Promotions

Promotions are designed to assign special pricing to products, product types, or shipping. Promotions can be designated through either coupon codes or applied automatically. Promotions, unlike pricing groups, are meant to expire and are not tied to specific accounts.

 

Add a New Promotion

To create a new promotion from the Ultra Commerce toolbar:

  • Click Marketing.
  • Select Promotions from the drop-down.

 

This will bring up the Promotions listing page.

 

  • Click the +Add Promotion button in the upper right corner of the Promotion listing screen.

The Create Promotion screen will appear.

 

  • Set Active to Yes or No. It defaults to No while the promotion is being created. Once created be sure to change this to Yes when it is ready to go.
  • Enter a Promotion Name that clearly describes the promotion (for example “July 4th Free Shipping” for a free shipping promotion taking place around July 4th).
  • Enter a Site if the promotion applies to a specific site.
  • Fill in the Priority field with a number. It defaults to 1. If an order qualifies for multiple promotions this determines the one that gets applied first.

Initial Period fields:

  • Set a Start Date/Time and End Date/Time between which the promotion will take place. If you leave these fields blank, the promotion will have a forever promotion period so it would not expire.
  • Max. Use Count - If this promotion is limited (for example, you only want the first ten customers to get the early-bird special) then enter the maximum (say, 10) here.
  • Max. Account Use Count - If this promotion is limited by person (i.e. only once per customer), then enter the maximum (say, 1) here.
    • Max. Use and Max. Account Use can be used together or separately. For example: first ten orders, only once per customer; first ten orders, but one customer could place all ten orders; unlimited orders but only once per customer, etc. If you do not want to limit access to the promotion, simply leave these boxes empty and the promotion will remain active for all orders placed during the appointed time.
    • Once a promotion has been created, it can be rendered inactive or active, renamed, and have a summary and description added to it via tabs on the promotion’s page. 
  • Click Save.

 

Saving the promotion will bring you to the Promotion Detail screen, which will indicate that your promotion has been successfully saved but that there are currently no rewards attached -- that is, your BOGO Weekend is currently just a weekend. Time to add the BOGO.

 

Promotion Periods tab

This is where you can view your list of promotion periods and access them to edit/add rewards and qualifiers since each period can have distinct rewards and qualifiers. When you create a new promotion a promotion period is created during this process .

From the Promotion detail screen:

  • Expand the Promotion Periods tab. 

In the promotion below, there is a start and end date selected for the promotion period.


 

View a promotion period detail screen

The individual promotion period detail screen is where you set the rewards and qualifiers for your promotion. You need to set Rewards and Qualifiers for each promotion period.

To view a specific Promotion period detail screen on the Promotion Period tab:

  • Click the pencil icon on the right of the desired promotion period.

The Promotion period detail screen will display. Many of  the data in these fields were added when the promotion was first created and can be edited if necessary here.

 

  • Add a promotion period name in the field if desired.
  • Check over the fields that you filled in previously - such as the start and end date/times and max use count and max account use count and change if necessary.
  • Qualifier Logical Operator- Choose between And/Or it is set by default to Or. This refers to when you have multiple Promotion Qualifiers for a promotion reward. If Or is selected, that means the reward applies if one of the qualifiers is met, if And is selected, both qualifiers must be met for the reward to apply.

Add another Promotion Period to a Promotion

Promotions can be re-run or re-created. If you plan on using your promotion multiple times, this can be accomplished by adding a promotion period under the Promotion Period tab. New periods do not currently inherit rewards and qualifiers from previous periods, so you would need to set these up for within each promotion period as explained later in this section of the user guide.

A promotion period cannot be edited after it has ended, but you can add a new one.

If your promotion period has expired or you would like to set up multiple promotion periods in advance:

  • Click +Add Promotion Period to add a new Promotion Period to the Promotion.

The Create Promotion Period modal will display.

 

Fill in the fields and then:

  • Click Save.

A new Promotion period will display on the Promotion Periods tab of the promotion.

     

    Add a Promotion Reward

    On the Promotion Period detail screen you will see a couple tabs: Promotion Rewards and Promotion Qualifiers.

    You will see that there aren't any Promotion Rewards currently attached to the promotion.

