Give every promotional ad an end date when you create it, using campaign end dates, automated rules or extension schedules, and after each promotion check every place the offer appeared, including extensions, Gmail ads, Facebook and Bing Ads.

An offer that outlived itself

The holiday sale ended on Saturday, Christmas Eve. On Boxing Day the banner came off the website and prices went back to normal.

The ads are still running. A search ad promises a discount until December 24, a sitelink still says Holiday sale, and a banner on other websites shows last week's price to people who visited the website in November.

Every click on them is paid for, and every person who clicks arrives at a page that no longer says what the ad promised.

It happens after almost every promotion. The days between Christmas and New Year make it likelier, because the person who would pause the ads is away.

Where offers hide in an account

The second gets missed most. Pausing the promotional ads leaves sitelinks and callouts attached to every other ad in the campaign, still announcing the sale.

What an expired offer costs

The direct cost is the click, paid for whether the visitor stays or not. Most do not, once the page fails to match.

The larger cost is trust. Someone who clicks an ad promising one price and finds a higher one feels misled, and some will say so, at the counter, by email or in a review.

There is a legal side too. The Competition Act prohibits misleading representations, and an ad offering a price you no longer give can be one.

None of this is legal advice; a lawyer can say whether a given ad crosses the line.

Why it keeps happening

Ads are written under pressure, before the offer starts. Ending them has no deadline, and nobody asks for it.

The person who writes the ads is often not the person who decides when the sale ends, and the website and the ad account are changed by different people.

And promotions end at awkward times: a weekend, a holiday, the last day before the office closes.

Set the end when you set the start

The fix is to schedule the end of a promotion on the day you create it, so stopping depends on nobody's memory.

In AdWords, give promotional ads a separate campaign with an end date. When the date passes, the whole campaign stops.

Where promotional ads share a campaign with others, an automated rule can pause them at a set time. Sitelinks and callouts can carry their own start and end dates.

AdWords can also count down to the end of a sale in the ad text itself, and an ad built that way stops appearing once the date has passed.

On Facebook, give each ad set a schedule with an end date. Boosted posts already have a duration; check that it matches the offer.

A worked example

A dog training school with two instructors teaches puppy and obedience classes in a leased unit beside a pet store. This month it sold gift certificates for its six-week puppy course at a holiday price, until December 24.

The offer ran in AdWords as two new ads with a sitelink and a callout, in a Facebook ad and in a remarketing banner.

Yesterday a man with a Christmas puppy clicked a search ad that still promised the holiday price, found the full price on the course page, and emailed to ask why.

The Facebook ad had stopped on its own, because it was set up with an end date. The AdWords ads had not: they sat in an ordinary campaign, and the sitelink and callout were attached to every ad in it.

The owner honoured the price for him, paused the ads and removed the extensions within the hour.

Her next promotion will run in its own campaign with an end date, its extensions will carry the same date, and a reminder for the following morning will prompt a search of every account.

The page behind the ad

Whatever the ads do, the landing page will receive late visitors: from old emails, shared posts and ads you missed.

Do not delete it or let it fall back to an error. Change it to say the offer ended on its date, and show what is available now at the regular price.

A visitor told plainly that they missed it is far less annoyed than one who has to work it out from a price that does not match.

A check after every promotion

On the morning after any offer ends, go through every place it ran. In AdWords, filter the ads and the extensions for the offer's words, its price and its date.

Then check Gmail ads, image ads, Facebook and any Bing Ads campaigns copied from AdWords, since a pause in one account does not always reach the other.

Finish with the website itself: the home page banner, pinned social posts and any page that still mentions the offer.

Keep everyday ads alongside

Promotional ads should run beside ads that never mention a date or a price. When the promotion stops, the account carries on without a gap.

Write the everyday ads first and the promotional ones second, in their own campaign. It is easier to see what has to stop when it all sits in one place.

The counter-case

An account with no dated offers, only ads about services and the area served, runs little risk of this. A check every few months is enough.

Some offers genuinely last until stock runs out. Those need someone watching the stock, and ad text that says while stock lasts rather than a date.

For any promotion with a date or a price, though, the end belongs in the account on the day the ads are made, and a check belongs in the calendar for the day after.

Before the next promotion

  1. Put promotional ads in their own campaign.
  2. Give that campaign an end date.
  3. Date every extension that mentions the offer.
  4. Schedule Facebook ads with the same end.
  5. Change the landing page when the offer ends.
  6. Search every account the next morning.
  7. Keep everyday ads running alongside.

Step three is the one that catches what pausing ads leaves behind. Extensions outlive the ads they were written for, because they are attached to everything else in the campaign.

The inbox ads that often carry seasonal offers are covered in ads in the Gmail inbox.

Frequently asked questions

Why do ads keep running after a sale?

Because ads are created under deadline but nothing prompts anyone to end them, and promotions often end on weekends or holidays when the person who would pause them is away.

Where do expired offers hide in AdWords?

In ad text, and in sitelinks, callouts and price extensions attached to whole campaigns. Pausing the promotional ads leaves those extensions showing with every other ad.

How do I make ads stop on time?

Put them in their own campaign with an end date, or use an automated rule to pause them. Give extensions their own end dates, and schedule Facebook ad sets the same way.

Is an ad with an expired price a legal problem?

It can be. The Competition Act prohibits misleading representations, and promising a price you no longer offer can be one. For a specific ad, ask a lawyer.

What should the landing page say afterwards?

That the offer ended on its date, and what is available now at the regular price. Never let it fall back to an error page.

Does pausing in AdWords pause Bing Ads?

Not directly. Campaigns copied into Bing Ads run there on their own unless a scheduled import copies changes across, so check both accounts and Facebook after every promotion.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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