Note: This feature is still being rolled out. If you'd like to enable persistent coupons, contact your CSM.
Marketers use coupons to influence behavior to convert customers who may be wavering on making a purchase. They’re also used to focus on certain products, or capture leads from customers.
In addition to using generic coupon codes, such as “WELCOME10,” Bluecore allows for marketers to upload their own coupon bank. Bluecore's persistent coupon codes help marketers maximize their coupon promotion budget by ensuring each customer only receives one code until it is redeemed or falls outside the set distribution timeframe. This allows brands to target a known customer with the same coupon code consistently within their channel, either email or SMS/MMS.
Bluecore’s persistent coupons reduce gamification, the act of guessing or sharing coupon codes, by attaching only one code per individual customer.
Coupon persistence is optional on a bank-by-bank level.
Note: Persistent coupon codes are currently only available in Communicate (Email and SMS/MMS) campaigns, not Site campaigns.
How persistent coupons work
When a known customer receives a coupon code from a Bluecore campaign, the system will check if the customer has already received a code from that coupon bank.
If the customer has already received a code from the same coupon bank, the system will perform two checks:
Whether that code has been redeemed
Whether it’s still within the code bank’s previously set distribution window.
If the code has been redeemed or it’s no longer within the distribution window, the customer will receive a new code. Otherwise, they’ll be sent the existing coupon code.
Coupon redemption upload
If a coupon bank is marked as persistent, a list of redeemed coupon codes will need to be routinely uploaded to Bluecore to ensure customers do not receive a coupon code that has already been redeemed. Once the list is uploaded and processed, those codes will be taken out of distribution and won’t be shown to customers.
Bluecore recommends an SFTP automated feed, updated daily with a CSV, PGP, or GPG file of redeemed coupon codes across all coupon banks with no other values added.
If you need help setting up the SFTP automated feed, contact support@bluecore.com
⚠️ Bluecore recommends uploading a redeemed codes list daily for best results. Not regularly uploading a list of redeemed coupon codes will risk sending invalid codes or already redeemed codes to customers.
The redeemed code list should be a CSV of the redeemed coupon codes across all coupon banks with no other values added.
The file needs to have all the redeemed coupons in the time delta that you create the files. For example, in case of providing a file on a daily cadence, share all the coupons redeemed on that day.
If you don’t have any persistent coupon banks, you do not need to upload coupon redemption files.
Non-persistent coupons
If you set a coupon bank to not persist, every time the campaign is sent, the customer gets a new coupon code, no matter if they’ve already been sent one.
There is no coupon redemption requirement if a coupon bank is set to not persist.
Uploading coupons
To upload a coupon code list, follow these steps:
Navigate to Data > File Management. A list of files for your Namespace displays.
Click Create New Import. The Import File page displays.
Under Select Import Method, choose either Upload via Browser or Upload via SFTP. Under Select Data Type, choose Coupons. Click Continue.
Choose whether your coupon list will be for Communicate campaigns (Email or SMS/MMS) or Site campaigns. The upload coupons page displays.
Name your file import.
Choose whether your coupon upload is for a new coupon code bank, or added to an existing bank. If you choose existing, you’ll be prompted to choose which coupon bank it should be added to.
Select the end date for your coupon codes
No End Date
This is the default selection. The coupons will be distributed until the bank runs out.
Set Distribution End Date
Your campaigns will pull from this bank until the end of the chosen date.
If you are adding coupons to a new bank, enter the coupon bank name.
Choose what type of coupon to upload
This does not affect the coupon codes themselves, it’s extra information added to each upload to help marketers remember what codes correspond to what offers.
Free Shipping
% Off
$ Off
Buy One, Get One Free
Other
Choose coupon persistence
If Persistent is selected, known and opted-in customers will receive the same coupon until distribution ends or the coupon is marked as redeemed.
Not Persistent means customers will receive a new coupon with each send, no matter how many they may have received in the past.
Defaults to Persistent
When uploading, the Row Delimiter in your file must be Line Feed and the Column Delimeter must be comma.
Upload your CSV, PGP, or GPG file by dragging it to the window or click Browse to select it from your file explorer.
Once your codes have been uploaded and validated, click Save & Continue.
A dummy coupon code will appear in proofs, such as "TEST10PERCENT" or "TESTBOGO."
This is expected behavior and only appears in proofs. Live campaign sends will show the code as expected.
Low coupon alerts
If a coupon bank that is actively being used in a campaign is about to run out of coupons, you can receive an email notification. The email addresses configured here will notify for all Bluecore Communicate and Site campaigns.
Hover over the flag icon in the sidebar menu and select Settings.
Click the Coupon Notifications tab.
Enter email addresses to receive a notification when the coupon threshold has been reached.
If you receive a low coupon alert, you will need to either add coupons to the existing bank or create a new coupon bank and update the campaign to pull from the new bank.
Checking coupon bank levels in campaigns
When building your campaign, you will be able to see how many coupons remain in your coupon banks, and when any may be nearing the end of their distribution window.
When selecting your coupon bank in the Message tab of Campaign Builder, each bank will show how many coupons correspond to different distribution end dates, or will display “No end date specified.”
The coupons will be distributed based on their end dates, meaning coupons with earlier end dates will be distributed first.