How to Create Smart Coupons in WooCommerce

Do you want to create smart coupons in WooCommerce?

By extending WooCommerce’s built-in coupons, you can create all kinds of different promotions including ‘buy one get one,’ free gifts, and even URL coupons.

In this article, we’ll cover how to create smart coupons in WooCommerce.

Why Create Smart Coupons in WooCommerce?

Smart coupons are a great way to get more sales, keep your customers happy, and encourage brand loyalty.

Instead of simply giving your customers a discount on everything in their WooCommerce cart, you can use smart coupons to create all kinds of different campaigns and promotions.

For example, you might create a ‘buy one get one’ (BOGO) coupon that lets customers buy one product and get a second one for free.

BOGO coupons are particularly useful for boosting the sales of a specific product. For example, many sites use BOGO to sell older products that they no longer want to stock.

Free gift coupons are another popular choice. Many eCommerce stores grow their email list by offering shoppers a free gift if they share their contact information.

You can also encourage customers to spend more by setting a minimum spend for the free gift coupon.

With all that being said, let’s see how you can create smart coupons in WooCommerce.

Create Smart Coupons with Advanced Coupons Plugin

For this tutorial, we’ll be using the Advanced Coupons plugin, which is the best WordPress coupon code plugin on the market. It lets you create lots of different advanced coupons to get more sales and grow your business.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the Advanced Coupons plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, head over to Coupons » License.

Then, you just need to enter the license key into the ‘License Key’ field.

To find this information, log into your account on the Advanced Coupons website. You’ll also need to enter your ‘Activation Email’ which is the email address you used when you purchased Advanced Coupons.

Once you’ve done that, click on ‘Activate Key.’

Now, you’re ready to create a smart coupon.

Simply go to the Marketing » Coupons and then click on ‘Add New.’

On the next screen, you need to type in a title for the coupon.

This will become the actual coupon that customers will use to claim the the discount, free gift, or other perk. With that in mind, it’s a good idea to use something that’s easy for shoppers to remember and type.

You can create lots of different smart coupons. In this article, we’re going to take you through some of the most popular coupons you can create for your online store.

Simply use the quick links below to jump straight to the coupon you want to create.

• Creating a Buy One Get One Free Coupon
• Creating a URL Coupon (Auto-Apply)
• Creating a Pre-Scheduled Coupon
• Creating a Free Gift Coupon

Creating a Buy One Get One Free Coupon in WooCommerce

Advanced Coupons let you create all sorts of BOGO offers.

Often, BOGO means ‘buy one product, get a second one free,’ but you can also offer a second item for a discounted price. For example, you might create a ‘buy one, get one 50% off’ offer.

A BOGO coupon is a great way to encourage new customers to make their first purchase. It can also encourage repeat purchases from existing customers or convince shoppers to add more items to their cart, in order to qualify for the BOGO deal.

To create a BOGO coupon using Advanced Coupons, scroll to the ‘Coupon Data’ section and make sure the ‘General’ tab is selected.

Then, open the ‘Discount type’ dropdown and select ‘Buy X Get X Deal (BOGO).’

You can create lots of different types of BOGO coupons, such as ‘buy one T-shirt, get a second T-shirt free’ or ‘buy any accessory and get 50% off a second accessory.”

In the ‘Customer Buys’ section, you can chose the product, combination or products, or product category that will trigger the deal. For example, in the following image we’re creating a BOGO offer that’s triggered every time a shopper adds the Cap product to their cart.

In the ‘Customer Gets’ section, you’ll need to pick what product the customer gets for free or at a discounted price.

In the following image, the customer will get any item from the ‘accessories’ product category for a 50% discount.

Tip: BOGO coupons are most effective when you offer an item that’s related to what the customer is buying. For example, if you sell winter clothing then you might offer a free pair of gloves with every hat purchased.

If you want more help creating BOGO coupons, then check out our complete guide on how to create buy one get one coupons in WooCommerce.

Creating a URL Coupon (Auto-Apply) in WooCommerce

When you send out an email newsletter or social media post containing a coupon code, your customers may not know how to apply that code.

