Are you looking for the best sales promotion examples?

Sales promotion is a powerful tool that eCommerce businesses use to increase conversions, boost brand awareness, and generate leads.

Whether you’re a small business or a large corporation, sales promotions can help you achieve your marketing goals.

In this blog post, we’ll dive deep into understanding what sales promotion is, its importance, types, various sales promotion strategies and ideas, and real-life sales promotion examples of successful campaigns.

1. What Is Sales Promotion?
2. Importance of Sales Promotion
3. Types of Sales Promotion Strategies
4. Other Common Types of Sales Promotions
5. Sales Promotion Examples

What Is Sales Promotion?

Sales Promotion Definition: Sales promotion is a short-term marketing strategy that aims to stimulate sales and increase consumer demand for a product or service. 

With the formal sales promotion definition out of the way, let’s now informally understand what sales promotion is.

Sales promotions are special incentives businesses offer to encourage customers to purchase their products or services. These promotions can take various forms, including discounts, coupons, gifts, loyalty programs, and contests.

Sales promotions are a popular marketing tactic because they create a sense of urgency (FOMO) and exclusivity, encouraging customers to take advantage of the offer before it expires.

It’s a short-term marketing strategy that complements long-term marketing efforts such as social media and email marketing.

Importance of Sales Promotion

Sales promotion is important for several reasons:

Stimulates sales: Sales promotion offers such as discounts, coupons, and free shipping can attract customers and encourage them to purchase. This can stimulate sales and increase revenue for a business.

Attracts new customers: Sales promotions can attract new customers who may not have been interested in the product or service before. A business can entice new customers to try their product or service by offering a discount or free trial.

Builds brand loyalty: By offering promotions to loyal customers, businesses can strengthen the bond between the customer and the brand. This can lead to repeat business and positive word-of-mouth advertising.

Clears inventory: Sales promotions can help businesses to clear out old stock and make room for new products. This can reduce storage costs and generate revenue from products that may have been on the shelves for too long.

Creates a sense of urgency: Sales promotions are typically time-limited, creating a sense of urgency among customers to purchase before the offer expires. This can increase sales in the short term.

However, it’s important to use sales promotion strategically and not rely on it too heavily, as overuse can reduce the perceived value of a product or service.

Types of Sales Promotion Strategies

The following are, but not limited to, the most popular sales promotion strategies. Let’s look at each strategy with a classic sales promotion example for better understanding.

Discounts and Coupons

One of the most popular sales promotion strategies is offering discount codes and coupons.

One sales promotion example of a business using discount codes and coupons is the clothing retailer H&M. H&M is, a famous fashion brand that sells affordable and trendy clothing for men, women, and children.

H&M regularly offers discount codes and coupons to their customers through various channels. For example, they may offer a discount code to customers who sign up for their email newsletter or download their mobile app. The discount code can be used for a percentage off the customer’s next purchase or free shipping.

Buy One Get One (BOGO) Offers

BOGO offers are another effective sales promotion strategy.

An example of sales promotion using a Buy One Get One Free (BOGO) strategy is the online retailer Beauty Bay. Beauty Bay is a beauty and cosmetics retailer that operates exclusively online.

Beauty Bay frequently uses BOGO promotions to encourage customers to purchase and increase sales. For example, they may offer a free eyeshadow palette with the purchase of another eyeshadow palette or a free lipstick with the purchase of another lipstick.

Limited Time Offers

Limited-time offers create a sense of urgency and exclusivity, encouraging customers to take advantage of the offer before it expires.

Amazon is an example of a business using Limited Time Offers (LTOs) as a sales promotion strategy. Amazon is an eCommerce giant that sells a wide range of products, including electronics, home goods, books, and more.

Amazon frequently uses LTOs to promote products and increase sales. For example, they may offer a discount on a specific product for a limited time period, such as 20% off a popular tech gadget for a weekend only.

Free Shipping

Offering free shipping is an excellent way to attract customers and increase sales and the best example of it would be Zappos. Zappos is an online retailer specializing in shoes, clothing, and accessories.

Zappos offers free standard shipping on all orders with no minimum purchase requirement. Customers can purchase any item on the website and have it shipped to them for free, one of the most successful sales promotion examples.

Cashback

Cashback offers are another popular sales promotion strategy.

An example of a business using cashback as a sales promotion strategy is Savyour. Savyour is an online marketplace that connects shoppers with retailers selling various products, including electronics, home goods, and more.

Savyour offers cashback to customers who make purchases through their platform. Customers can earn a percentage of their purchase amount back in cash, which is deposited into their account.

