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01.11.2023

4 min read

Create urgency this Black Friday with dynamic countdown ads

2023 has been a testing year for most businesses. Throughout the year, consumer spending and overall retail sales have dropped. This makes events like Black Friday all the more critical for businesses to make the most of this period to boost sales in Q4. Therefore, businesses like yours need to be on its A-game when it comes to their Black Friday Google Ads Campaign – and Countdown Ads should be a central part of this. 

What are Countdown Ads?

Countdown Ads appear on the Google search results page within an ad, either in the headline, description or path field. They display a live countdown timer to the user for the business to promote a particular sale or event they currently have. This will be in days, hours or minutes and will automatically adjust depending on how close to the event it currently is.

Text: 25% Off Entire Store | Black Friday | Sale Ends in 5 hours.
Graphic: Red box highlighting 'Sale ends in 5 hours'.

Why do I need Countdown Ads?

Countdown ads are a powerful tool to create urgency amongst the user, while also making your sale or promotion stand out in the search results! Creating this urgency encourages the user to click on the ad and take action quickly, resulting in more conversions for your business.

Another benefit of countdown ads is that they aren’t included in your character count, so there’s no need to adjust your headline or descriptions to fit these in.

How to implement Countdown Ads in Google Ads

 

Step 1: Selecting the ad

Open your Google Ads account and select:

campaign > ad group > ad 

This is how you select an ad you wish to add to the countdown timer.

Step 2: Adding the countdown timer

Now decide which part of the ad you would like to add the countdown timer to (headline or description). Enter a brace (curly bracket) “ { “ and Google will give you the option to insert a countdown timer:

Image: Drop down dialogue menu with 3 options available: Keyword insertion, countdown and location insertion. For this ad to be made a countdown ad, we select 'countdown'.

Step 3: Setting date, time and duration

This will then open a dialogue window where you can choose your countdown end date and the length of time that the countdown will display for:

Image: Here we select when the countdown ends, how many days the countdown is for, i.e. 5 days.

Step 4: Adjusting for time zones

You can also choose whether the ad countdown changes between different time zones or is fixed to the Google Ads account time zone. If you select ‘ad viewer’s time zonethe countdown will display different times depending what time zone the user is in, so for example the ad will end 5 hours later for a user in New York than a London user due to the time difference.

Image: A highlighted area showing that we have selected the option 'Ad viewer's time zone' for the time zone characteristic. This should allow different times to be shown to users overseas.

Step 5: Launch!

You’re all done – Go check out your countdown ad in the Google Search results page and watch those conversions increase!

Other Uses Of Countdown Ads

Countdown ads don’t just have to be used for a Black Friday sale – they should be used throughout the year to promote any time-specific sales you have to create urgency in the same way. They don’t even have to be used just for sales, you could use them to promote a new store opening or new product launch.

Key Takeaways

  • Use the countdown feature in your Google Ads this Black Friday to ensure you create a buzz and sense of urgency around your sale
  • Make them customised to the viewer’s time zones if you operate an international website so the ad shows during the whole day for those customers 
  • Continue to use them after Black Friday is over to promote additional sales or events you have going on

For more tips on how to get the most out of your Black Friday campaigns, check out our dedicated blog section. Further actionable advice and strategies can be found in our webinars and white papers on our resources page.