    • Expand the Promotion Rewards tab

     

    From this tab you can add in a Promotion Reward. Find the +Create button. The guide will be going over how to add in promotion rewards for Merchandise, however, below is a list of all of the types of rewards that can be created.

    • Click the +Create button and select from a drop-down of possible rewards.
      • Create Promotion Reward Merchandise: Use this to create rewards for merchandise products
        • Example: 20% off all shampoos
      • Create Promotion Reward Subscription: Use this to create rewards for subscription products.
        • Example: $10 off all subscriptions for the month of July
      • Create Promotion Reward Content Access: Use this to create rewards for content access products.
        • Example: Student discount on content access to paywall-locked areas of the site
      • Create Promotion Reward Fulfillment: Use this to create rewards for Fulfillments.
        • Example: Free shipping on any order over $50
      • Create Promotion Reward Order: Use this to create a reward for Orders.
        • Example: 20% off your order with a coupon code.
      • Create Promotion Reward Can Place Order
        • This is a rarer use case, designed for orders where specific qualifications must be met in order for the order to be processed (usually a specific item must be added to cart)
      • Create Promotion Reward Sku
        • A reward sku would refer to an item that is automatically added to the cart once a qualifier is met.

     

    Create a Merchandise Reward:

    • Click on the Promotion Reward Merchandise and a pop-up will appear.

     

    When Promotion Reward Merchandise is selected (and many of the other options), you will see the following options:

    • Discount Type
      • Percentage Off - use this if your promotion involves getting a percentage off, from 0 to 100.
        • Example: "Buy One, Get One 50% Off," this field would have a value of 50.
      • Amount Off - use this if your promotion involves getting a fixed amount off.
        • Example: "Spend fifty dollars, save ten dollars off your order," this field would have an amount of 10.
      • Fixed Amount - use this if your promotion involves paying a flat price.
        • Example: "Buy three hats for twenty dollars" would be a fixed amount discount with an Amount of 20.
    • Amount - the percentage, discount, or price of the reward (dictated by discount type)
    • Rounding Rule - determines how the discount will be applied if prices are not exact dollar amounts. For example, if you have a percentage off discount and would like the final price not to be messy, you might dictate that the price round to the nearest dollar or .99. For more information, please visit the rounding rules portion of the Settings Manager guide.
    • Max. Use Per Order - use this to limit the number of times the promotion can be applied to a single order. This number should always be larger than maximum use per item.
    • Max. Use Per Item - use this to limit the number of times the promotion can be applied to a given item within an order, up to the maximum use per order.
    • Max. Use Per Qualification - Vital for promotions where multiples of an item need to be purchased in order for a discount to be applied. Literally, "amount of times this promotion can be applied each time someone meets the criteria."
      • Example: "Buy One, Get One Free." When a person buys two shirts, a 100% discount is applied -- but only to one of those shirts. The visitor qualifies for the discount by buying two shirts, and for that qualification, one 100% discount is applied. If you don't enter "1" into the box, the system will see the qualification and apply the 100% off to both shirts.
    • Click Save.

    Once you have saved your Promotion Reward, the Promotion Reward-Merchandise detail screen will appear. There must be a filter defined on either the Included skus or the Excluded Skus collection in order for the reward to work. This is explained below.

     

    The Promotion Rewards detail screen has tabs - Stacking, Skus and Eligible Price Groups tabs- that allow you to determine how this promotion will apply to orders.

    In order to start setting up the Rewards:

    • Click the pencil Edit button at the top right of the Promotion Reward - Merchandise screen. The screen will now be in edit mode.

    Stacking tab

    This is where you can control what other rewards can or can not be combined with your reward.

    • Expand the Stacking tab.

     

    There are two columns:

    • Included Merchandise Rewards - Check off the rewards that will be eligible to be stacked with the reward. The number that was included in the Priority field when you first created the promotions will determine the order in which the promotions are stacked.
    • Excluded Order Rewards - Check off the rewards that will be excluded from combining with this reward.

    Skus tab

    The skus tab is where the Included Skus in the Reward are selected. If you wanted to exclude Skus, these excluded skus would be added here.

