Linking Promotions to Campaigns

Promotions in AccuArk can be linked to a marketing campaign, giving you centralized control over budget tracking, usage limits, and performance reporting. A single campaign can contain multiple promotions of different types, allowing you to build sophisticated multi-faceted marketing initiatives under one organizational umbrella.

This guide covers how to create promotions from within the Campaign Editor, how to link existing promotions to a campaign, how campaign-level budget and usage tracking works, and how to view campaign performance.

Creating a Promotion from the Campaign Editor

The most streamlined way to add a promotion to a campaign is to create it directly from the Campaign Editor. This approach automatically links the new promotion to the campaign, so you do not need to set the association manually.

Step-by-Step Process

1. Open the Campaign Editor — Navigate to Marketing > Campaigns and open the campaign you want to add a promotion to. The campaign must already be saved (it cannot be a brand-new unsaved campaign).
2. Click the Create Promotion button — This button appears on the Campaign Editor after the campaign has been saved. It is located in the promotions section of the form.
3. The Promotion Editor opens with the campaign pre-linked — The campaign field on the Promotion Editor is automatically populated with the current campaign's name and ID. You do not need to select it manually.
4. Configure the promotion as normal — Select the promotion type (invoice discount, BOGO, bundle, category discount, tiered spend, etc.), set the discount amount or rules, define the promotion's own start and end dates, set priority, configure any item or category conditions, and fill in any other applicable fields. The promotion's configuration is independent of the campaign — the campaign provides the organizational container, while the promotion defines the specific discount logic.
5. Save the promotion — Click Save on the Promotion Editor. The promotion is created and automatically linked to the campaign. It appears in the campaign's promotion list on the Campaign Editor.

You can repeat this process to add as many promotions as needed to the campaign.

Pre-Linking Existing Promotions

If you have already created a promotion and want to associate it with a campaign after the fact, you can do so from the Promotion Editor:

1. Navigate to Marketing > Promotions and open the promotion you want to link.
2. On the Promotion Editor form, locate the Campaign dropdown field.
3. Select the desired campaign from the dropdown. The dropdown lists all campaigns in the system (draft, scheduled, active, paused, expired, and cancelled).
4. Save the promotion.

The promotion is now linked to the selected campaign. Its future discount applications will count toward the campaign's budget and usage totals.

To unlink a promotion from a campaign, open the promotion, clear the Campaign dropdown (set it to none), and save. The promotion becomes a standalone promotion that operates independently of any campaign.

A promotion can be linked to only one campaign at a time. If you select a different campaign, the promotion is moved from the old campaign to the new one.

Campaign-Level Budget Tracking

When a campaign has a budget limit set, AccuArk tracks the total discount dollars given away by all promotions linked to the campaign:

• Each time a linked promotion applies a discount to an invoice at the POS, the discount amount is added to the campaign's running budget total.
• The budget total is calculated across all linked promotions combined. For example, if a campaign has three linked promotions and each gives away $100 in discounts, the campaign's total is $300.
• When the running total reaches or exceeds the campaign's budget limit, the promotion engine stops evaluating the campaign's promotions for new transactions. This happens in real time — the very next transaction after the budget is reached will not receive discounts from this campaign.
• The budget limit applies collectively to all linked promotions. It is not split among them. If one promotion uses up the entire budget, the other promotions in the campaign are also stopped.

Budget tracking continues to accumulate even if the campaign is paused and resumed. Pausing does not reset the budget counter. The only way to reset budget tracking is to create a new campaign.

Campaign-Level Usage Tracking

When a campaign has a max total uses limit set, AccuArk tracks the total number of times any promotion linked to the campaign has been applied:

• Each time a linked promotion is applied to an invoice, the campaign's usage counter increments by one.
• The counter is shared across all linked promotions. If the campaign has three promotions and each is used 50 times, the campaign's total usage is 150.
• When the usage count reaches the max total uses limit, the promotion engine stops evaluating the campaign's promotions for new transactions.
• Like budget tracking, usage tracking persists through pause and resume cycles and cannot be reset without creating a new campaign.

Usage tracking is useful for controlling the reach of a campaign. For example, a "first 1,000 customers" campaign can set max total uses to 1,000, ensuring the promotion stops automatically after the thousandth redemption regardless of which specific promotion was used.

Viewing Campaign Performance

AccuArk provides the Campaign ROI Report for measuring a campaign's effectiveness. The report is accessible from Reports > Marketing > Campaign ROI or directly from the Campaign Editor via the View Report link.

The Campaign ROI Report shows:

• Revenue Influenced — The total invoice revenue from transactions where at least one of the campaign's promotions was applied. This measures how much sales activity the campaign drove.
• Total Discounts Given — The cumulative discount dollars applied by all of the campaign's linked promotions. This is the same value tracked by the budget counter.
• Total Redemptions — The total number of times the campaign's promotions were applied. This is the same value tracked by the usage counter.
• ROI Calculation — A return on investment metric calculated as (Revenue Influenced - Total Discounts Given) / Total Discounts Given. This shows how many dollars of revenue each discount dollar generated.
• Breakdown by Promotion — A per-promotion breakdown showing each linked promotion's contribution to the campaign's totals. This helps identify which promotions are performing well and which may need adjustment.
• Breakdown by Location — If the campaign operates at multiple locations, the report shows performance by location to identify geographic variations.

The report can be filtered by date range to analyze specific periods within the campaign's lifetime.

Multiple Promotions Per Campaign

A campaign can have many promotions of different types. This flexibility allows you to create comprehensive marketing initiatives that address multiple customer segments and product categories simultaneously. For example, a single "Summer Sale" campaign might include:

• An invoice-level discount (10% off all orders over $100)
• A BOGO promotion (buy one get one free on selected seasonal items)
• A coupon (a $5 off coupon code distributed via email marketing)
• A category discount (20% off all items in the "Outdoor" category)
• A tiered spend promotion ($15 off $75, $30 off $150, $50 off $250)

All five promotions are linked to the same campaign. The campaign's budget limit tracks the combined discount cost across all five. The Campaign ROI Report shows the performance of each promotion individually and the campaign as a whole.

The promotion engine evaluates each linked promotion independently based on its own conditions and the global stacking rules. Multiple promotions from the same campaign can potentially apply to the same invoice, subject to the stacking configuration.

Tips for Organizing Campaigns

• Use campaigns for seasonal sales — Group all promotions for a seasonal event (Black Friday, Back to School, Holiday Season) under a single campaign. This gives you one place to manage the entire event and one report to measure its impact.
• Use campaigns for product launches — When launching a new product, create a campaign with introductory pricing promotions, BOGO deals, and coupons all linked together. Track the launch's total marketing spend through the campaign budget.
• Use campaigns for multi-channel efforts — If you are running promotions across in-store, email, and social media channels, link all the associated coupons and promotions to one campaign. The Campaign ROI Report aggregates performance regardless of the channel the customer came from.
• Keep standalone promotions out of campaigns — Not every promotion needs a campaign. Simple, long-running promotions (like a permanent senior citizen discount) can exist as standalone promotions without campaign overhead.
• Review the budget regularly — For campaigns with budget limits, check the Campaign ROI Report periodically to see how quickly the budget is being consumed. If the budget is depleting faster than expected, consider pausing the campaign and adjusting the promotions.