As a result, shoppers may add the product to their shopping cart but then get frustrated and give up on their purchase, which will affect your cart abandoned cart sales.

Even if a shopper knows how to use the code, typing out a long and complicated code isn’t the best customer experience particularly if they’re using a smaller device like a smartphone. This may cause you to lose out on sales.

Wouldn’t it be nice if shoppers could auto-apply the coupon code just by clicking on a link?

This is where auto-apply coupon URLs come in.

Instead of needing to remember a code, customers can simply click on a special URL. Advanced Coupons will then apply the coupon to their cart automatically.

This is really useful for social media marketing, where you’re limited to how many characters you can post.

To start, simply open the ‘Discount type’ dropdown and choose the kind of discount that you want to create, such as a 50% discount.

You’ll need to publish the coupon in order to get the URL, so click on the ‘Publish’ button.

After that, click on the ‘URL Coupons’ tab and you’ll see the URL.

If you want, you can customize the link using the ‘Code URL Override’ box.

For example, if you’re planning to share the link on social media then you may want to shorten the URL.

For more information, please see our guide on how to create URL coupons in WooCommerce.

Creating a Pre-Scheduled Coupon in WooCommerce

Planning a holiday or special sales promotion?

If you run a lot of sales during the year, then scheduling coupons in advance can save you a lot of time. For instance, at the beginning of the year you could schedule coupons for your spring sale, summer sale, and your Black Friday deals.

Scheduling coupons can also make it easier to communicate and plan with affiliate partners, by allowing you to share codes with them in advance.

To schedule a coupon, simply create the code as normal in the WooCommerce » Coupons » Add New screen.

Then, click on the ‘Scheduler’ tab and enter a start and end date for your coupon.

By default, Advanced Coupons will show an error if the coupon has expired, or the promotion hasn’t started yet.

You can change these two error messages by typing some new text into the ‘Coupon start error message’ or ‘Coupon expire error message’ boxes.

Tip: By default, the coupon will go live at 12:00:00 on the start date and expire at 23:59:59 on the day before the scheduled end date. Advanced Coupons uses the timezone that you’ve set in WordPress. For more details, please see our guide on how to change the date and time format in WordPress.

If you want more help creating your scheduled coupon, then check out our tutorial on how to schedule a coupon in WooCommerce.

Creating a Free Gift Coupon in WooCommerce

Do you want to offer your customers a free gift? You don’t need to set a product’s price to $0 to give it away.

Free gift coupons let shoppers add a product to their cart for free, which can make your customers feel more valued and encourage brand loyalty.

Many online stores offer a free gift when you spend a minimum amount, which can increase the average order value. Other stores give customers a free gift when they buy a particular product. In this way, a free gift can help you sell old stock or encourage customers to try a new product.

To create a free gift coupon, select the ‘Add Products’ tab and then click on the ‘+ Add Product’ button.

In the ‘Type to search’ field, type the product that you want to use as the free gift. When the right product appears, click on it.

Next, open the dropdown below the ‘Price/Discount’ heading and click on ‘$: Override price.’

In the box next to it, either type in ‘0’ or leave the box blank.

For more details, please see our guide on how to create a free gift coupon in WooCommerce.

How to Promote Your Coupons in WooCommerce

Whatever type of coupon you’ve created, you’ll want to let your customers know about it.

Unless you’ve created the offer specifically for your email list or newsletter, then it’s a good idea to promote the coupon across your website.

The easiest way to do this is with OptinMonster. It’s a powerful conversion optimization tool that helps you turn casual website visitors into paying customers.

You can use OptinMonster’s easy drag and drop editor to create an engaging coupon popup.

For more information, check out our complete guide on how to create a coupon popup.

You can also use OptinMonster to display your coupons in lots of other ways including floating notification bars.

If you’ve created multiple smart coupons then you can even challenge customers to win the best deal by using a spin the wheel optin.

This is a great way to make your WooCommerce coupons more interesting and fun to the people who visit your website.

We hope this article helped you learn how to create smart coupons in WooCommerce. You might also like our ultimate guide to WooCommerce SEO and our step by step guide on how to set up conversion tracking in WooCommerce.

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