Creating Marketing Campaigns

Campaigns in AccuArk are the top-level organizational containers for your marketing and promotional activities. A campaign groups one or more promotions under a single umbrella, giving you centralized control over scheduling, budgets, usage limits, and performance tracking. Whether you are running a holiday sale, a product launch, or an ongoing loyalty initiative, creating a campaign is the first step.

This guide walks through every field on the Campaign Editor and explains how to save and begin building promotions within a campaign.

Opening the Campaign Editor

To create a new campaign, navigate to Marketing > Campaigns > New. The Campaign Editor opens with a blank form ready for configuration. Each section of the form is described below.

Campaign Fields Walkthrough

Name

Enter a descriptive name for the campaign. The name is used throughout AccuArk for tracking and reporting, so choose something that clearly identifies the campaign's purpose. For example, "Summer 2026 Clearance Sale" or "Back to School BOGO Week" are clear and specific. The name appears in the campaign list, in promotion dropdowns, and on the Campaign ROI Report, so staff at any level should be able to recognize the campaign by its name alone.

Description

The description field is an optional free-text area where you can record internal notes about the campaign's purpose, goals, target audience, or any other context that helps your team understand the intent behind the campaign. The description is not visible to customers — it is purely for internal reference. Use it to document things like "Targeting lapsed customers who have not purchased in 90+ days" or "Coordinated with the email marketing team for a three-wave send schedule." While optional, a well-written description saves time when reviewing campaigns weeks or months later.

Status

The status field controls the campaign's current operational state. When creating a new campaign, you can set the initial status to one of the following values:

• Draft — The campaign is saved but not active. Promotions linked to a draft campaign are not evaluated by the promotion engine at the POS. Use this status to prepare and review a campaign before launch.
• Scheduled — The campaign has a future start date and will automatically transition to active when that date arrives.
• Active — The campaign is live. Linked promotions are being evaluated at the POS and will apply to qualifying transactions.
• Paused — The campaign is temporarily suspended. Linked promotions stop being evaluated until the campaign is resumed.
• Expired — The campaign has passed its end date. This status is typically set automatically when the end date is reached, or manually when a campaign is ended early.
• Cancelled — The campaign has been permanently stopped before its natural end date.

The full lifecycle of these statuses is covered in detail in the Campaign Lifecycle Management article.

Scope

The scope setting determines which locations the campaign applies to. There are two options:

• Global — The campaign and its linked promotions apply to all locations in your business. This is the default and the most common choice for company-wide sales and promotions.
• Specific Locations — The campaign is restricted to selected locations only. When you choose this option, a location checklist appears on the form allowing you to select exactly which locations the campaign covers.

When scope is set to specific_locations, promotions linked to the campaign are only evaluated at the selected locations. Transactions at other locations are unaffected by the campaign, even if the linked promotions would otherwise qualify. This is useful for regional promotions, pilot programs at select stores, or franchise-specific deals.

Start Date and End Date

The start and end dates define the campaign's active period:

• Start Date — The date and time when the campaign becomes active. Before this date, the campaign and its promotions are not evaluated at the POS, even if the campaign status is set to active. For scheduled campaigns, the system automatically transitions the status to active when the start date is reached.
• End Date — The date and time when the campaign expires. After this date, the campaign's status changes to expired and linked promotions stop being evaluated. Setting an end date ensures the campaign does not run indefinitely.

Both dates are optional. If no start date is set, the campaign is eligible to be active immediately (subject to its status). If no end date is set, the campaign remains active until it is manually paused, ended, or cancelled.

Priority

The priority field is a numeric value that determines the campaign's evaluation order when multiple campaigns are active simultaneously. Lower numbers indicate higher priority. For example, a campaign with priority 1 is evaluated before a campaign with priority 10.

Priority matters when the stacking rules limit how many promotions can apply to a single invoice. If only one promotion is allowed, the promotion engine evaluates campaigns in priority order and selects the first qualifying promotion it finds. If your business runs multiple overlapping campaigns, assign priority values carefully to ensure the most important campaign takes precedence.

Is Stackable

The stackable toggle controls whether promotions from this campaign can stack (combine) with promotions from other campaigns on the same invoice:

• Enabled (stackable) — Promotions in this campaign can coexist with promotions from other campaigns on the same transaction, subject to the global stacking rules.
• Disabled (not stackable) — Promotions in this campaign are mutually exclusive with promotions from other campaigns. If a promotion from this campaign is applied, promotions from other non-stackable campaigns are not evaluated.

The stackable setting works in conjunction with the global stacking rules configured under Marketing > Stacking Rules. Even if a campaign is marked as stackable, the global maximum promotions per invoice and discount caps still apply.

Budget Limit

The budget limit is an optional dollar cap on the total discount value this campaign can give away across all linked promotions combined. For example, if you set a budget limit of $5,000, the campaign tracks every discount dollar applied by its linked promotions. Once the cumulative discount reaches $5,000, the campaign's promotions stop applying to new transactions.

Budget tracking works in real time. Each time a promotion from this campaign applies a discount, the discount amount is added to the campaign's running total. When the total meets or exceeds the budget limit, the promotion engine skips this campaign's promotions for all subsequent transactions.

Leave the budget limit blank or set to zero for no budget cap. Budget tracking data is visible on the Campaign ROI Report.

Max Total Uses

The max total uses field is an optional cap on the total number of times promotions linked to this campaign can be used across all locations and all customers combined. Unlike the budget limit (which tracks discount dollars), max total uses tracks the count of redemptions.

For example, if you set max total uses to 500, the campaign allows up to 500 individual promotion applications across all linked promotions. After the 500th use, the campaign's promotions stop being applied.

This is useful for limited-quantity promotions such as "first 200 customers get 20% off" or "500 free upgrades while supplies last." Leave the field blank or set to zero for unlimited uses.

Selecting Locations for Specific Scope

When the scope is set to Specific Locations, a location checklist appears below the scope dropdown. The checklist shows all active locations in your business, each with a checkbox:

1. Review the list of locations.
2. Check the box next to each location where the campaign should be active.
3. Uncheck any locations that should not participate in the campaign.

The selected locations are saved with the campaign and determine where linked promotions are evaluated. You can change the location selection at any time by editing the campaign, even while it is active. Changes take effect immediately for all future transactions.

Saving the Campaign

After filling in all desired fields, click Save to create the campaign. The campaign is stored with the status you selected (typically draft for new campaigns that are still being prepared).

Saving the campaign does not immediately affect POS operations unless the status is set to active and the start date has been reached. Draft and scheduled campaigns have no impact on sales until they become active.

Creating Promotions Within the Campaign

After saving a campaign, the Create Promotion button appears on the Campaign Editor. This button opens the Promotion Editor with the campaign already pre-linked, streamlining the process of building promotions that belong to this campaign.

Click Create Promotion to open the Promotion Editor. Configure the promotion as you normally would — select the promotion type (invoice discount, BOGO, bundle, category, tiered spend, etc.), set the discount amount or rules, define dates, and configure any additional settings. When you save the promotion, it is automatically linked to the campaign.

You can create as many promotions as needed within a single campaign. A campaign might contain a single promotion or dozens of promotions covering different product categories, customer segments, or discount tiers. The campaign provides the organizational container, while each promotion defines the specific discount logic.

What to Read Next

• Campaign Lifecycle Management — Learn how to move campaigns through statuses, pause and resume, end early, cancel, and understand how status changes affect linked promotions.
• Linking Promotions to Campaigns — Detailed guide on associating existing promotions with campaigns, budget tracking, usage tracking, and viewing campaign performance.