6 Flash Sale Banners That Drive Urgent Sales (Examples & Templates Included)
A flash sale banner is an effective way to announce your unique, time-sensitive discount deal. It’s a banner, after all—so it’s hard not to miss it. Here are all the best practices, flash sale banner examples, and templates that you’ll need.
Flash sales have been known to increase an online store's monthly gross merchandise value (GMV) by as much as 64,000%.
The secret behind this success? A unique, compelling, urgent discount deal.
But you know what they say: if you don’t market it well, people won’t buy from you. Making flash sale banners that announce the sale a crucial piece of the puzzle.
So, what makes an effective flash sale banner? Let’s talk about it in this post.
We’ll cover what a flash sale banner is and how you can create a sales-generating deal. We’ll also give you flash sale banner design best practices backed by examples. And for good measure, we’ll throw in flash sale sticky bar templates to help you get started today 🙌
A flash sale banner is a signboard on your site announcing an exclusive, limited-time flash sale on all or specific products. Typically, it’s an image or overlay shared at the top of the page with the aim of getting visitors’ attention.
But, it can also show up at the bottom after visitors have scrolled down a bit as this flash sale offer over at Wired magazine does:
Its benefit? It sticks to the top of your page and stays there no matter where your visitor navigates on your site (unless you choose otherwise). This way, if a visitor misses the flash sale announcement on your first page, they can still catch it on the next one(s).
Quick flash sale best practices
Now for how to run a successful flash sale. The following tips will help:
Make it exclusive. What separates a flash sale from a regular one is its unique nature. Offer a higher price reduction than usual, for example. Or give discount on a product line that’s usually full price.
Instill FOMO. FOMO marketing is the key to a sales-boosting flash sale. Inducing a genuine fear of missing out among buyers puts them into overdrive, wanting to shop faster to avoid missing the deadline or their favorites running out of stock. Additionally, words like "don’t miss out," "buy today while stocks last" are great at driving FOMO.
Design an on-brand banner. Marketing your flash sale right is an essential aspect for getting your sales to blow up. It’s why your flash sale banner needs to be well-designed and well-timed to grab your audience’s attention. But, while you need a catchy banner to grab attention, you don’t want a foreign-colored one that’s off-brand. Such a banner can come across as inauthentic.
Write clear copy. Your copy needs to encourage action—action verbs (example click, shop, read) and FOMO-inducing words are, therefore, welcome. To add, make sure your copy is simple and clear. Refrain from using fancy language and answer what’s on sale, how much the discount is for, and how long it’ll last.
Have a call-to-action. Include a button or link in your announcement banner that takes visitors to the relevant flash sale landing page or section of your site.
6 flash sale banner examples
Want to see all these best practices in action? Here are six real-life flash sale banner examples to help inspire you:
On educational platforms like these, you’d often see a price cut discount. But, Masterclass introduces a twist by offering two courses’ memberships for the price of one:
Their banner is attention-grabbing and on-brand—thanks to its color, which is from their color palette and breaks the monotony of the black color theme to grab attention.
The copy is simple and comes with a CTA: "offer ends soon." One look and interested folks can tell they’ve to click this button for more information.
2. Maje’s up to 80% off flash sale banner
This flash sale banner example from Maje also takes a clutter-free, straightforward approach:
White font on a black sticky bar makes it easy to read.
More importantly, the flash sale sticky bar’s color is thoughtfully selected to go with while standing out against all the pictures below it. Had they picked another color, for instance, beige, chances are it would have blended into the images—not standing out as much as a banner needs to.
As for the copy? It tells exactly what the sale offers and when it ends. Plus, there’s an action word ‘shop now’ that pushes people to buy right away. Note there’s an underline under the CTA. This indicates where buyers need to click.
3. Nectar Sleep’s countdown timer flash sale sticky bar
This flash sale banner does an epic job at triggering FOMO with a countdown timer. The live timer instills a sense of urgency by showing visitors they’ve little time left to take action:
On the other hand, the copy clearly specifies the deal: $100 off with some (specific) freebies, making it an exclusive, not-to-be-missed flash sale.
And just to keep confusion at bay, they’ve shared a link to their terms and conditions.
Also, see that the flash sale banner’s color is branded. With the white header under it, Nectar’s brand blue stands out, therefore, catching eyeballs.
Finally, there’s one another thing they do differently: they capture leads with the banner by asking interested folks for their email. Talk about hitting two birds with one stone!
The banner’s color is a catchy maroon that stands out on the white with a blue website theme.
Not to mention, the copy is extremely clear, relying on as few words as possible: "one-day Christmas deal." It’s perfect for those gift shopping early for Christmas.
5. Autodesk’s last day sticky bar banner
This flash sale from Autodesk offers discounts on specific products, so it’s highly targeted and exclusive in that sense:
The banner’s color easily stands out on the site, and the copy is clear about what’s on discount.
The best part? The “last day” tag is in bold font. Since online readers tend to read from the top left, this is a strategic place to add a FOMO-triggering tag on the banner.
6. Resident Home’s 20% off flash sale sticky bar
This sticky bar also offers a unique deal: 20% off on a particular product. To clarify further, the copy informs the discount is applied on checkout—subtly indicating folks to start selecting their product(s):
Masooma is a B2B writer for SaaS who has worked with awesome publications like Hootsuite, Vimeo, Trello, Sendinblue, and Databox among others. You’ll usually find her writing in-depth content, making to-do lists, or reading a fantasy novel.
Explore more campaigns
Get more inspiration from examples of other popular conversion marketing campaigns
.svg)
