How-To: When and How Businesses Should Implement Promo Codes to Attract Customers

On the Eve of Black Friday, ecommerce businesses prepare various offers to actively engage their audience. How can you stand out among competitors during the peak season, increase conversion rates, and boost repeat purchases? We share in this article.

A Tool for Engaging Your Audience

A promo code is an effective way to activate your audience, proven successful across different types of businesses, products, and customer demographics. It offers the following key advantages:

• Quick implementation: Promo codes can be easily added to any campaign.
• Increased engagement: Exclusive, personalized offers capture users' interest and motivate them to buy now, as well as to continue following the brand’s promotions.
• Higher average order value and repeat sales: Attractive offers encourage customers to purchase more and make repeat purchases.

Use Cases and Benefits for Retail

Let’s explore the most effective scenarios for using such offers.

Holidays and special occasions. New Year, Christmas, Black Friday—these are times when people actively seek out good deals. Promo codes tied to these events can include discounts, free shipping, or gifts with purchase.

Benefits for businesses:

• Audience engagement
• Increased sales volume
• Higher average order value
• Strengthened customer loyalty

Seasonal promotions and sales. These offers motivate customers to take advantage of the last chance to buy products at favorable prices. Promo codes can enhance the impact of sales by offering additional discounts or special pricing for orders above a certain amount.

Benefits for businesses:

• Faster inventory turnover
• Growth in new customers seeking discounts
• Attraction of hesitant buyers

Launching new products. In this case, promo codes can serve as a tool to quickly grab customers' attention. Using time-limited promo codes creates a sense of urgency, encouraging consumers to act faster and purchase the product before others.

Benefits for businesses:

• Increased interest in new products
• Encourages customers to make early purchases
• Emphasizes exclusivity and increased loyalty

Low season. When demand for products decreases, promo codes can help reactivate customers. Special discounts for a limited time motivate consumers to buy, even if they weren’t actively searching for those products and might not have purchased without the discounts.

Benefits for businesses:

• Stimulating purchases during slow periods
• Maintaining customer interest during low demand
• Optimizing sales throughout the year

Reactivating inactive customers. If part of your audience hasn’t made a purchase for an extended period, a promo code is a great way to remind them of your brand and bring them back. Offering a special discount or bonus can be especially appealing to those who are hesitant to buy or have forgotten about your brand.

Benefits for businesses:

• Improved retention rates
• Increased sales
• Enhanced loyalty

How to Use Promo Codes Effectively

To ensure the tool delivers the expected results, it’s important to use effective strategies. Below are the key elements for its successful implementation.

Audience Segmentation

One of the most critical aspects of effective promo code use is accurately defining your target audience. Segmentation helps increase the relevance of offers and avoid situations when discount codes don’t achieve the desired outcome. Let’s look at the most relevant segments for using this tool:

• New customers: Offer welcome promo codes or exclusive discounts on their first purchase to attract them.
• Loyal customers: To encourage repeat purchases among these customers, create special offers and provide them with promo codes for discounts or free shipping, thereby fostering their loyalty.
• Cart abandoners: A promo code for the viewed or similar products can motivate this audience to return and complete their purchase.

Interest or behavior-based segments: Use data on previous purchases and customer interests to create targeted offers that are more likely to engage buyers.

Promo Code Expiration

Setting the right expiration period for a promo code additionally encourages users to act and prevents situations when they switch to other things and forget. Here are several strategies for setting optimal expiration periods:

• Limited time: Promo codes valid for a short period, such as 24 or 48 hours, create a sense of urgency and motivate customers to make a purchase as soon as possible.
• Event-based: Tie the promo code’s validity to specific events or activities. For example, a discount might be valid until February 14th or only during an event period.

