The standard editor for automatic and coupon promotions offers additional functionality, such as the ability to:
- exclude other promotions from being used in conjunction with this promotion
- run regularly scheduled promotions automatically. For example, a bimonthly sale that runs on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
- create fixed price promotions, allowing you to offer several products at a set price. An example would be offering 3 pairs of socks for $12, with shoppers able to select from all socks available within a category or from several categories.
- create storefront-specific promotions (for stores with more than one storefront).
This article covers how to create and manage promotions and coupon promotions using the standard editor. For information on the legacy editor, see Automatic Promotions (Legacy Editor) and Coupon Promotions (Legacy Editor).
How It Works
The standard promotions editor is a control panel tool that allows you create and edit automatic and coupon promotions. Use the built-in fields to configure:
- who is eligible for the promotion
- which products the promotion applies to
- what conditions must be met for the promotion to trigger
- what the reward/discount is
- when the promotion begins and ends
- how many times the promotion can be used, and if it can be used in conjunction with other promotions
Note: Some promotion use cases are not possible using the control panel and can only be achieved by using the Promotions API directly. For more information, see Feature Differences Between the Promotions API and UI in the Dev Center.
Requirements
- To manage promotions, you must have the following permissions enabled on your user account:
- Manage Promotions
- Edit Promotions
- Add Promotions
- Delete Promotions
- Manage Channels
- To manage promotions and coupon settings, you must have the Manage Settings permission enabled.
- Depending on the type of promotion you're creating, you will need to have additional permissions enabled on your user account. We recommend enabling all of the permissions listed below or assigning the System Admin role to ensure that a user can create all available promotion types in the standard editor.
- For currency specific promotions, you will need Manage Settings and Manage Payments enabled.
- For shipping promotions, you will need Manage Orders and Manage Shipping enabled.
- For promotions limited to customer groups, you will need Manage Channels, Manage Customers, and Customer Groups enabled.
- For product discounts, you will need Manage Products and Product Options enabled.
- To limit promotions by customer group, your store must be on a Plus plan or higher.
- Fixed price promotions and customer segment targeting rules are only available for stores on an Enterprise plan.
Viewing Automatic Promotions and Coupon Promotions
Go to Marketing › Promotions to see your promotions in the Promotions Manager. You can filter your promotions by currency, storefront channel, and activity status, or use the search bar to locate a promotion by name.
You can rearrange the order in which automatic promotions are applied to orders by clicking Manage priority, then click and drag promotions up or down in the list. If “Stop after this rule” is checked for a promotion, none of the promotions below it will activate if that specific promotion is triggered. Note that coupon promotion priorities are managed as part of an individual coupon's usage limits.
Example
You have one promotion for 10% off your order at $50 and another for free shipping at $50. You don’t want customers to receive free shipping and a discount, and if they qualify for both, you’d prefer they have the discount. In this case, you could arrange the list so that the preferred promotion (10% off) is at the top, then enable “Stop after this rule”. This prevents discounts from stacking.
See Automatic Promotions for more information on viewing and reordering promotions.
Creating Automatic Promotions and Coupon Promotions
To create an automatic promotion using the standard editor, go to Marketing › Promotions. Click + Create, then select With standard editor from the drop-down menu.
To create a coupon promotion, click the Coupon tab and click + Create, then select With standard editor from the drop-down menu.
Enter a name for your promotion. The Promotion name is an internal field that you can use to keep track of your discounts.
If you have more than one storefront, assign the Channels that the promotion will be available in, or select “any channel” to enable the promotions in all storefronts.
If you're creating a coupon promotion, enter a Coupon code that customers will use at checkout.
Can a promotion contain multiple coupon codes? Additional codes can be added to a coupon promotion via our API.
Schedule
The Schedule function lets you set start and stop times and customize days for when your promotion should run.
Click on the date field and select a date from the calendar, then select a start time from the dropdown. By default, the promotion will start immediately after creation.
When selecting your date period, keep the following in mind:
- All dates and times will be in your store's time zone, found under Date and Time Settings.
- Rules will only apply to orders placed after the rule was created, regardless of its start date and time.
- If you update your store's time zone or change the Daylight Savings Time setting, your rule will start at its original starting time. For example, if your rule is set to begin at noon, and you move forward one hour in time, your rule will now start at 11 am in your new time zone.
To specify a date and time for the promotion to end, click + Add end date and time and set a date and time.
