Google Turns On Local Inventory in Eligible Shopping Campaigns on 31 August. Offline Sales Need Measurement.
On 31 August, Google enables Local Inventory Ads by default in every Shopping campaign and removes the setting that let you turn them off. It confirmed the change on its Ads Developer Blog on 20 July.
The Local products setting switches on automatically for any Shopping campaign linked to a Merchant Center account with the Local Inventory Ads add-on active. The enable_local field is overridden to true. On API version 25.1 and later, code that tries to set it to false returns a hard error. Control moves to the Inventory filter, set to Channel = Local or Channel = Online.
The scope is narrow. Shopping campaigns only. Performance Max and Demand Gen keep the field as it works today.
The problem is not the format. It is that one campaign now runs two businesses out of one budget. The online journey ends in a delivered order with a recorded value. The local journey ends in a person walking into a building. Same campaign, same bid strategy, one blended ROAS.
A worked example, using assumed retail figures: Assume CAD $10,000 a month returns CAD $40,000 online, a return on ad spend (ROAS) of 4.0. In an illustrative alternative scenario, 30 per cent of clicks route local and online revenue is CAD $28,000. These are model inputs, not measured account results or a forecast. Reported ROAS drops to 2.8. If that local traffic produces 20 in-store sales at a $1,500 average order value, that is $30,000 the account never records. Combined modelled ROAS is 5.8, assuming those in-store sales are attributable to the advertising.
Our read: the example shows how an online-only return can understate total sales. It does not establish that the budget should be cut or doubled; margin and reliable offline attribution are needed for that decision. This is not a settings change. It is a measurement change wearing a settings change as a disguise. Retailers with shops need offline conversion tracking live before 31 August, or the Inventory filter used to keep local and online in separate campaigns. Online-only retailers who switched the add-on on years ago and forgot need to check now, because from 31 August their budget starts chasing shops that do not exist.
A blended ROAS that excludes offline sales is incomplete. Separate measured revenue from assumed revenue before using it to allocate spend.
Sources: Google Ads Developer Blog, "Enabling Local Inventory Ads by Default for Shopping Campaigns starting on August 31, 2026" (ads-developers.googleblog.com); Search Engine Land. Last verified 27 July 2026.
Written by P&C. We are a marketing accountability firm run by Yasmin and Arsen. We built the 5-Stage Pipeline Audit and we read platform changes so owner-operators do not have to. Connect on LinkedIn