Best Practice: Creating Unique Coupon Codes

Coupon codes have an important function in marketing initiatives. They act as powerful motivators to attract and retain customers, drive sales, and measure the effectiveness of various marketing efforts. "Dynamic" coupon codes consist of a random sequence of characters that can only be used once by a customer. Each customer is assigned an exclusive coupon code to ensure there are no duplicates. 

Below we have outlined best practices on how to generate coupon codes that are customizable, safe, and trackable.

General Tips

Once you've made your codes unique, think about the customer experience, as there is a trade-off between code security and ease of use for your customers. Here are some general tips to keep in mind when creating unique coupon codes:

Keep it short and simple

The longer the code, the more complex it becomes. Typically, a string of 8-12 characters is sufficient to ensure both unpredictability and uniqueness. It is important not to burden customers with overly long coupon codes that could lead to typos during the redemption process.

Avoid ambiguous characters
Distinguishing between "O" and "0" within a random string is tough, and the confusion is compounded by "I" (uppercase "i") and "l" (lowercase "L"). We recommend that you proactively prevent this scenario by excluding ambiguous characters from the character set.

Use prefixes
Expand your unique coupon code using prefixes (or suffixes). This allows you to identify codes that belong to specific campaigns, greatly improving the efficiency of data management and analysis.

• Use prefixes that relate to the code and inform customers what the codes are for.

• Break the code into smaller parts by using a "-" to separate your prefix from the unique string.

• Keep track of all your prefixes so you don't use any twice.

For example, use "SANTA23-XXXXX" for a holiday promotion, "BF23-XXXXX" for a Black Friday deal or "HELLO-XXXXX" as a reward for newsletter signups.

How to Generate Unique Codes incl. Prefixes

Unique coupon codes can be created automatically in most shop systems or connected email platforms. However, most of them, such as Shopify, do not offer the ability to prefix them, which is essential for evaluating their performance. For Shopify, you can use apps such as Bulk Discount Code Bot and Discount Ninja to create and customize your coupon codes. In case you're using Klaviyo, you can do it right there.

Example: Create your coupon code in Klaviyo

First, make sure you're integrated with your e-commerce platform and can see the Coupons tab in your Klaviyo dashboard.

• Use your credentials to log into your Klaviyo account.
• Navigate to Content > Coupons, and click Create Shopify Coupon.
  
  
  
  
• Select e.g. a name and the discount type to define all parameters of your coupon code.
• Don't forget to specify a prefix to be included in every code.
  
  
  
• After the coupon is created, you will be able to add as much unique coupon codes as you like. Just move to the right-hand side of your screen, click the dots and select Add Codes.
  
  

That's it! Once the codes have been generated, you can include the coupon tag in your campaign template. When the email is sent, this variable will be dynamically replaced with a unique discount code for each recipient.

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