TL;DR Summary:
Deal Ends Badge: Google’s “3 days left” label appears on eligible Shopping ads when you submit sale data and an expiration date that meets its experimental Deal Ends rules.Eligibility Rules: The badge depends on pricing history, discount depth, and timing, with stricter requirements during holiday shopping season and a requirement that the deal expires within seven days.No Manual Switch: You cannot force the badge on or off, so the main way to qualify is keeping Merchant Center promotion, sale price, and expiration data accurate.How do you get a “3 days left” badge on your Shopping ads? Google published a new help document on August 6, 2026 explaining how its experimental Deal Ends annotations work, and the answer matters right now because the feature can change how shoppers see your prices without you touching your account settings. Deal Ends annotations for Shopping ads pull directly from data you already submit, so the difference between qualifying and missing out often comes down to details you control.
What Deal Ends Annotations for Shopping Ads Actually Show
The annotation places an urgency label, such as “3 days left” or “5 hours left,” under the price on an eligible Product Listing Ad. Google generates this label from promotion and sale price data you already submit through Merchant Center. You do not need a new technical integration to make it work. Google uses the sale expiration date you provide to decide when the badge appears and when it disappears.
Why Google Says This Helps Click-Through Rate
Google states the goal is to increase urgency around offers that are about to end. According to the company, the badges can improve click-through rates and conversions by making expiring deals more visible inside Shopping ads. Google has not published specific performance numbers to confirm the size of this effect, so treat the click-through claim as the company’s stated intent rather than a proven result.
Qualification Rules Behind Deal Ends Annotations for Shopping Ads
Your product’s eligibility depends on the time of year. During the holiday shopping season, Google generally requires a steeper discount, and your price must be the lowest one you have offered in the previous 60 days. Outside the holiday season, the discount threshold drops, and Google checks your pricing history over a shorter period instead of 60 days. In both cases, your deal must expire within seven days. Google also enforces a minimum gap between repeat annotations on the same product, so you cannot keep the badge running back to back without a break.
What You Cannot Control With This Feature
You cannot opt into this feature, and you cannot opt out of it. Google decides eligibility automatically based on your sale expiration dates and pricing history. This is a real limit worth noting: you have no manual switch to turn the badge on for a slow-moving product or off for one you would rather keep quiet. The one lever you do have is data accuracy. Keeping your promotion and sale price information correct, and your sale expiration dates properly configured in Merchant Center, gives you the best chance of qualifying when your pricing already meets Google’s thresholds. Since qualification hinges on continuously accurate pricing and expiration data rather than a one-time setup, this is really an ongoing monitoring task, not something you check once and forget. Tools built for this kind of tracking, such as Screpy, are designed to flag issues in your feed data before they cause a product to fall out of eligibility.
Where This Leaves Retailers Right Now
Google calls this feature experimental, and the company has not announced a rollout timeline or an opt-out mechanism. That means the rules described in the new help document can still change. For now, Deal Ends annotations for Shopping ads reward retailers who already run genuine, time-limited discounts and report them accurately.
Check that your Merchant Center promotions and sale price data are accurate and that your sale expiration dates are set correctly, since this is the only factor you can influence. Watch for further updates from Google, since the feature remains experimental and its rules can shift. Review your pricing history against the 60-day and shorter-window thresholds described above to see whether your current deals already qualify. If you’re juggling promotion data across several product feeds, a consolidated monitoring dashboard like Screpy’s platform can help you keep tabs on pricing accuracy and site health in one place instead of checking each Merchant Center setting separately.