To set custom availability, click Limit availability to particular weeks/days. Set the frequency (available every x weeks) and the weekdays for the promotion to be active. By default, the promotion will be active for the entire day, but you can also specify the start and end time for flash sales or preorders.
To delete an end date or availability limit, click the trash can icon. You will not see a warning or be asked to confirm before deleting.
Targeting
Targeting is where you specify which customers will have access to the promotion. By default, all promotions can be used by all customers until you add targeting rules. By defining the promotion’s currency, customer group, customer segment, and shipping destination, your marketing promotion remains exclusive to its intended customer audience.
The targeted currency is automatically set to your store’s default currency. You can choose a different currency or select Any currency to allow the promotion to be eligible for all active currencies in your store. Amount based promotions, such as rewarding a $10 discount, are not supported by the Any currency option.
To add other rules, click + Add targeting rule. You can define up to 3 targeting rules:
- Customer Group — include or exclude one or more customer groups. Select No Group for guest shoppers. Available for stores on a Plus plan or higher.
- Customer Segment — include or exclude customer segments created via API. Only available for stores on an Enterprise plan.
- Shipping Destination — include or exclude one or more countries
To delete any targeting rules, click the trash can icon. You will not see a warning or be asked to confirm before deleting.
Missing a currency? Currencies will only appear in the drop-down list if they are available for every channel selected for the promotion. See the FAQ for more information.
Rules
Rules are where you define which reward the customer receives when their order meets certain conditions, such as offering free shipping when an order is over $75. You can also use rules to call out conditions that exclude a customer from receiving the reward, such as excluding products or brands from a category-wide discount.
Click + Add rule to start building your rule.
On the pop-up window, select a discount template with premade conditions and rewards, or select Custom rules to build a promotion from scratch. Click Apply template to proceed to the rules settings page.
If you want to select a different discount template, click Switch rule to return to the discount template window.
Conditions
To set conditions around the order, click the drop-down menu next to If the customer. Select No conditions to keep the promotion open to anyone you have allowed to be targeted.
Possible conditions include:
- Buys Products
- Reaching a — This allows you to set a product quantity or total value.
- Including products — Select to include individual products, all products, products in specific categories or brands, or products with specific custom fields or product options.
- Excluding products — Select to exclude individual products, products in specific categories or brands, or products with specific custom fields or product options.
- Reaches an order sub-total
- Spending at least — Specify a minimum order value. Not eligible when Any currency is selected as a targeting rule.
Rewards
Next to Then reward, select a reward from the drop-down menu. All conditions allow you to offer the same rewards:
- A gift in their cart — Set the frequency (once or unlimited times per cart), the quantity, and select a product to automatically be added to the cart. Products with variants or modifiers are not eligible.
- Free shipping — Select all zones or specify one or more shipping zones.
- Discount on products — Set the frequency (once or unlimited times per cart), and whether the discount will be an amount or percentage of each product’s price or the total price of included products. Specify whether the discount will be applied to all products or if it will be applied to a set number of the most or least expensive products in the cart. Choose if the reward applies to products on sale, those that satisfy the condition, and includes all or select products. You can add additional inclusion and exclusion rules.
- Discount on order subtotal — Set the frequency (once or unlimited times per cart), and whether the discount will be a value or percentage.
- Fixed price for # of products — Set the frequency (once or unlimited times per cart) and the sub-total price for a specified quantity of products. Choose if the reward applies to products on sale, those that satisfy the condition, and includes all or select products. You can add additional inclusion and exclusion rules. Only available for stores on an Enterprise plan.
When you are done setting up your rules, click Add rule to promotion.
You can add additional rules to the promotion or copy the last rule. When you have multiple rules on a promotion, you will be able to select whether to give only the last single reward that a customer qualifies for, or to give all rewards that a customer’s cart qualifies for.
Usage Limits
You may want to limit usage of a discount, such as for flash sales or product promotions intended only for a set number of customers.
You can limit discounts to a certain number of total uses (not per customer) by selecting Limit for total usage of promotion or Limit for total usage of promotion across all channels if you have more than one storefront. You can select whether the promotion can be combined with other promotions from the Allow usage with other promotions drop-down.
For coupon promotions, in addition to limiting total usage, you can also limit the number of times a customer can use a coupon code by selecting Limit usage for individual customers.
