Simple How-To Guide To Creating Discount Codes for Shopify

Started in Canada in 2006, Shopify now boasts over 4.4 million daily active users, making it the biggest name in the US ecommerce market. Shopify provides plenty of tools for developing, building, and hosting online storefronts. Despite features like website builders, VR, and built-in POS, Shopify's promotional capabilities fall short of those given by specialized promotion management platforms like Voucherify.

With this post, I would like to show you how to create discount codes for Shopify with Voucherify. Read on to learn how easy it is to set up your first campaign and generate millions of promo codes for your Shopify store.

Why do you need discount codes in your Shopify store?

It doesn't matter if you have started a Shopify store and are wondering whether discount codes are the right strategy. Or you are a seasoned Shopify user who is looking for ways to offer a more engaging shopping experience. There comes a time for each online merchant to make a pivotal decision – to discount or not to discount? It is a difficult choice to make – what type of discounts and promotions should I offer? When should I do it? Do I have an infrastructure ready to handle it? Am I going to lose money?

Learn more: How to Develop a Successful Coupon Marketing Strategy?

Coupon promotions are a potent weapon in the never-ending battle for conversions. But beware, issuing discount coupons without a strategy in place might not only harm but ruin your brand. Here's a quick rundown of the benefits and drawbacks of running online promotions and automatic discounts in your Shopify store:

Pros of using discount codes:

• Increased conversions as customers are more likely to finish a purchase with a discounted order in their carts. 
• Blooming customer loyalty as a result of a reciprocity effect. 
• More customers overall as you become their go-to online store thanks to attractive sale campaigns. 
• Increased customer engagement and free word-of-mouth marketing. 

Cons of running coupon campaigns:

• Possible brand damage as your name becomes associated with discounting and thus a lack of exclusivity. 
• A higher chance of attracting price-driven customers who do not care about your brand in the slightest. 
• Lower campaign profitability if done irresponsibly. 
• Possibility of coupon fraud that may lead to significant losses in revenue and brand image. 

Vouchers and discounts are not suited to each type of business or industry. By knowing your objectives and target groups, you should be able to experiment with launching discount promotions and coupon codes in your Shopify store. Now, let’s see what promotional features Shopify offers out-of-the-box and how the Voucherify app can help.

Shopify features for discounts and promotions

Shopify offers four discount types. You can choose between: amount, percentage, free shipping, and Buy X, Get Y campaigns. All come in two types – unique discount codes or auto-applied cart promotions. Customers can apply discounts to orders, specific collections or products. You can limit discounts to specific customer segments or orders based on conditions like the order total or quantity of products. Shopify also released a beta version of discount stacking. This feature allows selected merchants to apply many incentives to a single order.

Shopify offers a good basis for running flexible coupon promotions for small-scale retailers. The discounts can be used in the integrated offline and online POS – quick and easy. Shopify incentives are protected with redemption limits per customer and the total number of redemptions.

Why are Shopify discounts not enough for enterprise clients with custom requirements? Enterprises are too multi-levelled for the simple promotional solutions offered by Shopify out-of-the-box. Promotion marketing is too rich for enterprise clients not to indulge in loyalty schemes, referral programs, and gift card campaigns on top of personalized coupon campaigns. We have noticed that enterprises need more flexibility and control for building and scaling coupon campaigns.

Voucherify features for Shopify discounts

With Voucherify and Shopify integration, you can improve e-commerce experiences by offering targeted promotions. Here are some key features of the Voucherify plugin:

• Customer, order, and product data synchronization. It can be utilized to set up earning rules in loyalty programs, dynamic segmentation, or validation rules. Note that the integration allows you to synchronize data only when it is created or updated. Old data will not be synced automatically.
• Voucherify codes will operate immediately in Shopify, saving you time from having to create individual codes for multiple e-commerce sites.
• Detailed tracking and reporting for Shopify and Voucherify redemption rates.
• Shopify can be utilized as a distribution channel for loyalty rewards and referral codes. For example, when a consumer redeems a loyalty reward, discount codes are issued to the connected Shopify store. 

Learn more: Install Voucherify app for Shopify

Benefits of Voucherify for Shopify coupon campaigns

The Voucherify plugin for Shopify fills in the gaps for successful coupon campaigns. Here are some of the requirements that Shopify promotions meet after integration with Voucherify:

1. Advanced validation rules 

Shopify offers a strong foundation for online promotions, but enterprises need to go deeper and reach further. This is when Voucherify flexible rules builder comes into play. It allows you to create discount conditions based on custom attributes, going beyond filters provided by Shopify.

Voucherify also offers dynamic discounts that dynamically change value based on the order and customer context. The same coupon campaign can offer a 5% discount to new customers and 15% off for long-term clients. Dynamic formulas simplify discount management and limit the number of campaigns you need to run simultaneously.

Learn more: Watch a webinar about dynamic discounts

2. Extremely detailed timing

Shopify offers limited time conditions (start and expiry dates). Such limitations may not match your dream promotional strategy.  What if you want to set up recurring discounts activated every Friday for four months? Or need to launch a 6-hour long flash sale in your Shopify store? It all comes down to a few clicks with the Voucherify plugin.

3. Better budget protection

Limiting redemptions to one per customer or to 300 redemptions per campaign is not enough. You should be able to limit the redemptions per day, week or month. You should track the total discount amount, especially for percentage discounts, to protect your bottom line. You also need a flexible rollback mechanism that will help you prevent fraud and coupon misuse.

4. Advanced tracking capabilities

The tracking capabilities offered by Shopify are not enough for more demanding clients. This is where Voucherify advanced tracking comes into play. Visual redemption charts, voucher activity logs, and detailed reasons for redemption success and failure – are all presented visually and ready for export.

5. Loyalty and referral programs automation

Now, it’s time for crème de la crème. Shopify has plenty of helpful discount features, but what happens when you want to use discount codes as part of your loyalty or referral campaigns? Well, you don’t. Not without a ton of developmental work or extra plugins. You can use Voucherify for loyalty and referral incentives with your Shopify POS. This way, you get a single tool for managing many promotional campaigns at once. What do enterprises need from Shopify promotions for loyalty and referral programs?

• Discount codes useable as rewards in loyalty and referral campaigns.
• A mechanism for collecting loyalty points through Shopify purchases. 
• Referral codes useable in Shopify POS. 

With these features, you are sure to meet the requirements for launching effective promotional campaigns.

Data integrity between Voucherify and Shopify 

With Voucherify API, you can automate anything for many market scenarios. The data synchronization makes discount campaigns, referral, and loyalty programs easier to manage and maintain globally. 

Besides that, we have to remember that enterprises’ marketing efforts run on data. Lots of it. Data integrity is essential for enterprise digital teams to navigate campaigns across multiple brands and customer touchpoints. Voucherify API not only supports programmable campaign creation and maintenance but also automates notifications throughout the whole campaign lifecycle. This is possible with CRM and inventory synchronization and webhooks triggered by 50+ events.

Takeaways

You should now better understand what enterprises need from Shopify promotions. The best way to a fail-safe coupon strategy is to build on top of core Shopify features. It is not only more scalable but also cheaper to use specialized promotion software. And your Product Manager would love to hear about it.

{{CTA}}

Install Voucherify in Shopify now

Download app

{{ENDCTA}}