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Squarespace Announcement Bar, Pop-Up and Cookie Banner Explained

The Squarespace announcement bar is a strip of text, with an optional link, that sits at the top of every page of your site, and you switch it on in the Announcement bar panel. It's available on the Core, Plus and Advanced plans, and it's the quiet option next to the promotional pop-up and the cookie banner.

Here's the catch. The bar shows on every page except cover pages, and you can't limit it to particular pages. If a visitor closes it with the X, it stays closed for them. The only way to bring it back for those visitors is to edit the bar and save it again. So when your message changes, a sale starting or new opening hours, edit and save rather than leaving the old text up.

These three are easy to mix up because they all sit on top of your content. They do different jobs, and you can run the announcement bar and a pop-up together.

FeatureWhat it's for, as of October 2026Where it shows
Announcement barA short message and link: a sale, a promotion, changed hoursTop of every page except cover pages
Promotional pop-upA newsletter signup or up to two buttonsOnly the first page a visitor lands on
Cookie bannerTelling visitors about cookies and offering consent optionsYour live site, but not while you're logged in

How to add the announcement bar

  1. Open the Announcement bar panel and switch on Enable Announcement Bar.
  2. Type your message. You can make words bold or italic and add text links.
  3. To make the whole bar clickable, click Attach Link and add a web address, a page or a file.
  4. Click Save to publish it.

In the Squarespace app, tap More, then Pages, scroll to Marketing tools and tap Announcement Bar. The steps from there are the same. To turn it off, switch the toggle off in the same panel and save.

Styling it to match your site

On version 7.1, the bar uses your site's fonts and colours unless you set them separately. For the font, open Site styles, go to Fonts, then Assign Styles, and under Announcement Bar pick Text. For colour, the bar usually follows your header's colour theme. If the header is transparent, it takes the theme of the section below, and if the header's hidden, it follows your site's default theme. Edit that theme's Announcement Bar background and text settings to change it.

On version 7.0, it's simpler: scroll down Site styles to the Announcement Bar tweaks for background colour, text colour and font. If you're adjusting your type across the whole site at the same time, here's how to change fonts in Squarespace.

When the bar disappears for you

If you close the bar yourself while you're logged in, a Reset Visibility button appears at the bottom of the Announcement bar panel. Click it and the bar's back. That button only changes your own view, which makes it handy while you're testing. It doesn't bring the bar back for visitors who closed it; for them, edit and save the bar.

The promotional pop-up

A pop-up appears when someone lands on a page, never when they're leaving. You can only run one at a time, and it shows once, on the first page a visitor lands on, even if you've ticked several pages. Its action is either a newsletter signup or up to two buttons. You choose a timer, a scroll point or both, and it fires on whichever comes first.

Frequency decides when returning visitors see it again: the next day, in 1 week, in 2 weeks, in 30 days or never. Squarespace uses a cookie to spot returning visitors, so someone in a private window can see it on every page they open. After you change the design, click Reset in Display & timing so everyone sees the new version once. For a newsletter pop-up, you can hide it from people who signed up through the pop-up itself, though not from people who joined somewhere else on your site.

There are firm limits. The newsletter action can't collect names or phone numbers, signups can only be stored in Squarespace Email Campaigns, Mailchimp or Google Drive, and pop-ups don't show on member site pages or index sub-pages. They don't take custom code or video files; an animated gif is the workaround. On mobile, the pop-up fills half the screen and images don't show.

Squarespace is also clear that pop-ups can lower your site's ranking in search, especially if they block content on mobile. Its suggestion is a layout that covers only part of the screen. Keep the headline to one sentence and the body to three, or you'll get a scroll bar.

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The cookie banner lives in the Cookies & Data Privacy panel. Switch it on, choose whether to show a Decline all button and a Manage cookies button, edit the labels and disclaimer if you like, and pick a layout for the preferences option: Subfooter, Pill or Hidden. If a visitor accepts all cookies, the banner doesn't come back for 30 days unless they clear their cookies. With Manage cookies on, a subfooter stays for 30 days after they choose, then the banner returns.

Two things trip people up. You won't see the banner while you're logged in, so check it in a private window. And if you turn the banner off but leave non-essential cookies restricted, visitors can't opt in, so some content that relies on those cookies won't work. Squarespace provides sample text but says plainly it may not meet your legal requirements, so get your own policy page and link it from the banner.

If your announcement bar changes every week for a new offer, that's a small, repeating job worth automating. I run AI training and workshops for teams, and help businesses with AI enablement and workflow automation, so the busywork runs itself and people get time back. Most of that work is with SaaS marketing teams and small businesses. Here's how we can work together.

My verdict on the announcement bar

I'd use the announcement bar for anything every visitor should see, like a sale code or changed hours, because it doesn't block content and it's on every page. I'd add a pop-up only for a newsletter signup, set to a partial layout and a sensible frequency. Skip the bar if your message only matters on one page, because you can't target it; put it on that page instead. And if you're copying a landing page to test a new offer, here's how to duplicate a Squarespace page first.

Frequently asked questions

Can I show the Squarespace announcement bar on only one page?

No. It appears on every page of your site except cover pages, and you can't limit it to specific pages.

How do I make the announcement bar come back after closing it?

For yourself, click Reset Visibility at the bottom of the Announcement bar panel. For visitors who closed it, edit the announcement bar and save your changes.

Which Squarespace plans include the announcement bar?

As of October 2026, the announcement bar is available on the Core, Plus and Advanced plans.

Can I run more than one Squarespace pop-up?

No. You can only enable one promotional pop-up at a time. To show another message, add an announcement bar.

Why can't I see my Squarespace cookie banner?

The cookie banner doesn't display while you're logged in. Log out or open your site in a private or incognito window to preview it.

Published and maintained by the Lilach Bullock team, covering marketing, AI and business growth.
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