Selecting cannot from the Allow usage with other promotions drop-down menu allows you to configure the priority of the coupon in relation to existing applied promotions.
- This coupon will not be accepted in the Cart and Checkout under any circumstances when there are already applied automatic promotions — When selected, the coupon will not be applied if an automatic promotion is already in effect.
- This coupon will not be accepted in the Cart and Checkout unless it gives a bigger discount, when compared to the sum of already applied automatic promotions — When selected, the coupon will be compared to any active automatic promotions in a customer's cart. If the coupon provides a greater discount, it will be applied in place of the automatic promotions.
- If the automatic promotions provide a greater discount, the customer will see an error after entering the coupon code: Coupon is not applied as it offers less discount than existing automatic promotions.
Certain reward types aren't considered when comparing promotions. Coupons offering free shipping or a free gift in the cart will be ignored in favor of eligible automatic promotions, or vice versa. If a coupon and an automatic promotion both use an ignored reward type, the coupon will be applied.
Examples of Supported Discounts
The standard editor supports discounts on:
Due to the “building block” nature of the standard editor, there are hundreds of possible combinations. Below, we’ve listed some of the most popular supported promotion types, along with an example of each type.
Shipping Discounts
Example: “Free shipping when you spend $50.”
- Free shipping on all orders to an individual shipping zone or multiple shipping zones
- Free shipping after spending a minimum order amount
- Free shipping after spending a minimum amount within a specific category
- Free shipping after spending a minimum amount within a specific brand
- Free shipping after spending a minimum amount on products with a specific custom field value
Product Discounts
Example: “Buy 2 mugs, get a free teaspoon.”
- Apply a % discount to a specific product or specific variant of a product
- Apply an amount or % off a specific product
- Buy one or more, get something else for free
- Buy one or more, apply an amount off another product
- Spend $ on Product X, get Product Y for free
- Buy one or more, get one free
- Free gift with every order
- Apply a % discount to Category Y, except for a specific product within Category Y
- Buy a minimum quantity of a specific SKU, then apply a discount
Product Option Discounts
Example: “Free shipping when you spend $20 on personalized baseball mugs“
- Buy one or more of Product X including/excluding a specified product option value, get % off another product
- Free shipping after spending a minimum amount on products including/excluding a specified product option value
- Spend $ on Product X including/excluding a specified product option value, get Product Y free
- Buy one or more products including/excluding a specified product option value, get one free
- Spend a minimum amount on a product including/excluding a specified product option value, get % off the order sub-total
- Buy one or more products including/excluding a specified product option value, get % off the total price of all products with a specified product option value
Brand Discounts
Example: “15% off Farmacy, Fenty, and Youth to the People.”
- Apply an amount or % discount off a single brand or multiple brands
- Spend a minimum amount across multiple brands, get free shipping to specific shipping zones
- Apply a % discount off a single category in a single brand
- Apply a % discount off a single category in a single brand, except for a specific product
- Apply a % discount off a single category or multiple categories across multiple brands
Category Discounts
Example: “10% off all scarves and hats.”
- Apply an amount or % discount off of a single category or multiple categories
- Buy a minimum quantity of products from Category Y, get free product(s)
- Buy a minimum quantity of products from Category Y, get an amount or % off
- Buy a product in Category X, get % off a product in Category Y
- Apply a % discount off a specific category, within a specific date and time
- Apply a % discount off a category, except for a subcategory
Custom Fields Discounts
Example: "20% off Kids apparel."
- Apply an amount or % discount off products with a specific custom field value
- Buy a minimum quantity of products with a specific custom field value, get free product(s)
- Buy a minimum quantity of products with a specific custom field value, get an amount or % off
Order Discounts
Example: “Spend $100, get 10% off your order. Spend $300, get 20% off your order. Spend $500, get 25% off your order.”
- Apply an amount or % discount off the order subtotal
- Spend a minimum amount, get an amount or % discount off the order subtotal
- Apply a % discount off the order subtotal, across all currencies
- Apply a tiered % discount off of the order subtotal
Fixed Price Discounts
Example: “Buy any 3 business shirts for $100.”
- Buy any quantity of products within a single category or multiple categories for a fixed price
- Buy any quantity of products within a single brand or multiple brands for a set amount
- Buy any quantity of products within a brand’s category for a set amount
- Buy any quantity of products across a collection of specific products for a set amount
Promotions and Coupon Settings
In your store’s promotion and coupon settings, you can determine how multiple promotions in a cart are calculated, the number of coupon codes that can be applied to an order, if $0 price products can trigger promotions, and if products with custom prices are eligible for promotions.