Referral Programs

Payoneer has an excellent referral program. It’s a payment platform for cross-border digital business.

Payoneer offers a referral program where users can invite friends to join Payoneer, and they both can earn money when their friend signup. The referral program incentivizes current customers to refer new customers to the platform, as you make 25$ just by telling your friends about Payoneer.

Contests and Sweepstakes

Contests and sweepstakes are an effective way to engage customers and create brand awareness.

Dove held a selfie contest, with the grand prize being a spa experience for two people.

Facebook Users were required to take a picture of themselves holding a Dove Beauty Bar. Then submit that picture in the comments section of the giveaway post.

Loyalty Programs

Loyalty programs reward customers for their repeat business and encourage them to continue shopping with the company.

Sephora’s Beauty Insider program is an example of a sales promotion loyalty program.

It’s a tiered loyalty program that offers customers a variety of benefits, including access to exclusive products, birthday gifts, free beauty classes, and early access to sales.

Customers can become Beauty Insiders by signing up for the program on Sephora’s website or in-store. Once customers become members, they earn points for every dollar they spend on Sephora’s website or in-store, which they can redeem for various rewards.

Other Common Types of Sales Promotions

A few other types of sales promotion ideas that brands typically use are:

• Percentage or dollar discounts
• Redeemable vouchers
• Free gifts or giveaways
• Rebates
• Free samples
• Free Trial

Retailers also offer:

• Pre-launch or exclusive offers
• Bundles
• Seasonal offers
• Regular daily, weekly or monthly deals

Watch out for those offer types in the examples below.

Sales Promotion Examples

Now, let’s get to those sales promotion examples. If you like a particular campaign, you can easily recreate your own version with OptinMonster.

OptinMonster is the best conversion optimization tool. It allows you to create eye-catching popups for your sales promotions easily.

OptinMonster comes with multiple eCommerce campaign types, like fullscreen mat, lightbox popup, floating bar, and countdown timer.

You can use OptinMonster’s prebuilt sales promotion templates to:

• Share discount offers
• Reduce cart abandonment
• Promote flash sales

And more.

You’ll also get to choose from special eCommerce targeting to control when and where you show your sales promotion.

Just follow our instructions for creating your first campaign, then customize it at will!

Get Started With a Sales Promotion Popup Today!

1.Macy’s

Let’s start the ball rolling with this email sales promotion example from Macy’s. It’s pretty simple, but effective.

It uses information about the site visitor to show them sales promotions they’re more likely to be interested in. In this case, the site visitor has already viewed printed dresses.

You can do this in OptinMonster with our Smart Tags feature.

Here are some of the things you can use to personalize sales promotions on your website:

• Site visitor’s name
• Date
• Country
• City
• Previous pages visited

And more.

Copy this example:

Here’s how you can implement Smart Tags with OptinMonster.

You might also want to check out 5 creative ways to personalize your optins to boost conversions.

2. Christmas Lite Show

This coupon campaign is a great sales promotion idea from Christmas Lite Show.

The beautiful background evokes the atmosphere of the annual show, and the headline highlights the company’s experience. It all adds up to a compelling reason to click the button. When visitors do, they see a coupon code with a countdown timer.

Christmas Lite Show converted 30% of visitors with this campaign.

Copy this example:

To do the same, create a countdown popup in the OptinMonster campaign builder. Then use a MonsterLink™ to create a clickable link on your web page or in your menu.

3. Cosmetic Capital

Cosmetic Capital saw an 300% increase in leads daily, using this floating bar sales promotion. The free shipping offer immediately tackles one of the biggest reasons for cart abandonment.

The timer adds urgency, and the shopper knows they need to act soon if they want to grab this deal. The button includes the word “exclusive”, making the visitor curious about the offer.

Copy this example:

You could create something similar in OptinMonster by using the floating bar campaign type and editing the colors to match your branding. Here are some more floating bar examples to inspire you.

4. Chamaileon.io

Chamaileon.io was able to increase conversions by 200% using this sales promotion, and here’s the main reason why this example worked so well.

They included a Yes/No form, and these are proven to increase conversions by as much as 18%. Why are Yes/No forms so effective? They’re based on a psychological concept called the Zeigarnik Effect. The idea is that people are more likely to finish an action they’ve already started. So, once they click the Yes button, they’re more likely opt in.

Copy this example:

If you wanted to achieve this with OptinMonster, you could enable our Yes/No forms in the campaign builder, as shown in the video below.

