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Promotion asset

A promotion asset is a Google Ads asset that adds a sale or special offer, with its discount and dates, to your ads.

How it works

One asset describes one offer. It sets what the offer applies to, a percentage or an amount off (optionally with “Up to”), and either a promo code or an order amount to reach. Two pairs of dates set when the asset can show and when shoppers can redeem the offer.

You can tie the offer to an occasion, such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday. You link the asset to the account, a campaign or an ad group; in Performance Max, to the campaign rather than an asset group.

A countdown is a separate tool: a function in the text of a responsive search ad, such as {COUNTDOWN(2026-11-27 23:59:59,5)}. It shows the time left until a date and starts a set number of days before it. For the BFCM sales period, our guide to promotion assets and countdowns for Black Friday explains how to set up both and which campaigns show them.

Example

Example store, not client data.

For Black Friday, the tableware shop adds a promotion asset: 15% off dinner sets on orders over 1,000, with the occasion set to Black Friday. A shopper whose order comes to 1,200 saves 180 and pays 1,020.

The shop’s Search ads carry the headline “Sale ends in {COUNTDOWN(2026-11-27 23:59:59,5)}”. The countdown starts at the end of 22 November, five days before the end time.

Not to be confused with

  • Merchant promotions — set up in Merchant Center for all or some of the store’s products and shown as a special offer link, such as “15% off”, on Google Search, Shopping and Chrome. A promotion asset belongs to the ad, not to a product.
  • Sale price annotation — the original price that Google may show crossed out next to the lower sale price on a product listing, built from price and sale_price in the feed.

Right and wrong readings

  • Wrong: “With the occasion set to Black Friday, the offer can run until Christmas.” Right: once you set an occasion, the redemption dates must fall within that occasion’s date range.
  • Wrong: “The countdown is part of the promotion asset.” Right: the asset has no countdown field. The countdown lives in the ad text.

Sources