To manage promotions and coupon settings, go to Settings › Promotions and coupons.
General Settings
- When multiple promotions are in a cart, calculate them — determines if multiple promotions are calculated individually from the original price of each product or cumulatively applied to the order subtotal based on promotion priorities. See Automatic Promotions (Legacy Editor) for more information on promotion priorities.
- Number of coupons allowed at checkout on a single order — allows a shopper to use up to on a single order
- only coupon codes created using the legacy editor or standard editor are eligible. Legacy coupon codes are not supported.
- multiple coupons can also be applied to manual and draft orders
Advanced Settings
- Allow $0 price products to trigger promotions — allows products set to a $0 price to trigger promotion rules
- Allow promotions to apply on products with custom price overrides — allows products with custom pricing to qualify for promotions. This includes pricing overridden by manual order or server-to-server Cart APIs.
Using Multiple Coupons
If enabled in your store’s settings, you can allow shoppers to enter multiple coupon codes for a single order on your storefront. This is helpful if you want your shoppers to take advantage of two or more concurrent coupon promotions, or if you want to offer limited-time coupons in conjunction with recurring loyalty rewards.
When a shopper meets the conditions for one or more of your coupon promotions, they can add up to the specified number of coupon codes on the cart page or at checkout.
Multiple coupons in the cart
Multiple coupons at checkout
Additionally, you can add multiple coupon codes to manual and draft orders. When a customer uses the draft order URL you’ve provided them, the coupon codes are already added to the cart.
When offering multiple coupons in your storefront or from your control panel, be aware of the following considerations:
- The setting to offer multiple coupons is store-wide, not channel specific. The specified maximum number of coupon codes can be applied to orders in all supporting storefronts.
- Only coupon promotions created from the standard or legacy editor are eligible. Legacy coupon codes are not supported.
- When more than one legacy coupon code is added to an order, the most recent one will be used.
- Multiple coupon codes cannot be used if a customer applies a coupon promotion that is configured to not be used with other promotions.
- If a coupon is configured to apply only if it provides a bigger discount than previously-applied automatic or coupon promotions, it will automatically remove the discounts from those promotions.
- Coupon discounts are applied after other product- and order-level discounts, and before tax is applied to the order subtotal.
- Coupon codes are applied sequentially, meaning that they discount the order subtotal in the order they were added at checkout. See the FAQ for more information.
FAQ
General
What do promotions look like to customers?
Customers will see a discounted price showing how much their products or the order was discounted on the cart and checkout pages. It will not show on the product or category pages. Free shipping will display as an option when the customer selects their shipping method.
Example of a product discount
Example of an order discount
How many Automatic Promotions can I have?
To avoid performance issues, we recommend having less than 100 active Automatic promotions, with no more than 10 rules each. Exceeding these recommendations can result in slower page load speeds for your shoppers.
Will promotions affect gift certificates?
No, gift certificates are excluded from promotions.
Can I enable promotion comparison between two or more automatic promotions?
No, but you can control which automatic promotion is applied by changing its position in the Manage promotion priorities list.
Can I edit a promotion in the control panel if it was created via the API?
Promotions created with the Promotions API can be edited in the control panel as long as they only use rules which can be configured with the standard editor. If the promotion uses conditions that can only be configured via the API, such as multiple logical operators, it is marked with a tooltip to indicate that the promotion must be updated via the API.
Rules and Calculations
How do promotions interact with manual discounts?
Manual discounts, which can be applied when creating a manual order or when editing an existing order, interact differently with promotions, depending on how they were added:
- Manual Orders: Manual discounts will be additive to Automatic Promotions and Coupon Promotions.
- Existing Orders: Manual discounts will override Automatic Promotions, but be additive for an already applied Coupon Promotion.
Can I choose how multiple promotions applied to products in a cart are calculated?
Yes. Promotion Settings can be accessed in Settings › Promotions and coupons. You can choose to calculate multiple promotions per order independently or cumulatively.
- Independently: each promotion is applied to the original price of the included products.
- Cumulatively: promotions work cumulatively off each other, with each subsequent discount applied to the preceding discount based on your promotions order.
Note that this feature is store-wide, not channel specific. This means that the setting will apply to all storefronts.
