promo tier. Use the formula 1 ÷ (discounted gross margin). Build a one-tab spreadsheet with rows for 0%, 15%, 20%, 25% and 30% off, using your blended product cost.
- Split campaigns by promo depth. If your Black Friday offer mixes 10%-off accessories with 30%-off hero products, one Target ROAS can’t be right for both. Separate them, or at least segment Performance Max listing groups, before November.
- Run a 3-day test window in October. Pick one low-stakes Search campaign and schedule the minimum window. Note exactly which fields lock, how tolerance is entered and how spend responds.
- Set the baseline target before the window, not the day of. Once the window starts, the target is locked. Change it at least 7 days ahead so the bidder has a week of data at the new target before the extra tolerance kicks in.
- Keep tolerance modest on discounted campaigns. If your raised target already sits near breakeven, extra tolerance means buying sales at a loss. Use bigger tolerance only on full-price, high-margin products.
- Cap the downside with a campaign total budget. Promotion mode works with campaign total budgets, so set a hard ceiling for the window.
- Write down your exit criteria. Tolerance stays editable mid-window. Decide in advance what blended ROAS after 48 hours makes you cut tolerance, so the call isn’t made under pressure.
If you also use Google’s auto-generated offers, check that the discount the ad promises matches the discount you modeled. Our guide to Google Ads automated promotions covers where those offers come from and how to review them.
What dates matter for promotion mode this holiday season?
Plan backward from November 15 and November 27, and remember that each window can run no longer than 14 days.
- Now through October 16: run a 3-day test window on one campaign and finish the breakeven spreadsheet.
- By November 1: set final baseline Target ROAS for the deer-opener campaigns, one week before their window opens.
- November 8–15: an 8-day window covering the run-up to Michigan’s firearm deer opener on November 15, at full price.
- By November 13: set raised, discount-adjusted targets for Black Friday campaigns.
- November 20–December 1: a 12-day window covering Thanksgiving (November 26), Black Friday (November 27), Small Business Saturday (November 28) and Cyber Monday (November 30), under the 14-day limit.
One caveat: Google’s public beta material doesn’t say whether a single campaign can run two promotion windows close together. If you want both the deer-opener and Black Friday windows on the same campaign, confirm it during your October test rather than assuming.
Frequently asked questions about promotion mode
Can I change my Target ROAS during a promotion mode window?
No. As of the September 25, 2026 report from Search Engine Roundtable, Google Ads shows the message “You can’t edit your Target ROAS while promotion mode is active.” You can still edit ROAS tolerance. That means the baseline target must be decided before the window starts, and mid-sale corrections can only loosen or tighten tolerance around that fixed number.
Which campaign types can use promotion mode?
At launch on June 15, 2026, promotion mode was released in beta for Search and Performance Max campaigns using Target ROAS bidding. Standard Shopping campaigns weren’t part of the announcement. It works with daily budgets and with campaign total budgets, and each window must run between 3 and 14 days with a set start and end date.
Is promotion mode the same as a seasonality adjustment?
No. A seasonality adjustment tells Smart Bidding to expect a short-term change in conversion rate, so it can adjust bids in advance. Promotion mode changes what the campaign is allowed to spend and how far below target it can go. On discounted sales, stacking both can push bids past what your margins support.
Should small Michigan retailers use promotion mode at all?
Yes, selectively. It’s a good fit for full-price demand spikes with known dates, like the November 15 deer opener. It’s riskier for deep-discount events, where lower margins raise breakeven ROAS. If you use it for Black Friday, raise the target first, keep tolerance small and set a campaign total budget as a hard spending ceiling.
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