A promotion – is a marketing tool giving customers with promotion bonus for service plans and resources, which is valid within a promotion period. A promotion bonus is a special price for a subscription period, or a free subscription period, or both. To get a service plan with a promotion bonus, a customer should buy it during a specified period of time which is called the activation period.
The scheme below shows the difference between the activation period and promotion period.
When planning a promotion, the following key aspects should be kept in mind:
- Only one promotion can be defined for a subscription period of a service plan for a specific promotion period. Different subscription periods of the same service plan can be eligible for different promotions.
- If service plan sales are eligible for both a discount and a promotion, the promotion is applied to the sales while the discount is ignored.
- Unlike discounts, promotions are not bound directly to customer accounts or customer classes.
- Promotional prices can be assigned to a specific service plan or a resource.
Promotions can be applicable to the following operations:
- A new purchase of a service plan (placing a sales order).
- A renewal of an existing service plan which is going to expire (placing a renewal order).
- A switch to a more expensive or a less expensive service plan (placing an upgrade or downgrade order).
Types of Promotions and Their Priority
The following are types of promotions, listed by priority:
- By promo code – a customer should provide the promo code when ordering the promoted service (also applicable to renewing and switching a service plan). Such promotions have the highest priority: if such a promotion is applicable to an order, promotions of other types are ignored.
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By parent plans – this promotion is applied only to an up-sale offer. A customer gets reduced prices for an up-sale service plan whose parent subscription is included in the list of plans subject to a promotion. For example, there is a web hosting plan (parent plan) and a DNS hosting plan (up-sale plan). A web hosting plan is included in the list of parent plans whose up-sale plans get promotion. When a customer buys a web hosting plan, they get the promotional prices for the DNS hosting plan.
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 – a customer can subscribe to this type of promoted service without promo codes and without regard to the parent plan. This is the lowest level of promotion which is used only when promotion by a promo code and promotion by parent plans are not applicable.
- By one-time promo code – this is the same as promotion by promo code but each code of this type is for one-time use only. A provider should list such codes explicitly, whereas promotions by a promo code are defined by a promo code mask.
How Can I Define the Total Number of Subscriptions and Customers Eligible for a Promotion Bonus?
- You can define how many subscriptions can get a promotion. For example, you want only the first 100 sales to get promotion bonuses and the rest, to get offers at regular prices. The system allows you to define a Subscription Limit which specifies the maximum number of subscriptions that can be sold with promotion bonuses.
- You can define how many promoted offers a single customer can get. The system allows you to define a Customer Limit which specifies how many subscriptions with promotion bonuses can be purchased by a single customer. For example, setting 3 means that a customer can purchase only 3 plans at a promotional price, leaving 97 promotional purchases to other customers.
- You can define how many promotional up-sale plans a customer can purchase regardless of the number of parent plans. For example, setting 3 for Linux Hosting plan means that a customer can buy only 3 promotional up-sale plans for all his or her Linux Hosting subscriptions, regardless of the number of those parent subscriptions.
- You can define how many promotional up-sale plans a customer can purchase per parent subscription. For example, setting 2 would mean that a customer can buy 2 discounted domains for one Linux Hosting subscription, then 2 other discounted domains for the second Linux Hosting subscription, and so on.
For more details, please refer to the Billing Provider's Guide.