Promotion Engine Software | Building a Persuasive Business Case

Global eCommerce sales are expected to grow by 50% over the next three years as more shoppers move online to look for cost-saving deals.¹

But as opportunities for eCommerce businesses grow, so does the competition. To ensure long-term success, businesses need to deliver engaging promotional experiences that not only encourage one-off purchases, but also incentivise shoppers to return as loyal customers. 

As most eCommerce marketers will know, the best way to go about achieving this is with promotion engine software, which delivers visually and emotionally engaging promotions at the optimal moment in the customer journey. 

In this article, we’ll outline how you can go about building a persuasive business case for promotion engine software that:

• Targets the specific challenges your business is facing

• Helps you identify the right promotion engine software for you

• Enables you to improve the long-term performance of your promotions

Let’s get started!

Suggested reading: Read our free eBook, ‘What Winning Your Promotional Strategy Looks Like’, for more insights on building a successful promotions strategy.

Is promotion engine software right for you?

Before you even start building a business case for promotion engine software, you need to be confident that it is the right move for your business. Otherwise, you could end up investing time, infrastructure, and resources into a piece of technology that won’t serve you long-term.

Promotion engine software could be a good choice if:

• You need basic promotional capabilities: With average eCommerce conversion rates standing at only 2.58%, running regular promotions is the best way to encourage hesitant shoppers to purchase.²

• You want to connect your existing social media and website promotions: Larger businesses may already have a promotion engine, but will require additional software to run their promotions across different platforms. Social media commerce is expected to deliver $2.9 trillion in sales by 2026, so by setting up your infrastructure now, you can be ready for this growing demand.³

• You need to eliminate coupon code misuse: Bulk code misuse can reduce profit margins and negatively impact your business’s reputation. Using promotions software lets you deliver secure, single-use codes that help you build a better relationship with your customers.

• You want to improve the effectiveness of your promotions: With the right software, you can connect each stage of the customer journey and create a more successful promotional experience.

Promotion engine software can be used by smaller and larger businesses alike. But if you want to see results, it’s important to choose your software carefully to ensure you are enhancing rather than disrupting the customer journey.

Case study: How Avis boosted subscribers with a new promotional campaign

Challenge: Avis wanted to grow their email subscriber base and promote their loyalty program while avoiding the potential issues of coupon code misuse.

Solution: Avis worked with Uniqodo to add and configure tags on their existing websites, allowing them to generate single-use codes that were only available to new subscribers.

Result: Avis’s new promotions increased email subscribers by 24% in EU countries, significantly growing their base of loyal customers.

Suggested reading: Visit our case studies page to explore more examples of promotion engine software in action.

Building a persuasive business case

Once you have a clear understanding of how promotion engine software could benefit your business, you can begin building your business case. Most marketers will already have a good idea of what to include in a business case, but when it comes to promotions specifically, make sure to keep the following steps in mind:

1) Do your research… and show it

‘Promotion engine software’ is a broad term that encompasses a range of digital tools. 

• Basic promotion engines will only provide a code field that allows you to share standard bulk codes such as ‘DISCOUNT10’ or ‘PROMO20’.
• More advanced promotional experience software lets you deliver different reward types according to customer-specific data.

Explore the potential benefits and downsides of all of your available options, and include this information in your business case. 

What type of promo engine you go for will ultimately depend on your budgetary requirements, promotional targets, and long and short-term business goals. But on the whole, it is eCommerce promotions best practice to use software that delivers one-time coupon codes rather than bulk codes, avoiding the risks of promo code abuse.

2) Identify your business goals and potential solutions

It’s important to take a holistic approach when researching and selecting your potential software solution; promotions aren’t an isolated aspect of your website, but an integral part of how the customer interacts with and reacts to your brand.

Key targets for eCommerce businesses include:

• Increasing promotion ROI

• Increasing overall conversion rates

• Building closer relationships with customers

• Growing awareness of loyalty or subscription programs

Identifying which targets are a priority for your eCommerce store will in turn help you choose the right piece of software for your business. It’s also worth including two or three different software options in your business case to demonstrate that you have considered a range of tools and strategies.

Pro tip: A Promotion Experience Platform can help you achieve your promotional goals, providing streamlined code delivery and straightforward integration. Explore the platform page to learn more.

3) Illustrate the benefits

A good business case will give your audience a clear picture of what the company should be investing in and why. And while you can say a lot of great things about this potential investment, it is much more effective to show it. 

Look for eCommerce promotion engine software that offers free demonstrations or trials. Not only does this allow you to see how the tool works in practice, it also shows that the software company is confident in their product. 

A good piece of promotion engine software should deliver:

• Secure, single-use codes

• Customer loyalty program capabilities

• Rewards according to specific triggers, such as exit intent 

• Cross-channel promotional capabilities, including on social and email platforms

4) Consider the financial impact

When considering software procurement, finances will undoubtedly be front of mind. Remember that the financial impact of a piece of software won’t be restricted to the amount on the price tag — it will also be affected by:

• Integrations: Will you need to replace existing hardware or aspects of your website to accommodate the new software?

• Long vs short-term savings: Will the software require significant long-term maintenance or updates? Could this cause further costs down the line?

• Capabilities: What promotional capabilities do you gain from the software? Consider choosing software that can be customised according to your business’s needs for better long-term value.

Asking these questions will allow you to demonstrate and justify the benefits of implementing promotion engine software for your eCommerce site. Plus, once you have a clear picture of where the financial risks are, you can more easily identify opportunities for ROI.

5) Plan ahead

The key to a persuasive promotion software business case is demonstrating that you are ready and excited to proceed with implementation. Confidence in the proposed solution is essential.

You can also be more persuasive simply by planning ahead, whether by discussing technical details with your development team, planning a marketing strategy centred on promotion experiences, or creating an implementation timeline. If you’re then asked any further questions about the software, you’ll be ready with answers.

Transform your promotions with experience-first software

As the world of eCommerce continues to rapidly develop, it’s crucial that brands employ software that helps them meet and exceed customer expectations. The more streamlined your promotions are, the better your eCommerce customer retention, conversion, and engagement rates will be.

Uniqodo’s Promotion Experience Platform is designed with customer experience at its core. As well as providing first-class promotion engine capabilities, it allows you to:

• Securely distribute promotions across different channels

• Customise code delivery triggers

• Deliver different discount types

Book a free discovery call to discover how Uniqodo could help your eCommerce business today.

^1. Top ecommerce statistics for 2023 | Adobe 

^2. Average ecommerce conversion rate benchmarks | Adobe 

^3. Global social commerce market size 2022-2026 | Statista