Set up the announcement bar in SalePilot

The announcement bar is the only storefront-dressing feature in SalePilot — a countdown bar that shows on your storefront while a sale event runs, then disappears automatically once it reverts. This guide covers everything needed to write its text, preview it, save it, and finish the one-time theme setup it needs to actually appear on your store.

The announcement bar lives in the "Storefront" section of a sale event's detail page, from the Shopify App Store (once installed).

Step 1: Open the "Announcement bar" section

On a sale event's detail page, scroll to the "Storefront" section and find the "Announcement bar" card. Its intro text explains what it does: "Show a countdown bar on your storefront while the sale runs — it turns on when the sale applies and off when it reverts."

Step 2: Write the bar's text

In the "Announcement bar text" field, write the message you want shoppers to see. The field's placeholder shows an example: "Summer Sale — ends in [time-left_DD:HH:MM:SS]!"

To show a live, counting-down clock inside your message, insert the token [time-left_DD:HH:MM:SS] anywhere in the text. SalePilot replaces this token with a real countdown (days, hours, minutes, seconds) on your storefront. You can use plain text with no token at all if you don't want a countdown — the token is optional, not required.

Step 3: Check the live preview

Directly under the text field, a live preview box shows how your message will render, updating as you type. A note underneath the preview clarifies its limits: "Preview of the copy only. Font, colors and height come from your theme — set them under Online Store → Themes → Customize → App embeds → SalePilot bar."

In other words, the preview shows you the wording and the countdown behavior, but not the final visual styling — that's controlled separately in your theme editor (see Step 5).

Step 4: Save the announcement bar

Click "Save announcement bar" to save your text.

Once saved, a status line appears showing: - the current saved text, - whether the bar is currently active or inactive, - and its end time.

While the bar is inactive (before the sale is applied), the status line reads: "This text is saved but not on your storefront yet. The bar appears when the sale is applied, and disappears when it reverts."

Step 5: Do the one-time theme setup (only needed once per store)

The announcement bar's font, colors, size, position, and whether it sticks while scrolling are not set inside SalePilot — they're set in your theme editor, as a Shopify "app embed." This setup only needs to be done once; it survives future theme switches.

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Online Store → Themes → Customize.
2. In the theme editor, open App embeds.
3. Turn on "SalePilot bar."
4. From there, set its colors, font, size, position, and whether it sticks while scrolling. No code editing is required.

No separate "go live" step for the bar

You don't need to do anything else to turn the bar on or off — it's tied directly to the sale event's own status. As the in-app copy states: "It doesn't need any action from you here: it switches on automatically the moment you click Apply (or the sale starts on schedule) in 'Go live' below, and switches off on revert."

That means: - The bar switches on automatically the moment the sale applies — whether you click "Apply from discount rules" yourself, or the sale starts on its own schedule. - The bar switches off automatically the moment the sale reverts.

There is no independent "publish" or "go live" button for the announcement bar itself — its on/off state always follows the sale event's own status.