The 5 Best eCommerce Promotion Engines on the Market

Running promotions that are targeted and drive conversions is a complex and time-consuming task. Many eCommerce businesses simply don’t have the capability to design, implement and monitor their own promotional campaigns.

This can lead to value-destroying promotions that have a negative return on investment. Did you know that nearly 55% of promotions fail to increase sales?¹ That whopping number is indicative of a wider problem: that a lot of promotions are run simply for the sake of it, without the expertise or strategy needed to ensure they drive the most sales at the lowest-possible cost.

That said, promotions can be extremely effective when implemented well. A successful promotional campaign can be the deciding factor between growing your business and falling behind the competition. After all, 91% of customers are more likely to shop from brands who recognise and remember their needs, and provide them with relevant offers and deals.²

Many businesses understand the potential of promotions, and more companies are investing in promotion engines to make the handling of promotional campaigns easier and more efficient.

Suggested reading: Check out our blog, 5 features to look for in a promotions engine, to see exactly what your ideal promotion engine should include.

How can a promotion engine benefit eCommerce businesses?

In a recent survey, 84% of eCommerce companies said that the space has tough or very tough competition.³ Sites are fighting for the more limited spending power of consumers in the current economic climate. Promotion engines can help eCommerce businesses stand out from competitors, leading to increased conversions and higher sales revenue.

But how do you make sure that you pick the right eCommerce promotion engine for your business? If you’re looking for guidance, you’ve come to the right place!

This article will discuss five of the best promotions engines on the market today and how you can get the most out of your investment.

1. Vouchery

Vouchery markets themselves as offering smarter, easier and more efficient discounting. They are an AI-powered promotion engine designed to help you create, redeem and synchronise promotions across platforms. Their services include:

Managing and collaborating on multiple budgets in a single, easy-to-use platform, across multiple teams.
Personalising unique codes that are tailored to user segments.
Automatically distributing coupon codes to your marketing software.
Detecting code abuse and getting a fraud score for your promotions.
Analysing data and filtering it by campaign, user type, vendor, channel and more.
Increasing coupons’ ROI by optimising voucher spends based on CLV.

They also offer a range of pricing models that enable you to scale the service as your business grows.

2. Eagle Eye

Eagle Eye is on a mission to help companies connect all aspects of the customer journey in real time. They’re issuing over 350 million personalised offers to 40 million+ unique loyalty members per week.

Their API-based SaaS platform provides scalable promotions, loyalty, and gifting capabilities. Eagle Eye Promote offers businesses a single platform to manage and execute promotions that are safe, secure, and fraud-free.

Tip: Eagle Eye uses retailers’ analytics capabilities to help deliver 1:1 marketing. If you lack that in-depth analytics capability in-house, you might find yourself needing a platform that can support your data collection and analysis.

3. Voucherify

Voucherify launched in 2013 and positioned itself as a developer-friendly promotion engine, with some of its largest customers including Philips and OVO Energy.

It uses a set of powerful APIs to build effective promotions, including:

Coupons
Gift cards
Referrals
Bundles
Loyalty and cashback
Cart promotions
Geofenced promotions
Digital wallets

With Voucherify, data sources can be connected to build targeted campaigns. You can also create effective sales promotions faster with the campaign builder tool, and control how, when, and who will receive offers as campaigns can be shared through multiple channels into any existing system (web or mobile).

Voucherify’s Rules Engine checks who can use offers, ensuring promotional campaign security and protecting promotions from fraud. Their dashboards monitor malicious activity and can be integrated with external BI platforms to track promotion performance.

4. Talon.One

Talon.One entered the marketplace in 2015 and has worked with well-known brands such as Adidas and National Express.

The software has grown in popularity thanks to its adjustable promotion campaign features and centralised integration platform. Talon.One is a flexible promotion engine which allows marketers to set up and edit highly personalised promotions in real-time without the need for developers.

The Talon.One eCommerce promotion platform can be used to generate a wide variety of promotion types including:

Coupons
Referrals
Bundling
Wallets
Discounts
Loyalty
Geofencing
Gift cards

5. Uniqodo

Uniqodo not only meets the typical requirements of an eCommerce promotion engine but exceeds them to become a comprehensive promotion experience platform that delivers advanced promotional capabilities. This user-friendly platform creates highly customised and engaging promotional campaigns that are targeted to specific users, as well as optimised customer experiences to improve the entire end-to-end journey.

Let’s look at some of the reasons why Uniqodo stands out as an ideal choice for eCommerce businesses.

Supports many promotion types

Uniqodo offers high functionality and supports many promotion types including multi-use coupons, discount codes, loyalty schemes, BOGO offers, gift cards, and more. This is all in addition to its core focus of secure, single-use codes that can be used in a range of creative promotional strategies:

Affiliate promotions.
Mystery discount offers.
Exit intent overlays.
Targeted emails.