Can I specify how an order is discounted when a customer uses multiple coupon codes at checkout?
While you can configure a coupon promotion’s usage limits to prevent it from being used with other promotions, coupon promotion discounts will always apply in the sequence they were added to an order.
For example, if you have one coupon (Coupon A) that discounts 20% of an order’s total and another (Coupon B) that removes $20 from the total, and a shopper uses both coupons on a $100 order:
- Adding Coupon A first results in a total of $60 ([$100 x .8] - $20)
- Adding Coupon B first results in a total of $64 ([$100 - $20] x 0.8)
Why can I only offer a multi-currency promotion as a percentage-based discount?
We have found that businesses prefer using percentage-based discounts as they are easier to communicate to customers using multi-currencies, especially when running digital marketing campaigns on social media channels. For example, a 20% discount is easier for customers to understand than a discount that offers USD $10 off, CAD $9 off, €6 off, and so on.
Can products with a zero price be used to trigger a promotion?
The setting allowing zero price products to trigger promotions can be toggled on or off in Settings › Promotions and coupons.
Note that this feature is store-wide, not channel specific. This means that the setting will apply to all storefronts.
Will promotions apply discounts to products with overridden pricing?
By default, products with custom pricing, including pricing overridden by manual order or server-to-server Cart APIs, are excluded from promotions. You can allow these products to be eligible for promotions by enabling the setting in Settings › Promotions and coupons.
Note that this feature is store-wide, not channel specific. This means that the setting will apply to all storefronts.
How does rounding work with percentage-based discounts?
Percentage-based discounts use normal rounding. We round down for 0.004 and less, and round up for 0.005 and greater.
How do category exclusions work for products in multiple categories?
Products that meet any category exclusion rule are excluded from the promotion. For example, a product in both the Boots and Sale categories would not be eligible for any promotions that exclude the Sale category.
To avoid unintended product exclusions, we recommend reviewing the products assigned to the excluded categories. You can do this using the category Action menu View products link or by exporting your products.
Troubleshooting
Why can coupon codes be applied if I selected “This promotion cannot be used in conjunction with other promotions”?
Usage Limits apply to other promotions. Legacy coupons created under Marketing › Coupon Codes are excluded and will stack. Recreate the coupon as a Coupon Promotion or use Exclude Cart Level Discounts on the coupon code to prevent it from applying on top of promotions.
Why is my newly-created promotion not applying to existing carts?
Promotions are calculated as products are added or removed to a cart. To recalculate a cart and trigger any applicable promotions, update or empty any existing carts before adding the affected products.
Why am I getting an error when creating a gift promotion?
When making a promotion that adds a free gift to the cart, you must select a unique product (such as a standalone product or a single variant option). Additionally, the product must not have any modifier options.
If you select a non-unique product and click Create promotion, you will see the following error message at the top of the page: The gift item specification does not resolve to a unique product that can be added automatically, please make sure you specify the correct variant and mandatory modifier options. To resolve this, confirm the selected product is unique and does not have a modifier option, then proceed with creating the promotion.
Why is my customer getting a “The gift certificate or coupon code is invalid” error when adding multiple active coupon codes to their order?
This error can occur if a customer attempts to use a legacy coupon code in conjunction with coupon promotions. Re-create legacy coupons as promotions using the standard or legacy editor to allow customers to use them with other coupons on your storefront.
Why are some of my store's products and currencies not available when creating a promotion?
If you are using Multi-Storefront, the available targeting rules, conditions, and rewards in your promotion depend on the assigned storefront channels. This includes:
If you are selecting a single currency, it must be available in all assigned storefronts. For example, you can only select USD if it is available in every storefront assigned to your promotion. If you select "Any Currencies", the promotion will support all available currencies in any assigned storefront.
Why is “View Orders” disabled on a Coupon Promotion’s action menu?
If a Coupon Promotion has multiple codes added via the API, the View Orders action is not supported and will be disabled.
- Currencies
- Customer Groups and Segments
- Shipping Zones
- Categories
- Brands
- Products
When creating a coupon, why am I getting an error that says the code already exists?
Coupon codes must be unique and cannot be used in another coupon or coupon promotion, even if it is disabled. To save the coupon, use a different coupon code or delete the existing code.
If you are unable to find the existing coupon code in Marketing › Promotions under the Coupons tab, go to Marketing › Coupon Codes, and check the list there.