     

    • Click the filter icon to open the filter modal.
    • Select Sku Code from the Select from Sku drop down.
    • If it is a specific sku or group of skus that the promotion applies to, set Condition to Equals.
    • In the Value field put in the desired Sku.
    • When you are finished, click Save.

    Eligible Price Groups tab

    If you wanted only certain Price groups to be eligible for a discount, you could select them from this tab.

     

    Create a Fulfillment Reward

    Fulfillment is most often associated with shipping charges. Fulfillment Rewards can be percentage off, amount off, or fixed amount, with the same Rounding Rule options.

    In the example below, the promotion reward that was created for the promotion period is a fulfillment promotion reward and the discount is 100% off fulfillment of an order. The promotion qualifier is Order.

     

    To edit the promotion reward:

    • Click the pencil icon to the right of the fulfillment promotion reward of the promotion period.

    The Promotion Reward- Fulfillment detail will appear.

    • The Discount Type drop down is percentage off and the Amount is 100.
    • Then click the Fulfillment Methods, Shipping Methods, and Shipping Address Zones tabs and selecting the appropriate items to which the reward can apply.

     

    If, for example, a free shipping promotion only applied to Standard shipping in the US (but to all products that you ship) you’d select Shipping from the Fulfillment Methods tab; the applicable option(s) from the Shipping Methods tab; and US from the Shipping Address Zones tab. (Address Zones must first be setup under settings for this to apply). As with Merchandise rewards you can also select if the rewards apply to certain Price Groups by selecting them on the Price Groups tab.

     

    Create Subscription Reward:

    Creating a Subscription reward is similar to creating a reward for merchandise, however, there is a field called

    • Applicable Subscription Term - (Both, Initial, Renewal) - this determines whether this promotion can be used for new (first-time) subscribers, current subscribers looking to renew, or both.

    Once you have saved the newly created Subscription reward you can set the Skus and Eligible Price Groups for the reward.

     

    Create Order Reward

    Create Sku Reward

     

    Content Access Promotion

     

    Can Place Order Promotion

    This is a rarer use case, designed for orders where specific qualifications must be met in order for the order to be processed (usually a specific item must be added to cart).

    Add Promotion Qualifier

    Qualifiers, or, "What does someone have to do to get my promotion?"

    Before explaining about Promotion Qualifiers, it should be noted that in most cases, Promotion Qualifiers will be unnecessary. For instance, if you are giving 10% everything in your shopping cart, as long as something is in the cart, the promotion should apply. Additionally, if the promotion reward was setup to apply only to a specific product, setting up a qualifier is often unnecessary, as the promotion has already been filtered to only apply to that product.
     

    With the above said, creating a Promotion Qualifier will not hinder your ability to set up any promotion correctly. As you become more familiar with Ultra Commerce's promotion engine, you will discover multiple ways of setting up the same promotion.

    In order to add a Promotion Qualifier, from the Promotion listing page (select Promotions from the Product drop-down on the Ultra Commerce toolbar)

    • Click the pencil icon to the right of the desired promotion.
    • Next, expand the Promotion Periods tab.
    • Click the pencil icon of the desired promotion period and a new screen will appear.

     

     

    There are five kinds of Promotion Qualifiers available within Ultra Commerce (any of which can be added by clicking + Create):

    • Create Promotion Qualifier Merchandise
    • Create Promotion Qualifier Subscription
    • Create Promotion Qualifier Content Access
    • Create Promotion Qualifier Fulfillment
    • Create Promotion Qualifier Order

    When Merchandise Qualifier is selected (and many of the other options), you will see the following options:

     

    Merchandise Qualifier, Subscription Qualifiers and Content Access Qualifiers .

