Acobot increases your sales by motivating visitors and customers to act as you want using advanced discount coupons. It creates, distributes, and manages time-limited, personalized coupons on its own, saving your time and maximizing your returns. 

If you don't offer coupons yet...

You may find this interesting – 87% of U.S. consumers believe discount offers may strongly motivate them to complete an online transaction (Retail Techpoints, Oct 2019). By strategically offering discounts, you can gain not only short-term sales but also long-term growth.

If you’re hesitant to offer a discount out of concern that it may damage your brand’s reputation, honestly answer this question: Are you a brand selling thousand-dollar luxury goods?

If your answer is “no,” you should seriously consider discounts as a means of growing your business. Sure, there are many articles on the internet that attribute discounts with damaged brand image, but virtually none provide data-backed evidence. 

On the contrary, research reveals that reasonable discounts not only increase sales but also brand value. Here are three data-backed reasons to offer discounts.

Coupons create happiness

Dr. Paul J. Zak and his team discovered that coupon recipients who received a $10 voucher experienced a 38% rise in oxytocin levels and were 11% happier than those who did not receive a coupon. Furthermore, their respiration rates dropped 32%, heart rates decreased by 5%, and sweat levels were 20 times lower than their peers. That means they felt more relaxed and less stressed.

If coupons make customers happier, relaxed and less stressed when shopping with your brand, will they damage your brand reputation? Obviously, the answer is no.

Deals prevail today

In 1887, Coca-Cola distributed the first-ever coupon. Since then, big brands have consistently used coupons to boost their bottom lines. 

Worldwide, 31 billion digital coupons are expected to be redeemed by 2019, according to Statista. Our research also reveals 51% of U.S. Shopify stores offer discount coupons regularly (May 2020).

Coupons and other special offers are so common today that consumers no longer associate them with low-quality and poor-brand image.

Offers acquire and retain customers

A recent survey from RetailMeNot found that 80% of shoppers feel encouraged to make a first-time purchase with a brand that is new to them if they have found an offer or discount. 

62% of consumers invest two or more hours each week scouring the web for promotions. That's why a first-time buyer discount can help brands acquire new customers. 

The best part is, retailers can rest assured that coupons will attract loyal, lifelong customers – 91% of buyers who redeem coupons say they’d visit the same retailers again.

It is time to grow your business using discount coupons. Acobot will help you.

If you're offering coupons…

Congrats! You're among 51% of Shopify stores that utilize coupons to generate more sales. Acobot can bring your discount coupons to a higher level with a set of advanced features.

Personalized Coupons

76% of customers feel that receiving personalized discount offers based on their shopping history is important (LoyaltyOne). Acobot dynamically generates unique coupon codes, with certain discount percentages, to motivate shoppers to take specific actions in various contexts. For example, unique codes may be generated for new-visitors, cart recovery, or returning customers. This approach takes your conversion rate to a new level.

Purposeful Coupons

Acobot always offers shoppers coupons in exchange for specific actions that serve your bottom line, such as submitting their email address (lead generation), completing checkout (cart recovery), and increasing value per order (cross-selling), among other examples.

Email-Drive Coupons

88% of consumers prefer to receive coupons via email (Blippr). Acobot leverages that finding, distributing coupon codes using email rather than web pages. For first time visitors, Acobot offers a discount coupon in exchange for their email address, capturing 3x more sales leads.

Time-Limited Coupons

Acobot generates time-limited coupons, also called urgency coupons, which give shoppers a sense of urgency to act. When a coupon is expiring, Acobot sends an email to the shopper, encouraging him to utilize the coupon and avoid loss. Time-limited coupons can boost results 30% more than a coupon with no urgency. 

How Acobot Discount Coupons Work

To utilize the power of advanced coupons delivered by Acobot, all you need to do is provide the maximum percentage discount that you plan to offer. Acobot will generate coupons based on the following rules:

1. The discounts never exceed the maximum percentage you set.
   
2. The minimal discounts are 50% of the maximum.
   
3. The average discount is around 75% of the maximum.
   

Once you have set up the maximum discount percentage, Acobot will start creating, distributing, and managing coupons strategically to increase your sales on its own.

How to Decide Your Maximum Discount

The right maximum discount number varies from business to business. You may determine your own percentage based on the following factors.

1. Business model: Do you plan to offer a deep discount (i.e., 50% or more)?
   
2. Gross margin: You may want to keep your maximum discount below your gross margin, ensuring profitability.
   
3. Pricing: Do you plan to apply deeper discounts on higher prices, or the contrary?
   

You may need to experiment to discover an optimized percentage. If you're not sure, start from a percentage at the lower end and gradually increase it. 

Whatever percentage you choose, Acobot strategically generates coupons and optimizes over time – all by itself. Note when you decrease the max discount, it does not invalidate the previously generated coupons. They are valid until they expire.

If you manually create discount coupon code and publish it on your home page, we recommend you drop it and let Acobot manage the coupons for you. It will convert more sales with the same discounts.

If you want to show your existing coupon code on the home page, ensure it doesn't exceed the Maximal Discount you set for Acobot or it will not work well.

Summary

Coupons make shoppers happy. You should offer them because they not only contribute to customer acquisition – they also increase customer retention in the long term. Even if you are already offering coupons, you can gain more from your discounts by employing advanced coupons that are time-limited, personalized, and dynamically generated with a purpose. To set up Acobot’s Discount Coupons feature for your business, just set the maximum discount percentage – then you’ll be all set!