 

Then you can redirect visitors to a signup form when they click the Yes button. Here are some more creative ways to use Yes/No forms.

5. Stays.net

Here’s another example of an effective two-step optin from Stays.net.

Stays.net increased monthly sales by 10% using an on-click sales promotion. So, once the site visitor clicks on the link, they’re presented with the popup to start a free trial.

Copy this example:

You could easily include the shareable MonsterLink™ we mentioned earlier. Include it anywhere on your site to trigger a popup when customers click.

6. Fastrack

Fastrack managed to recover 53% of abandoning visitors with a simple sales promotion idea. The lightbox popup is a white box with matching the brand colors. This puts the offer on center stage, making it a no-brainer for people to sign up.

Fastrack showed this sales promotion popup as visitors were leaving their site.

Copy this example:

You could easily recreate this in OptinMonster and follow Fastrack’s example by choosing when the popup appears. By default, OptinMonster popups appear after 5 seconds, but you can change it using the Exit-Intent® rule.

You could also change that so they appear after visitors have scrolled. To do that, go to Display Rules and set the condition If distance scrolled.

7. Win in Health

Next on our list of sales promotion examples is Win in Health. The retailer keeps it simple with a green and white popup, making it easy for visitors to focus on the 10% offer. It matches their website colors perfectly.

The copy is clear and straight to the point. Even though it’s not explicit, there’s a sense of urgency here. Adding the words “Today’s Promotion” tells the customer the deal isn’t going to be around forever.

Copy this example:

To create appealing campaign copy, check out our list of copywriting templates.

8. Scott Wyden Imagery

How do you know you’re showing your sales promotions on the right pages?

Scott Wyden Imagery only show this 2-step optin on the cart and checkout pages when the shopper tries to leave the site. It recovers 21.06% of abandoning carts.

Copy this example:

You can get similar attention for your OptinMonster popups by adding the Exit-Intent® and Page Targeting rule.

9. Kennedy Blue

Kennedy Blue is another example of the effective use of OptinMonster’s countdown timer theme. This floating bar picks up one of the logo colors while contrasting with the site as a whole. That makes it super visible and very effective, and that’s helped by the white countdown block and the yellow discount block. This popup helped Kennedy Blue increase sales by 50%.

Copy this example:

If you’re using OptinMonster, you can easily set the countdown from within the campaign builder. Click on the countdown timer in the live preview to bring up the editing tools, the set the desired end date and time.

10. KnivesShipFree

Even if you’re not into knives, you’ve gotta love this giveaway popup campaign from KnivesShipFree. We like it because both the pictures and text make it clear what you can win. Plus, the CTA is crystal clear. This campaign ran on both desktop and mobile, giving the company more than $10,000 in additional sales.

Copy this example:

You can easily create this by using one of OptinMonster’s templates, then edit the text and the CTA button to create your own offer.

11. Maca Team

Here’s an example of referral marketing, which eventually leads to more sales. We know that people trust recommendations from friends and influencers more than ads, so this is a smart move by the Maca Team.

Here’s what we like. The background image is of the source product, with an overlay showing the offer. Plus, they have made it easy by including a button so visitors can copy the referral link easily. We also like the inclusion of social sharing buttons.

Copy this example:

To do this with OptinMonster you could easily create your own custom campaign using the Canvas theme.

12. Nashville Pedal Tavern

Party bike company Nashville Pedal Tavern has a sales promotion example with a difference. They’re not offering discounts. In fact, this innovative campaign earned them $2300 in just two weeks, simply by promoting gift certificates. Here’s the campaign.

This campaign works because it’s helping people feel good about themselves by giving others a fun experience. Simple as that.

And the genius of it is the Nashville Pedal Tavern only showed it to people who were really interested in their site. They set it so only visitors who’d been there for 30 seconds or more could see the campaign.

Copy this example:

You could do the same by adjusting the timing as described earlier.

13. Padstows

In this example, the image of happy customers inside the restaurant makes for a winning combination for Padstows. The optin campaign is beautiful and inviting, and the voucher is an added bonus. One thing the company could do is experiment with split testing the call to action. More compelling button text such as “Enter to Win” may boost their conversions even more.

Copy this example:

If you’re using OptinMonster, you can change the image on any campaign simply by clicking the image button. That’ll help you make an appealing optin campaign for your visitors. Check out our list of free image sites to find the right image.

14. Baublebar

Baublebar’s sales promotion is bright and in your face, so visitors won’t ignore it. Plus, it’s offering a discount, which is another win.