Leveraging complex promotional tactics is a great way to boost customer acquisition and retention, meet revenue targets, and edge out the competition, all in a way that doesn’t require excessive spending against the current economic landscape.

How Uniqodo designed an engaging promotional strategy for Jacamo:

The challenge: Fashion retailer Jacamo would send out exclusive discounts to their email list each month, but were finding response rates beginning to fall. They turned to Uniqodo to come up with a way to spice up their promotions.

The solution: Uniqodo worked with Jacamo’s CRM team to set up a mystery offer in time for Halloween that promised the chance of receiving a range of discount values. Uniqodo’s mystery discount algorithm ensured the majority of recipients would receive a 10% discount, controlling the promotion and protecting Jacamo’s bottom line.

The results: Because Uniqodo had tested the promotion before going live and was on call to ensure emails were sent out at the best time, the promotion was a huge success. Jacamo saw a significant uplift in people engaging with the promotion, and thus also saw a conversion rate uplift. This proved that Uniqodo promotions could grow a business and meet revenue targets, all at a great price for the eCommerce retailer.

Enhances customer journeys

Uniqodo shapes engaging, seamless promotional journeys that encourage customer loyalty, reduce dropoff and maximise ROI. It combines advanced pricing and promotions with great customer experience to help eCommerce businesses get the most out of promotional campaigns.

Did you know that 84% of companies that work to improve their customer experience see an uplift in revenue?⁴ Customer experience should be a top priority for every eCommerce business when designing a promotional strategy.

Suggested reading: Take a look at our blog, How to Streamline Your eCommerce Customer Journey, to learn more about how you can enhance the onsite experience.

How Uniqodo helped Sky improve their customer experience

The challenge: When Sky held promotions on their own site, they had healthy conversion rates. However, promotions held on affiliate sites were another story, and Sky was keen to optimise them to match this success. In came Uniqodo.

The solution: Uniqodo utilised their promotion experience platform to tailor a bespoke promotional experience to affiliate traffic sources. This included a co-branded canvas to orient customers and assure them that they were in the right place. The platform enabled them to:

Monitor and analyse customer data to target underperforming promotions.
Automate the control of promotional codes.
Include a reinforcement message on the basket summary page, and display in-basket confirmation messages.

The results: Uniqodo’s solutions made it easier for customers to redeem discounts and made the entire journey more enjoyable, resulting in an improvement in customer retention while still adhering to strict budgets.

Prevents code leakage

Over-discounting can seriously harm your bottom line and lead to value-destroying promotions. To prevent this, Uniqodo offers unique, single-use codes that reduce the risk of code leakage. This drives more targeted promotions, creates exclusivity, and boosts ROI.

How Uniqodo helped Vouchercloud run secure promotions

The challenge: Vouchercloud needed to stand out against increasing competition, but their codes weren’t secure. This meant they couldn’t accurately monitor promotions, reach their target audiences, or prevent over discounting.

The solution: By collaborating with Vouchercloud’s developers, Uniqodo created unique, single-use codes that could control the promotion. Thanks to Uniqodo’s platform only requiring a simple API integration, the solution fit in easily with Vouchercloud’s back-end systems.

The results: Vouchercloud had total control over their promotions thanks to the API, and the codes being unique and single-use meant they couldn’t leak onto third-party sites. This protected revenue and profits by preventing over discounting, and the platform ticked all the boxes at a competitive price.

Offers easy integration

Uniqodo makes lengthy, time-consuming and tedious IT projects or full-blown API a thing of the past! Its JavaScript tag means deployment has never been so simple and you can easily tap into Uniqodo’s entire capabilities via Javascript.

Tag implementation means you’ll be fully functional in no time regardless of your preferred eCommerce platform, tools or marketing channels.

How Uniqodo can help set up promotions

Uniqodo prides itself on being able to integrate into a wide range of back-end systems with very little effort on the eCommerce retailer’s part. Unlike its competitors, Uniqodo’s promotion engine is designed to suit your needs, and doesn’t expect you to adapt. For customers across the telco, travel, and retail sectors, Uniqodo’s promotion experience platform has integrated seamlessly to provide secure promotions at an affordable price.

Key takeaways

In summary, the Uniqodo platform can help your eCommerce business:

Improve acquisition.
Amplify conversions.
Drive engagement.
Increase retention.

Don’t just take our word for it! Check out these case studies to see the power of Uniqodo’s promotion experience platform for yourself.

Get the most out of your promotions with Uniqodo

Uniqodo helps you take control of your promotional campaigns by making them easier to manage and more engaging for your customers. It’s the only platform on the market to go beyond being either an engine or an experience platform. Rather. it’s a comprehensive end-to-end tool for any online retailer seeking to drive conversions and customer loyalty.

If you want to see how Uniqodo can take your promotions strategy to the next level, book a free discovery call today and we can find a solution that delivers what you need.