    Here's a quick rundown of the options you have available:

    • Minimum Item Qty. The minimum number of items you must have in your cart to trigger the reward
      • Example: "Buy-one-get-one (free, discounted, etc.) promotion," this value would be two;
    • Maximum Item Qty. The maximum number of items you can have in your cart before you no longer qualify for the promotion. Used when encouraging small quantities per customer.
    • Minimum Item Price. The minimum price of items that will trigger the reward
      • Example: The discount only applies to more expensive items.
    • Maximum Item Price. The maximum price of items that will trigger the reward; for example, if your discount does not apply to more expensive items.
    • Reward Matching Type (Sku, Product, Product Type, Brand). If the discount should only be applied to matching products/brands/etc., select that here. For example, if the reward is set to apply to a brand, then only items with that brand will be used to determine whether the cart qualifies to trigger the reward.
      • Example: You are selling Pepsi and Coke, buy-one-get-one-free. If....
    • Qualifier Cache Duration (in seconds)
    Situation Procedure
    the customer can buy any Pepsi product and get any Pepsi or Coke product for free match by product type (say, soda)
    buy any Pepsi product and get only another Pepsi product (or buy a Coke, get a Coke) free match by brand
    buy any Pepsi product and get only another of that product (say, buy a Mountain Dew Code Red, get another Code Red) free match by product
    Code Red is a sku of Mountain Dew rather than a separate product match by sku

    On the next page, as with Merchandise Rewards, you can assign the qualifier to product types, products, skus, brands, and options. Ultra Commerce will compare the items chosen here with the items chosen under the Reward based on the reward matching type (if chosen) and calculate whether the items in the cart qualify for a given reward on that basis. If no items are selected, the qualifier will simply apply the min/max quantity/price and matching type settings for the entire cart.

     

    Fulfillment Qualifiers.

     

    Here's a quick rundown of the options you have available:

    • Minimum Fulfillment Weight. If only fulfillments of a certain weight are eligible for the reward, enter the minimum weight here.
    • Maximum Weight. If only fulfillments of a certain weight are eligible for the reward, enter the maximum weight here.
    • Fulfillment Qualifiers are usually used for Fulfillment Rewards -- for example, free shipping may only be available for orders weighing under a certain amount, or you may have two different rewards for lighter or heavier orders (each would be dictated by a separate qualifier and defined by different minimum and maxium weights).

    On the next page, as with Fulfillment Rewards, you can assign the qualifier for fulfillment methods, shipping methods, and shipping address zones. Otherwise all shipping method rewards will be considered qualifying as long as they meet the weight parameters.

    Order Qualifier.

    Here's a quick rundown of the options you have available:

    • Minimum Order Qty. Used if the reward only applies to orders which have crossed a minimum item threshold (for example, free shipping on orders of four or more shirts would have a value of 4 here).
    • Maximum Order Qty. Used if the reward only applies to orders which are below a maximum item threshold (for example, free shipping on orders of up to four bottles would have a value of 4 here).
    • Minimum Order Subtotal: Used if the reward only applies to orders over a certain amount (i.e. free shipping on orders over $50 would have a value of 50 here).
    • Maximum Order Subtotal: Used if the reward only applies to orders under a certain amount (i.e. free shipping on orders under $50 would have a value of 50 here). 

    Note that qualifiers and rewards do not always use the same categories. For example, a "free shipping on orders over $50" promotion as suggested above would use an Order Qualifier (to establish the minimum subtotal) and a Fulfillment Reward (to establish 100% off shipping).

     

    Add a Promotion Code

    By default, if no promotion codes are added to a promotion, promotion rewards will be automatically applied to qualifying orders for the duration of the promotion. However, if you would like to tie the promotion to a code, follow the steps below.

    Go to the Promotion Listing:

    • Select Promotions from the Products drop-down on the Ultra Commerce toolbar.
    • Find the promotion you'd like to add a promotion code to and click the pencil icon.
    • Below the basic tab of the promotion, expand the Promotion Codes tab.
    • Click +Add Promotion Code to begin.

     

    The Create Promotion Code modal will appear.

    • Promotion Code: Enter a code by which the customer will apply the promotion. Depending on the nature of the promotion, this may have an obvious name (one which relates to the promotion it enables, i.e. BOGOWKND) or an obscure/random name (particularly in the case of one-time use codes).
    • Start/End Date/Time: The period for which the code is functional. 
    • Max. Use Count: Number of times this particular code will be functional. If the code is eligible for the entirety of the promotion period, leave this box blank as it will default to unlimited.
    • Max. Account Use Count: Number of times this code can be used for a single account. Should be less than or equal to Max. Use Count.

    Fill in these fields and click Save. Now the promotion will be applied when the customer uses the code.

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