Copy this example:

We’ve already mentioned how easy it is to change text and colors in the OptinMonster campaign builder. You could also follow our guide to get your CTA right.

15. AutoAnything

Here’s another discount promotion, this time from AutoAnything. The image clearly conveys the brand, and there’s no mistaking the bold 20% discount offer.

AutoAnything increased email revenue by 20% using this sales promotion.

Copy this example:

Want to do something similar with OptinMonster? Use our lightbox popup, and upload an image.

Then you can edit the text and set display rules as usual.

16. Spinsterz

This sales promotion is the first thing people see when they land on Spinsterz’s website. These colors also contrast so they stand out.

Copy this example:

You could create something similar with a custom welcome mat in OptinMonster. This’ll appear as visitors land on your site and is a great way to introduce them to what’s on offer. See the video below to learn more about welcome mats.

17. Skates

Sometimes you want to target people who aren’t doing much on your site, in the hope that they will. That’s exactly what Skates.co.uk did and it resulted in an extra £2000 in daily sales. The popup itself is simple. It’s red to match the brand colors, with white writing, and the discount code in black. They showed it to inactive users with OptinMonster’s InactivitySensor™.

Copy this example:

You can enable InactivitySensor™ by going to Display Rules and setting the condition If visitor inactive time.

18. Snack Nation

More leads means more sales, right? The next in our list of sales promotion examples are focused on lead generation. SnackNation offered free sampler boxes to people who signed up. That resulted in 1200 new subscribers each week and 15-25 additional daily sales.

Copy this example:

Snack Nation used a fullscreen campaign with a yes/no form to achieve this. We described how to enable both of those earlier.

19. Sportique

This is a really attractive fullscreen optin. Sportique has used the screen space to include a stunning image that fits with its active mission. We also like the informative wording in the email field, plus the accurate CTA. Those who sign up will have no doubts about what they’re getting. This campaign converts 4.9% of visitors and helped the brand triple its email list.

Copy this example:

You can edit the fields in any OptinMonster campaign. Just click on the email field to bring up the editing tools.

20. Urban Southern

Who doesn’t love a handbag discount, are we right, ladies? Urban Southern used a stark black and white color palette to offer a 10% discount to people who signed up. This campaign uses our Coupon template, and all they did was change the colors. The result? A 400% increase in sales.

Copy this example:

You can keep it just as simple as Urban Southern did. Create a new campaign using the Coupon theme. Then change the colors as described earlier to match your own branding.

21. Crush Empire

Crush Empire generated 460 sales using this coupon sales promotion.

You can choose to deliver the discount at another URL or via OptinMonster’s Success theme.

Copy this example:

An easy way to do this in OptinMonster is to edit the success message that appears when people opt into a campaign. You can easily add a coupon link to the success theme itself, or simply redirect visitors to a new page with the coupon.

22. Logic Inbound

Finding the best sales promotions for your business might require some testing.

Let’s look at one example.

This is a free trial offer, this time from Logic Inbound and ATLAS workspace. The optin converted at 25.71%.

Before using the above sales promotion, Logic Inbound was showing the below offer. But it only converted at 2.67%.

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Identify your best performing sales promotions using split testing. With OptinMonster, you can find the best performing designs, offers, copy, targeting, and more.

23. Cracku

Cracku increased conversions 300% using countdown timers. Countdown timers add urgency and encourage your customer to make a purchasing decision.

Copy this example:

You can easily add a countdown timer to any sales promotion using OptinMonster.

That’s it!

Now you have lots of sales promotion examples to use to fuel your own creativity.

As we’ve explored various successful sales promotion examples, one common thread emerges: the strategic use of tools to optimize these promotions.

OptinMonster stands out as a premier solution in this domain. With its diverse range of features, from eye-catching popups to countdown timers, it offers businesses a unique edge to craft compelling sales promotions.

Whether you’re looking to share discount offers, reduce cart abandonment, or promote flash sales, OptinMonster provides the flexibility and efficiency to achieve your goals.

In a world where capturing a customer’s attention is increasingly challenging, it’s tools like OptinMonster that can make the difference between a missed opportunity and a successful conversion.

Ready to create a sales promotion that will win you more customers? Get started with OptinMonster today. It’s risk-free with our 14-day money-back guarantee.

Also checkout: 

• Email Marketing Made Simple: A Step by Step Guide [+ Examples]
• 5 of the Best eCommerce Marketing Strategies to Explode Your Sales
• How to Create a Live Sales Notification for WooCommerce
• 12 Ways to Use OptinMonster Follow Ups to Boost Engagement and Sales