Meta Ads has a feature that can cause discounts from an advertiser’s website to appear in Facebook and Instagram ads without being separately added to a new ad. Ad duplication deserves particular attention: Meta warns that a copy may display promotions even if they were turned off in the original. Advertising specialist Bram van der Hallen highlighted this aspect of the interface on November 6, 2026. However, there is no confirmation that this is a widespread bug or that the platform automatically enables the settings.
Key Takeaways
- On November 6, 2026, advertising specialist Bram van der Hallen drew attention to the Detected offers setting in Meta Commerce Manager.
- Meta can use offers found on an advertiser’s website and in their ads.
- When an ad is duplicated, promotions may appear in the new ad even if they were turned off in the original.
- The main toggle is located under Commerce Manager → Settings → Offer merchandising, not just in Ads Manager.
- There is no confirmation that the feature is enabled by default in all accounts or that it changes its own state.
- Before scaling campaigns, advertisers should check the settings, available offers, and previews of new ads.
How Meta Adds Detected Discounts to Ads
Commerce Manager has an Offer merchandising section that allows Meta to automatically display offers detected on an advertiser’s website or in their advertising materials.
This means a discount does not necessarily have to be manually added to the copy of a particular ad. If the relevant setting is active, the system can use offer information from other available sources.
The materials published by Bram van der Hallen show a Detected offers toggle with an explanation about displaying offers found on websites and in ads. The toggle is enabled in his screenshot.
However, a single screenshot does not prove that the setting is active in every advertising account. It is also unknown exactly when Meta introduced this control.
Why the Issue May Occur When Duplicating Ads
The most important piece of evidence is a notice Meta displays when an ad is copied.
In that notice, the platform warns that eligible promotions may appear alongside the new ad even if they were disabled for the original ad. To manage such offers, Meta directs the advertiser to Commerce Manager.
This points to a distinction between two levels of settings: those for an individual ad in Ads Manager and the broader management of detected offers in Commerce Manager.
For example, a media buyer duplicates an ad to test a different creative or move the ad into a new ad set. Promotions are disabled in the original, but Meta may apply an eligible offer to the copy based on the Commerce Manager settings.
Importantly, this does not prove that Meta independently switches Detected offers from off to on during duplication. What has been confirmed is only the warning that offers may be applied to the new ad.
Where to Find Offer merchandising in Commerce Manager
According to the published screenshots, the relevant settings can be found at:
Commerce Manager → Settings → Offer merchandising.
The page shown has two groups of settings.
Detected offers — offers for ads
The All ads section contains the Detected offers toggle. It allows Meta to automatically display offers found on the advertiser’s website and in their ads.
This is the first setting to check if a company does not want the system to select advertising discounts automatically.
Sale events and Seasonal event names
The second group applies to ads that lead to a shop or product browsing experience on Facebook and Instagram.
- Sale events: displays sales detected in ad creative copy.
- Seasonal event names: adds the names of seasonal events to relevant offers.
These settings should not be confused with the main Detected offers toggle: they apply to specific product-display scenarios.
The availability of this section may depend on the Commerce Manager configuration. There is currently no confirmed list of the account types and countries where the feature works.
Is Meta Really Displaying Old and Private Promo Codes?
The risk exists, but specific cases of expired or private coupons being displayed on a large scale have not yet been sufficiently documented.
The potential problem arises when a website has several different offers at once: a general discount, a promo code for newsletter subscribers, a personalized promotion, or a bonus for loyalty-program members.
If the system identifies one of these offers as eligible for advertising, the question is whether it correctly accounts for expiration dates, audience restrictions, and terms of use.
The published materials do not explain how Meta verifies the validity of each detected promo code. There is also insufficient evidence that the system has already distributed private codes widely to people outside their intended audience.
It is therefore more accurate to describe this as a risk of offers being displayed without adequate control, rather than a confirmed mass leak of promo codes.
Why This Matters Especially Ahead of Black Friday 2026
Black Friday falls on November 27 in 2026, and Cyber Monday on November 30. Ahead of events like these, ecommerce teams often duplicate ads, prepare new creatives, and run several promotions at the same time.
