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Google Ads Is Revoking Promotional Credits After Advertisers Have Already Spent Them

By Paul Lovell · September 11, 2026 · 4 min read

Google Ads issues promotional credits to encourage new and returning advertisers to spend. Advertisers are now reporting that some of those credits get revoked after the money has been spent against them — leaving the advertiser paying out of pocket for budget they had every reason to think was covered.

PPC consultant David Melamed documented the issue on LinkedIn, citing two separate client accounts where this happened. In one, an advertiser expected a $3,200 promotional credit after spending $3,200 to qualify for it — and the credit was marked "Invalidated" more than a month after the qualifying spend had already gone through. In the second, invalidation followed the use of an agency manager's billing profile during account setup, rather than the advertiser's own. That it happened twice, in two different circumstances, to the same practitioner is the detail that moves this out of anecdote territory.

Google Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin responded directly to Melamed's post, writing: "Thank you for bringing this to our attention, David. I've passed this along to the team." That's an acknowledgement, not an explanation — Google gave no reason for either invalidation and no indication of a policy change to how these disputes get handled going forward.

Why the sequencing matters

If a credit is rejected before you spend, you've lost nothing. You adjust the plan and move on.

The failure mode here is the opposite order. The credit is applied, the campaign runs against a budget sized on the assumption the credit is real, the spend is committed and unrecoverable — and only then is the credit withdrawn. The advertiser cannot unspend it. The impressions were served, the clicks were bought, the invoice stands.

For an agency this is worse than for an in-house team, because the shortfall lands in the gap between what was quoted to a client and what the platform actually charged. Someone absorbs that, and it usually isn't Google.

What to do about it

Do not plan spend against a credit you have not seen settle. Treat a promotional credit as unconfirmed until it has fully applied and the account has moved past the promotional period without a reversal. Plan the campaign on the money you're prepared to actually spend, and treat the credit as upside if it holds.

Screenshot everything. The offer terms as presented, the credit appearing in the account, the balance, the dates. If a credit is later revoked, the terms you were shown at the time are the basis of any conversation you have about it, and offer pages change.

Read the promotional offers policy before you accept. Google's promotional offers documentation sets out eligibility and the conditions under which credits work with different payment settings, and there are more disqualifying conditions than most advertisers assume. Worth noting what the policy does and doesn't say: it's explicit that credits are non-refundable if you cancel before spending the balance, and that expired offers "can't be reactivated or modified" — but it does not spell out a general set of conditions under which an already-applied credit can be revoked after the fact. That gap is exactly what's catching advertisers here: the documented terms cover what happens if you don't use the credit, not what happens if Google decides after the fact that the credit shouldn't have applied. This is also not the first friction in this area — free credit offers stopped applying automatically earlier in 2026.

If you're an agency, say the quiet part in the SOW. If your client's budget assumes a platform credit, the contract should be explicit about who carries the risk if the platform withdraws it. That is a one-line clause that prevents an ugly conversation.

Reconcile promotional periods line by line. The revocation shows up in billing, not in the campaign view. If nobody is checking the invoice against the expected credit, this happens silently.

The broader read

Promotional credits are an acquisition tool. They exist to get spend flowing, and they work — which is precisely why a credit that can be pulled after the spend is committed is a structural problem rather than a customer service one. The incentive it creates is for advertisers to size budgets on money that turns out to be conditional.

None of which means the credits aren't worth taking. It means they should be treated as a rebate that may or may not arrive, rather than as budget. If your plan only works because of the credit, the plan doesn't work.

Sources

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