This article explains how to create a code that your online customers can apply in the checkout to receive a discount on a product or a group of products.

Coupon Codes are created in Cloud MT.

General Coupon Settings

When you are logged into Cloud MT, there are some global settings which you can access that will dictate the general terms of how coupons can be applied on your e-commerce site.  The settings here will be applied to all coupons created.  https://cloudmt.citruslime.com/#/coupons-settings

• Apply Coupons To On-Sale Items - Ticking this will allow coupons to be used when there is an item in the basket which is on sale and discounted from its regular price.
• Allow Multiple Coupons - Selecting this option will allow multiple different valid coupons to be applied to one transaction.
• Allow Coupons On Star Buys - This dictates whether coupons can be applied if the transaction contains a Star Buy item.

Creating a Coupon

1)  When you are logged into Cloud MT, select Marketing and Promotions from the menu on the left and then select Coupons List:
        https://cloudmt.citruslime.com/#/coupons

2)  When the Coupons List page opens, click the button entitled New Coupon;

3)  Run through the following steps to create a new Coupon Code.  NOTE:  No special characters should be entered into any of the free text fields.

• Activate Coupon - Leave this box unticked until you are satisfied that all fields are completed;
  
  
• Coupon Description - Give the coupon a description so that it can be easily identified;
  
  
• Coupon Code - Enter a Coupon Code. This is the code that you will give out to your customer;
  
  
• Coupon Minimum Spend - Here you will enter the minimum item or basket value required to use the coupon. For example, if you entered 100 into this field, the coupon could only be used if the order value is £100.00 or over;
  
  
• Discount Type - Select from Fixed Value (a specific cash amount applied to the entire basket) or Percentage (a percentage discount applied to each applicable line in the basket).
  
  If you select the Percentage option, this will reveal an additional option, Apply To... with a dropdown box giving the following options:
  
  
  • • All items - the coupon can be applied to all active items on your e-commerce site;
    • A specific item - selecting this option will reveal a further dropdown from where you can select the specific item;
    • All items within a category - selecting this option will reveal a further dropdown from where you can select the category;
    • All items within a Find & Filter address - selecting this option will reveal a further dropdown from where you can create the Find & Filter URL.
      
      
• Discount Amount - This is the amount that you wish to discount. If you entered 20 into this field, for example, it would allow either a discount of £20.00 (if you've selected the Fixed Value discount type), or 20% (if you have selected the Percentage discount type).
  
  
• Block on-sale items - This works in different ways, depending on whether you have set a Fixed Value discount type or a Percentage discount type.
  
  
  • • With a Fixed Value discount type, if you tick 'Block on-sale items' then if there is any sale item in the basket, it will prevent the coupon being applied, even if there are full price items also in the basket.
    • With a Percentage discount type, 'Block on-sale items' is considered at a line level. For example, if the coupon was set up to give 10% off jackets, then if two different jackets were present in the basket and one of the jackets was on sale, only the full price jacket would be discounted by 10%.
      
      
• Discount Expiry - You have three options here. It is important that you understand how the expiries work, as the consequences of setting up a coupon with the unintended Discount Expiry type could prove costly to your business:
  
  
  • • Never Expires - This means the coupon can be used multiple times, indefinitely.  Although it's not possible to use the same coupon code more than once per transaction, any customer with knowledge of the coupon code would be able to use the coupon every time they placed an order, with no end date to their ability to do this.
    • One Time Use - This option creates a coupon which will provide a one-off discount to a single customer.  When the coupon has been used once, it cannot be used again, by any customer. Therefore, this type of coupon is not suitable for a wider promotion, since the first customer to use the coupon would cause it to expire.
    • On A Specific Date - If this option is selected, a further field entitled Expiration Date will appear, in which you can set the date on which you wish the coupon to expire. Coupons set with this option can be used by multiple customers, once per transaction, but on every order they place up until the expiry date.

When you are happy with that all the fields are completed correctly, tick the Coupon Active checkbox and then click the Save Coupon button.

Bulk Creating Coupons

This feature allows you to create multiple, unique coupon codes, based on the main coupon code you have specified. In this example, we have created a coupon code 21BLACKFRI and we are using the Bulk Create Coupons feature to create five coupons. Once we have set up the coupon to our specifications, we can click the button to create the coupons:


We'll then see the following display, and we also have the option to export the coupon codes we have just created to a CSV file. This is a useful option as it can help you to distribute the codes to your customers more easily.

Testing your Coupon

Before giving out the Coupon Code to your customers, you should always ensure that it is working as you would like it to. 

• Go to the front-end of your e-commerce site and create a basket containing the correct items;
• In the checkout, apply the Coupon Code and ensure that it is applying the desired discount.

Only once you have confirmed the coupon is working correctly should you give the coupon code(s) out to your customers.

Reporting on Coupon Usage

To look at how your customers are using coupons, there are two reports in Cloud MT that will provide you with different degrees of data:

Coupon Usage Report
https://cloudmt.citruslime.com/#/coupons-usage

This filterable report shows the total use of each coupon per day, with the total discount value:
 

Detailed Coupon Usage Report
https://cloudmt.citruslime.com/#/detailed-coupons-usage

As the name indicates, this filterable report shows coupon usage in great detail, with the forename, surname and email address of each customer who has used a coupon, the coupon name and code, total discount the coupon gave on the order, the order number, and the date it was placed.