For example, a store may simultaneously offer a discount for new customers, a separate promo code for its email list, and a general promotion for a certain product category.
If an ad displays the wrong offer, customers may expect a discount that the store never intended to make available to a broad audience.
The practical consequences depend on the specific case, ranging from customer support requests and reduced trust in the brand to additional costs of honoring advertised promises.
Advertisers who frequently copy ads between campaigns or use many short-term offers should be particularly careful.
What Media Buyers Should Check Before Launching
Before changing any settings, it is worth deciding whether the business needs offers to be displayed automatically. For some stores, this is a useful feature; for others, it is an unwanted change to their advertising messages.
- Open Commerce Manager. Check whether Settings → Offer merchandising is available.
- Review Detected offers. Determine whether Meta is allowed to automatically display detected offers.
- Check Manage all offers. If the section is available, review the offers the system may use.
- Review seasonal settings. For shop ads, check Sale events and Seasonal event names separately.
- Create a test duplicate of the ad. Check Meta’s warning and review all available display variations before publishing.
- Audit the website. Make sure expired promotions, old banners, and restricted promo codes have not been left publicly accessible without appropriate explanations.
- Compare the advertised offer with checkout. The price, discount, and terms should match throughout the customer journey.
If automatic offer detection is not needed, the advertiser can turn off Detected offers in the relevant section. Before changing this setting, however, it is worth checking which existing campaigns and commerce scenarios may depend on it.
It is also important to consider store integrations and external ecommerce platforms: not every way of passing promotional offers is necessarily controlled by a single toggle.
Meta Automation Requires More Than Creative Oversight
The situation with Detected offers illustrates a broader problem with advertising automation: the final message seen by users may depend on more than the text and images approved by the media buyer.
Meta already uses automated enhancements that can change the appearance of ad creatives. UAGEEK has separately explained how to check for unwanted creative changes in Meta Ads.
Another related area is the use of information from advertisers’ websites. UAGEEK previously covered Meta’s updated terms for website crawling. However, those terms do not, by themselves, prove that they caused Detected offers to appear.
For performance marketing teams, this means checking not only Ads Manager settings but also connected systems: Commerce Manager, the product catalog, the website, and sources of promotional offers.
What Meta Has Not Yet Explained
As of November 12, 2026, publicly available materials contain no separate official explanation from Meta regarding reports of unwanted display of detected discounts.
Several questions remain unanswered:
- Is Detected offers enabled by default for new or existing accounts?
- Can the platform change the toggle’s state on its own?
- Which ad accounts, formats, and countries have access to the feature?
- How are expiration dates and restrictions on detected offers checked?
- Can a promotion appear in an already-running ad, rather than only in a new copy?
Until these details are confirmed, it would be inaccurate to call the situation a proven technical bug affecting all advertising accounts.
Conclusion
Meta Ads can use discounts detected on websites and in ads, and new copies of ads do not necessarily inherit the original’s promotional restrictions. This is supported by interface screenshots published by an advertising specialist.
At the same time, there is no evidence that Meta is enabling the settings without permission on a large scale or systematically displaying expired coupons. The practical takeaway for advertisers is simple: before duplicating and scaling campaigns, check Offer merchandising, the available offers, and how the ads actually appear.
Sources for Verification
Sources for Verification
Bram van der Hallen, LinkedIn, November 6, 2026. Initial post by the advertising specialist about Detected offers and the application of offers to copies of ads. This is an observation by an interface user, not an official Meta announcement.
Bram van der Hallen’s posts about Meta Ads
PPC Land, November 6, 2026. Detailed analysis of Meta screenshots, the warning shown when duplicating ads, Commerce Manager settings, and unconfirmed aspects of the feature.
How Meta uses detected discounts in copied ads
Paid Media Collective, November 6, 2026. An independent examination of the ad-duplication warning that separates confirmed interface elements from assumptions about the feature’s availability across all accounts.
What the Meta Ads warning confirms
Social Media Today, November 8, 2026. An industry overview of the risks of automatically adding ad offers and the lack of a confirmed explanation from Meta.
Risks of unauthorized discounts in Meta AI ads