What is a Promotion Code?
A Promotion Code is a tool you can use to enable access to Offers, Locks or Priority Booking periods. These are also sometimes called or referred to as 'promotional codes'. Essentially, it's a code of up to 12 digits in length which customers can either enter online, or quote at the box office/ over the phone to prove their eligibility.
Whatever you input into the Code field will be what customers need to enter or quote, so make sure you choose something suitable – think about whether you are going to use a single code, in which case it can be fairly generic, or a range of codes, which you might want to make more specific. As always, it's worth entering a clear description – this is for internal purposes only, and isn't visible to customers.
Setting up Promotion Codes
There are two ways to create a Promotion Code:
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You can find a list of all your active Promotion Codes under Admin > Other > Promotion Codes:
- To create a new Promotion Code just click the New button
- There are only two fields you need to fill in – Code and Description
- Click Save
Related Offers
Clicking on the Related Offers tab will show that at present the Promotion Code is not being used with any Offers – you have to add it to an Offer separately:
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If you're in the middle of creating an Offer, Lock Type or Priority Booking Period and haven't yet created a Promotion Code, you can create a new Promotion Code from within the Eligibility or Customer Criteria section using the following steps:
- Click the New button within the Promotion Codes section of the Eligibility picker (for Offer) or Customer Criteria (for Lock Type or Priority Booking)
- This will open a New Promotion Code pop-up, in which you can create your new Promotion Code
- Click Save
In order to be valid, codes should consist of alphanumeric characters and be no more than twelve characters in length. The special characters £!%&+ are also acceptable. Any other characters will result in an error. It also does not accept spaces.
Using a Promotion Code as Eligibility criteria for an Offer, Lock Type or Priority Booking Period
After creating your Promotion Code you can apply it to an Offer, Lock Type or Priority Booking. Regardless of what you're using the Promotion Code for, you do this in the same way – by selecting it from the Promotion Codes section from within the Eligibility or Customer Criteria picker.
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You need to go to the Offer Eligibility section or the Lock Type/ Priority Booking Period Customer Criteria section and drag the Promotion Code into the Drop criteria here section.
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You might want to use multiple Promotion Codes as eligibility for the same Offer, Lock Type or Priority Booking Period. For instance, you could set up a few different codes and use them as Customer Eligibility criteria on the same Offer if you're looking to track uptake from different channels that the Promotion Code was advertised on.
In that case, you'll need to make sure you add each Promotion Code using OR logic, by dropping each Promotion Code into the Drop criteria here section.
If you added these alongside one another with AND logic, customers would have to input more than one Promotion Code to be eligible, which isn't possible in Spektrix. More information on the AND, OR and NOT rules can be found in this section of our article on building Customer Lists.
You can't automatically generate a Promotion Code per customer. However, if you want to make sure each Customer can only use an Offer once, you can set a Per Customer limit of one on the Offer. More information on applying Limits to Offers can be found in our article Intro To Offers
Using a Promotion Code
Depending on what you're using the Promotion Code for, they can be used in either the Sales Interface, Online or both. Each Basket can only have one Promotion Code, although the same code can enable multiple Offers, Priority Booking Periods or Lock Types across any number of Instances.
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- Click the Add promo code button from within the basket
- You will then see a Promotion Code pop-up, with a dropdown menu containing all of the Promotion Codes which are currently live on your system
- Select the Promotion Code from the list to apply to the basket and ensure that any Offer it's attached to will apply, as long as the Customer has fulfilled all other criteria
If an Offer requires a Promotion Code, it won't apply in the Sales Interface until you have chosen that Promotion Code (i.e. until a customer has quoted it and proved that they are entitled to the Offer).
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Customers can apply a Promotion Code at three different points during the booking process online.
- On the Event Details or Choose Seats iframe, if the Instance is not on sale but would be via a Priority Booking period with a Promotion Code set as Eligibility Criteria.
TIP: You may need to request this feature is switched on on your system. Contact support if the promocode box is not visible for Instances with a Priority Booking period.
- On the Choose Seats iframe, if there's at least one Promotion Code set as the eligibility criteria for a Lock Type in use on that Instance.
- On the Basket iframe, if there's at least one active Offer with a Promotion Code attached on your system.
Whichever point the Customer is at, they will see a text box with an Apply Code button which will allow them to enter their Promotion Code:
Any time a valid Promotion Code is entered, it will automatically apply any functionality that has been linked to it. For example, you might have a Promotion Code which is set up to apply an Offer – then as soon as there are tickets in the Basket, the system will apply the Promotion Code to enable the Offer.
Although the system will permit customers to enter invalid Promotion Codes online and proceed with their transaction, an invalid code won't apply anything to a Basket.
- On the Event Details or Choose Seats iframe, if the Instance is not on sale but would be via a Priority Booking period with a Promotion Code set as Eligibility Criteria.
You would use a Promotion Code for an Offer both Online and in the Sales Interface, while Priority Bookings and Lock Types only need Promotion Codes for online purposes.
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You should now be ready to begin Setting Up and Using Promotion Codes in Spektrix.