Creating Promotion

Regular expressions are used for Promo Code and promotion application condition.

Supported regular expression standard is POSIX Basic and POSIX Extended. Description of these standards is available over the internet, for example, here.

Note: A newly created promotion is a promotion template in a sense. Before it can be used in sales or renewals, you need to configure its promotion periods and, optionally, promoted plans.

To create a promotion:

1. Open Products > Marketing > Promotions. The list of promotions available appears on the screen (empty by default).
2. Click Add New Promotion. The adding new promotion dialog window is displayed. Fill out the form:
   • Type a new promotion name into the Name field. We suggest using a descriptive enough name as it will make your future work with promotion easier.
   • Select a promotion status (Active or Inactive) from the Status group. Inactive promotion is not used when selling, billing or renewing subscriptions. We recommend that you choose Inactive when you create and configure the promotion. When the configuration is completed, you may activate it right away. A promotion can be activated or deactivated using the Activate or Deactivate button at the Promotions screen.

   Note: The status affects only the promotion applicability but does not affect subscription prices (as they are set on promotion application and will be used for recurring, resource upgrades or downgrades, and so on).

   • Select a promotion type from the Promotion type menu. There are the following options available:
     • Promotion By PromoCode – such promotions are applied only when their promotion code is entered in sales (billing, renewal) order, they have the highest priority – if such a promotion is applicable to an order, promotions of other types are ignored.

     • Promotion By Parent Plans – such promotions are applied to up-sales only, ordered or renewed subscription must be a up-sale to another subscription, service plan of the parent subscription must be listed in the promotion definition.

       Note: If the parent subscription is canceled, promoted prices for the up-sale service plan stay active until the subscription is renewed. After renewal, regular service plan prices are used.

     • Global Promotion – this is the lowest level promotion which is used only when Promotion By Promo Code and Promotion By Parent Plans are not applicable.
     • Promotion By One-Time Promo Codes – these promotions are based on one-time use promo codes, which are unique per vendor (a provider or reseller). See Managing One-Time Promo Codes for more detail.
   • Type a promotion code into the Promotion Code field. It is required to define promotion code using regular expression. For example, promo[0-9], with such regular expression you can give different customers different promotion codes (promo1, promo5 and the like). The promotion code is required for Promotion By Promo Code promotions and is ignored for other types of promotions.

   Note: A value in the Promo Code field must be specified as a regular expression. For example, if you want to define the exact string 5percent then define Promo Code as ^5percent$. Promotion Code length is up to 2000 symbols.

   • Specify promotion activation period and duration:
     • Set the time interval when promotion is available for activation in the Available for Activation fields. If a customer subscribes for a promoted service plan during this interval, he/she gets a discount for a period specified in the Applicable Period fields. Click the calendar icon next to the From field. From the dialog window that opens, select a promotion start date. Then specify promotion end date in the Until field.
     • Specify how long will be the promoted period when a customer gets a discount in the Applicable Period fields. Click the calendar icon next to the From field. From the dialog window that opens, select a start date of discounted period. Then specify a discounted period end date in the Until field.

     Note: To make promotion termless for new sales, leave the From and the Until fields blank for promotion Applicable Period.
     Important: recurring fees for service plans or resources are not changed automatically when the applicable period ends. To return regular fees in the current subscription, you need to renew the subscription without a promotion, that is to leave the Promotion Code field empty, or just switch the period.

   • Type a regular expression in the Applicability Condition field to make your promotion more specific. For example, @@DomainID@~="^[A-Za-z0-9]{2}$", with such condition, customer will get promotion, if he purchases domain with two-symbol name.

   Important: A limited set of placeholders is allowed for use in a regular expression entered as promotion Applicability Condition. Placeholders must correspond to the type of service plan you are applying a promotion to. In promotion conditions it is possible to use only placeholders based on service parameters of subscriptions (@@ParameterID@). You may get the list of available parameters in service template, Service Parameters tab and you also can add your own ones there. While creating a subscription a customer will be able to enter the values for these parameters.

   • Select the Applicable To Sales check box to make this promotion applicable to sales orders. The latter makes promotion applicable to purchased subscriptions.
   • Select the Applicable To Renewal check box to make this promotion applicable to renewal orders. The latter makes promotion applicable to renewed subscriptions. If the option is set to Yes, Billing will check whether the promotion can be applied (Available for Activation and Applicable Period options) every time a subscription is renewed.
   • Select the Applicable To Switch Plan check box to make this promotion applicable to upgrade/downgrade orders. The latter makes promotion applicable to upgraded/downgraded subscriptions.
   • Type a number of discounted subscriptions that a single customer can purchase into the Per Customer Limit field.
   • Type a total number of subscriptions that can be discounted under the promotion into the Subscription limit field.
3. Click Save to finish creating promotion.