A promotion is a lower price that runs itself. Pick the discount and when it runs, and your booking page and website show the old price crossed out with the promotion price next to it - customers just book, and the discount is already in everything: the price they see, the deposit they pay, the receipt at the end.
Create one
- Open Growth, then Promotions, press New promotion and choose the Promotion type.
- Name it (customers see the name - "Winter Special" reads better than "10off") and set the percent off.
- Choose what it covers under Services and Products: All, Chosen or None of each. Chosen products can be whole brands, whole categories or single products; a brand or category covers products you add to it later too.
- Set when it starts and ends, and optionally a total-use cap - a promotion that reaches its cap ends everywhere at once.
Promotions are a percentage by design, and they can't have per-person rules like minimum spends or new-customer limits - a promotion price on the page has to be true for everyone who sees it. When you want rules, you want a promo code.
Where it applies
Every promotion has a Where it applies choice:
- Everywhere (the usual choice): bookings you create from your own dashboard get the promotion price too, automatically - the phone customer who saw your promotion online pays what the page promised, and your service picker shows the promotion price while you book them in. Checkout gets it as well: add a product or service it covers to a visit's bill or a New sale, and the promotion appears on the bill as its own line, worked out from what it covers.
- Online only: the promotion applies only to bookings made on your booking page or website - a deliberate lever for nudging people to book online. Products are only sold in person, so an online-only promotion can't cover them.
At checkout
- Each item takes one promotion: the biggest percent that covers it. A bill can show two, say Spring sale on the cut and Lumen week on the shampoo, each on its own line.
- A visit's booked services keep the promotion they were booked with, the price the customer was promised. Anything added at checkout gets the best promotion running that day.
- Items typed in at checkout, gift cards and packages never take a promotion.
- Editing a sale keeps its own promotions. One taken off at checkout stays off, and a promotion that started after the sale never reaches it. Something added in an edit takes a promotion only if the sale already has one that covers it.
A price you set for a from service when you book is the price: the promotion comes off the visit's other services, never that one.
Repeat bookings are the one exception: a series always books at menu price, because a series outlives the promotion. You can still discount any single visit at its checkout.
To charge one customer the menu price instead, press the X beside the promotion on their bill at checkout. The bill returns to full price for that visit only, and the promotion keeps running for everyone else. Put it back restores it if you change your mind before completing.
Promotions and codes together
The promotion price is the price. A promo code comes off that price, online and at checkout alike: a $50 service at 20% off is $40, and a 10% code on top takes $4 more. A discount you type at checkout comes off the promotion price the same way. The bill shows each on its own line. A code's minimum spend is read against the promotion price too, since that is what the code comes off.
Telling people
Hit Announce on the promotion for a pre-written email or SMS campaign, ready to edit and send. And watch what it did in the Promotions report - every use is counted, with the revenue it brought.