Marketing promotion sample: four filled examples and the six line template

A marketing promotion is six decisions written on one page: the audience, the offer, the mechanic that delivers it, the dates, the channels, and the number that tells you whether it worked. Everything else is production. A filled sample looks like this. Audience: customers who bought once in the last twelve months and have not returned. Offer: fifteen per cent off a second order. Mechanic: a unique code per customer, valid once, with a minimum order value. Dates: a ten day window with a reminder on day eight. Channels: email, then a matched audience on social for non openers. Measure: redemption rate, revenue from redeemers against the same group last month, and gross margin after the discount. Four more worked examples follow, plus the template to copy.

Write all six lines before you brief a designer. Most promotions that disappoint are missing the sixth line, so nobody ever establishes whether they worked, and the same promotion gets run again out of habit.

The template

• Audience. Who exactly, and how you will reach them. Be specific enough to count them.
• Offer. What they get, and what it costs you per redemption.
• Mechanic. Code, automatic cart discount, voucher, bundle price, entry form, referral link. This is where promotions break operationally.
• Dates. Start, end, and the reminder before the end. A deadline is most of the reason a promotion works.
• Channels and sequence. Which channel carries the announcement, which carries the reminder, and in what order.
• Measure. One primary number, the baseline it is compared with, and the margin check.

Sample one: launch promotion for an online store

• Audience. Email subscribers who joined before launch, plus a lookalike audience built from them.
• Offer. Founding customer price on the two hero products, with free delivery above a threshold.
• Mechanic. Automatic cart discount on those two product identifiers, no code to forget, capped at a set number of units.
• Dates. Seven days, with a last twenty four hours email.
• Channels. Email announcement, then organic social with customer photos, then paid social retargeting people who viewed and did not buy.
• Measure. Units sold against the launch forecast, new customer count, and contribution margin after delivery and discount.

Sample two: referral promotion for a service business

• Audience. Customers who rated the service highly in the last ninety days, which is the moment goodwill is highest.
• Offer. A credit for the referrer and an equivalent discount for the new customer, so the person doing the favour is not the only one rewarded.
• Mechanic. A personal referral link per customer, credited automatically when the referred booking completes rather than when it is made.
• Dates. Always on, reviewed quarterly, with a double credit fortnight once a year to create a spike.
• Channels. The post service message, the invoice footer, the staff conversation at handover, and a quarterly email.
• Measure. Referred bookings per month, cost per acquired customer against your paid channels, and completion rate of referred jobs.

Sample three: B2B trial promotion

• Audience. Marketing operations managers at companies in two named industries who downloaded the implementation guide and did not start a trial.
• Offer. Extended trial with a setup session included, rather than money off. In B2B the barrier is risk and effort, not price.
• Mechanic. A landing page with a booking calendar, and a code that extends the trial automatically on signup.
• Dates. Four weeks, tied to a quarter end so the buyer has a budget reason to act.
• Channels. Email sequence of three, a search campaign on comparison and alternative queries, and a direct note from the account team to the top fifty accounts.
• Measure. Trials started, trials that reached the activation milestone, and opportunities created, with cost per opportunity against your normal figure.

Sample four: local footfall promotion

• Audience. People within a short travel radius, split into existing customers and everybody else.
• Offer. A gift with purchase, stocked deliberately deep so it cannot run out mid promotion, plus a weekday only discount to move demand into quiet hours.
• Mechanic. A printed voucher and a wallet version from a Business Profile post, both with the same unique code so redemptions can be counted by source.
• Dates. A fortnight, launched midweek rather than at the weekend so staff can rehearse.
• Channels. Google Business Profile offer post, local social, a leaflet drop on the two nearest streets, in store signage, and a note to the local community group where that is welcome.
• Measure. Redemptions by source code, average transaction value against the previous fortnight, and new customer sign ups collected at the till.

Choosing the mechanic

Type	Best at	What it costs you
Percentage discount	Moving considered purchases quickly	Margin, and the expectation of the next discount
Bundle or multi buy	Raising average order value	Less margin per unit, more units per order
Free delivery threshold	Removing the last objection in a cart	Fulfilment cost, usually the cheapest effective offer
Gift with purchase	Protecting price while still being generous	Cost of the gift and the stock risk
Referral credit	Acquiring customers who behave like your best ones	Credit on both sides, paid only on success
Extended trial or free setup	B2B, where effort and risk are the barrier	Team time rather than money
Contest or prize draw	Reach and list growth	Prize cost, plus entrants who only wanted the prize
Early bird pricing	Events and launches, creating a deadline honestly	Lower revenue per early unit, better forecasting

Sample copy to adapt

Swap your own offer and dates in. Keep the offer in the first five words of every line.

Email subject:  Fifteen per cent off your next order, until Sunday
Preview text:   Your code is inside, one use, minimum order applies
SMS:            [Brand] Fifteen per cent off until Sunday. Code INSIDE15. One use. Stop to opt out
Social caption: Fifteen per cent off everything until Sunday. Link in bio
Profile post:   Weekday offer: free upgrade with any booking, Monday to Thursday, until the 30th

The terms, which protect the promotion

• Publish the conditions with the offer: end date, minimum spend, exclusions, one use per customer, while stocks last.
• Check stock and staffing for the full window, not the first day.
• Make a prior price claim verifiable. If you say reduced from, the higher price must have been your genuine selling price, and consumer law in most markets is specific about this.
• Prize draws need rules: eligibility, dates, how the winner is chosen and when, and who holds the data.
• Honour marketing consent. A promotion is still a marketing message, so suppress anyone who has opted out.

This page covers the promotion itself: the offer, the mechanic and the measurement. For the wider quarter, a marketing programme sample sets out the ninety day plan, and the advertisement samples cover the creative execution.

Asked and answered: marketing promotion sample

What is an example of a marketing promotion?

A ten day win back offer to customers who bought once and never returned: fifteen per cent off a second order, delivered as a unique one use code by email with a reminder on day eight, measured by redemption rate and margin after discount.

How long should a promotion run?

Long enough for your audience to see it twice and short enough to create urgency, which for most businesses is seven to fourteen days. Always send a reminder before the deadline, because that message usually carries most of the response.

What is the difference between a promotion and an advertisement?

The promotion is the offer and the mechanic. The advertisement is one of the channels that carries it. The same promotion can run through email, signage, search and social without changing.

How do I measure whether a promotion worked?

Compare the promotion period with a matched baseline period, count redemptions by source, and check gross margin after the discount and any extra fulfilment cost. A promotion that lifted revenue and lost money is a common and avoidable outcome.

How often should I run promotions?

Rarely enough that customers do not learn to wait for one. If your repeat buyers only ever buy on offer, reduce the frequency and move the generosity into bundles, loyalty or service instead.

Where the promotion gets repeated without you

Promotion used to mean the messages you place. A growing share of buyers now asks an assistant first: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude or Google's AI Overviews, and takes the two or three companies it names. Those answers are assembled from what other people have published about you, your pages, your listings, reviews and roundups, and each assistant names a different handful because each reads different sources.

Worth checking before the next campaign. Ask the question a buyer in your category would ask, keep your own name out of the prompt so the answer comes back clean, and see who is named and what is quoted. AI Knows Us tracks what those answers say about a business.