Personalizing Offers

Personalization is a key factor in modern retail, allowing you to increase conversions and retain customers. Using customer data, you can create unique offers with promo codes that meet each customer’s individual needs:

• Based on previous purchases: Use this information to offer promo codes for similar or complementary products. For example, if a customer bought sports equipment, offer a promo code for sports apparel.
• Based on behavioral data: Utilize algorithms that analyze customers’ current behavior on your website or app and automatically generate promo codes based on their actions (such as viewing a specific product, adding to cart, etc.). Learn how promo codes enhance trigger workflow effectiveness in the case study of Aviatsiya Halychyny.

Individual discounts: Create personalized promo codes considering the customer’s birthday, registration anniversary, or another personal milestone. This increases emotional attachment to the brand.

Case Study: Multiplex—Flexibility in Setting Up Promo Codes

In the omnichannel CDP Yespo, you can configure the sending of promo codes with numerous flexible parameters. You can choose the conditions for providing a promo code even for complex, time-limited workflows. This was the request from the Multiplex cinema chain.

Task: Implement a Promo Code With a Time Limit

In early February 2023, Multiplex, together with Uklon, launched a Valentine’s Day promotion. The taxi ordering service offered movie fans a promo code with a 40 UAH discount on their next ride. The offer was subject to certain conditions: the cinema ticket had to be for sessions between February 11th and 14th, 2023, from 6:00 PM to midnight.

Multiplex already had ticket purchase email workflows set up in the Yespo CDP, so our task was to update them and add a time check.

We started by updating the email template, adding information about the promo code and the conditions for obtaining it.

Technical Settings 

The next steps involved technical configurations on the Yespo side, including adding promo codes, sending events to the system, and updating the workflow.

Adding the Promo Code 

Yespo CDP offers seven methods for adding promo codes to emails. For Multiplex, we chose the method that best suited our needs—uploading a CSV file. This option is convenient for sending trigger messages—at the moment the message is sent, the workflow will retrieve the next promo code from the list. The system ensures that each promo code is used only once.

Sending Events 

All workflows in the account are event-based, so to implement the Uklon promotion, the client needed to send an additional event parameter, SessionTimeIso, with the session’s date and time. This way, everyone who purchases tickets for evening screenings between February 11-14 will receive a promo code from Uklon.

Updating the Workflow 

Previously, Multiplex’s transactional message workflow looked like this:

1. Adding the contact to a group based on which cinema they purchased the ticket from (we use this data for segmenting promotional emails).
2. Sending a message with ticket details and information about the session’s location and time.
3. Checking the OptionalClientId parameter to determine if the customer has the Multiplex app installed. If yes, send a mobile push notification; if not, send a Viber message.

For the new workflow, we added a date and time parameter check block, which allowed us to send an email with a promo code to everyone who purchased tickets for evening shows during the period of February 11–14.

Additional Emails 

Everything was set up and launched by February 11, 2023, but the project team found out that some visitors had already purchased tickets in advance for sessions eligible for the promo code. As a result, they did not receive the promotional offer from Multiplex and Uklon.

We then suggested identifying customers who should have received the promo code according to the promotion’s conditions and creating a separate email campaign for them. For this matter, we used advanced segmentation available in Yespo CDP. We identified contacts who purchased tickets for evening screenings between February 11-14 before February 11 by specifying these parameters when creating the segment.

After that, we created a separate email campaign containing only the promo code information.

The workflow for these customers was simplified since we only needed to send the promo code:

As a result of this campaign, we sent out over 1,100 promo codes. Multiplex appreciated the convenience and flexibility of this tool, and a few weeks later, they came back to us with a request to implement another activity using promo codes.

Conclusion

Promo codes are an effective tool for retail. They allow you to quickly activate your audience, increase sales, and enhance customer loyalty. Thoughtful segmentation, setting optimal expiration periods, and personalizing offers make promo codes even more relevant and attractive to consumers. Additionally, flexible settings help expand the range of promotional mechanics and build the most beneficial interactions.

Fill out the form below, and our team will get in touch to share with you how your business can benefit from promo codes and other tools in Yespo CDP.

Special Request Inline