Google Ads introductory offer codes: where a real one comes from and how to apply it without voiding it

A Google Ads introductory offer is an advertising credit for a new advertiser, released after the account has spent a qualifying amount of its own money inside a set window. It is a match on your spend rather than free advertising, it is applied inside the account under the Billing menu on the Promotions page, and the figures that matter to you are the ones printed in the terms attached to your own offer, because the value, the qualifying spend and the deadline differ by country and currency. Enter a payment method first, apply the offer before you change anything about how the account is billed, and read the terms once properly before you launch a campaign against them.

What the offer is, in plain terms

Google documents three routes, on its page about redeeming a promotional offer, checked on 12 October 2026. A new advertiser promotion is claimed during sign up, and on some entry points you choose the offer value before you start signing up. A codeless promotion is listed inside the account: you open Billing, then Promotions, review the offers and their terms, and select the button for the one you want. A coded promotion is a code you hold and enter yourself. Google's definition of who qualifies is specific: "You're considered a new advertiser if you're creating an account for a business that has never advertised with Google Ads." The same page treats an existing business expanding into a different country with a new billing address as new. The source is Google's own help article on redeeming a promotional offer.

How to apply a code

• Add a payment method to the account first. Google's page states the requirement plainly, and an offer entered on an account with no billing set up has nothing to attach to.
• Open the Billing menu, then Promotions.
• Select the blue plus button, enter the offer, then select Submit.
• Check the Promotions page afterwards. For codeless offers the applied promotion appears in a table with the redeemed date, the key expiration dates and the status, so that table is where you confirm it landed.

Two rules catch people out, and both are in Google's documentation. The first is for agencies and anybody running several accounts: "Manager account users can't enter a promotional offer from the manager level." You open the individual account's Promotions page and enter it there. The second is about billing changes. If you want monthly invoicing, set it up before you enter the offer, because the documentation says the offer is invalidated and the amount lost when you switch to invoicing afterwards. That is an irreversible mistake made by somebody doing a sensible piece of finance admin in the wrong order.

Where a real code comes from

Inside the product, from the sign up flow or the Promotions page in your own account. From Google directly, by email to the address on a new account or on a Google Business Profile. From a Google Partner agency or reseller, which is a normal part of how those relationships work. And from a startup or cloud programme that includes advertising credit in its package. In every one of those cases the offer arrives with written terms, and those terms are the only figures worth planning on.

Be wary of the coupon aggregators. The practical problem is not suspicion, it is arithmetic: an offer is issued for a specific country and currency, with its own qualifying spend and its own deadline, and often for a single account. A value copied off a blog post written about a different market is not your offer, and planning a budget around it means planning around somebody else's terms. Avoid anything that asks you to create your account through a third party's link to receive a code, because the account you advertise from should be one you own outright, with your own billing and your own access list.

Before you spend the credit, set the account up to learn from it

The credit is a few weeks of traffic. Spend it on a question rather than on volume, and have the measurement working before the first click.

Do this before you launch	Why it matters to the offer
Conversion tracking live and tested with a real submission	Spend inside the qualifying window is only useful if you can tell what it produced
One campaign, one tight geography, phrase and exact keywords	Keeps the search terms readable while the spend is small
A negative keyword list written from your own product knowledge	Stops the first week going on queries you would never sell to
A landing page that answers the query it is paired with	Decides the conversion rate the whole test is judged on
A daily budget that still works after the credit ends	The useful output is a repeatable campaign, not a spike

Then read the search terms report on day three, day seven and day fourteen. Google's documentation for that report, checked on 12 October 2026, says it shows "search terms that were used by a significant number of people and have triggered impressions and clicks", that it lives under Campaigns in the Search terms view inside Insights and reports, and that terms with too little query activity are omitted for privacy. It also notes you cannot add keywords or negative keywords from inside the report itself, so changes are made in the keyword settings. Details are on Google's search terms report page. Those three readings are worth more than the credit, because they tell you in the customer's own words what they came looking for.

Google Ads offer code questions advertisers ask

Can I apply a code to an account that has already advertised?

New advertiser promotions are written for businesses that have never advertised with Google Ads, so an account with spending history does not qualify. Check the Promotions page in the existing account anyway, because codeless offers are listed there and those are the ones available to you.

Where do I see whether the offer actually applied?

Billing, then Promotions. The status, the redeemed date and the expiration dates sit in that table, and it is the only place worth checking. Screenshot it once the offer shows as applied, so the terms and dates are recorded somewhere you will find them in six weeks.

My agency manages my account. Who enters the code?

Somebody with access to the individual account, on that account's Promotions page, because manager level entry is not supported. Decide in advance whether that is you or the agency, and make sure the account itself belongs to your business rather than to the agency.

Does the credit cover my whole first month?

Treat it as a partial match. The structure of these offers is that you spend first and the credit follows, so budget for your own spend across the qualifying window and read the credit as a reduction in the net cost of that test rather than as the test's budget.

What happens if I move to monthly invoicing?

Set invoicing up first. Google's page is explicit that switching afterwards invalidates the offer and the amount is lost, and that is not recoverable by support, so finance and marketing should agree the billing method before anybody touches the Promotions page.

Can I stack two offers?

Plan on one per account and read the terms that came with your code, since each offer carries its own conditions and its own expiry. If you hold two, apply the one whose qualifying spend matches what you were going to spend anyway.

The question the credit cannot buy an answer to

An introductory offer puts you in an auction, where money reliably buys position and the position stops the day the money stops. The same buyer who clicked your ad on Tuesday often starts the next purchase by describing their problem to an assistant and asking which company to use, and that answer has no bid in it at all. It is assembled from pages, reviews and roundups, so it moves slowly and it keeps paying after the credit is gone. The search terms report you built during the test is the most useful starting list anybody could ask for: those are your buyers' real words, so put the top ten of them to an assistant as questions and see which companies get named. AI Knows Us does that systematically and tells you which sources produced each name, which is the part you can then go and work on.