Personalized Promo Codes are unique, one-time codes tailored for individual customers. They are a powerful tool for driving engagement and conversions while protecting your promotion from abuse by preventing unintended sharing.

This guide will walk you through the entire process of setting up, managing, and tracking a promotion using Personalized Promo Codes in OptiPromo.

Before You Begin: Prerequisites

Before you start, please ensure you have the following:

• An active OptiPromo account with permissions to create and manage promotions.
• A list of unique promo codes prepared in a .csv file. The file must be a single column with no header, and be no larger than 10MB.

Step-by-Step Guide: Setting Up Your Promotion

The promotion creation process is a simple 5-step flow. Follow the steps below to configure your promotion.

Step 1: Configure Promotion Details

This first screen contains the core settings for your personalized code promotion.

1. Navigate to the OptiPromo Promotions lobby and click Create New.
2. On the Promotion Details screen, fill in the following:
   • Name: An internal name for your promotion (e.g., Loyalty Flash Sale 20%).
   • Description (Optional): Add additional information about the promotion.
3. In the 'Promo Code' section, select the Personalized Codes option.
4. Once selected, new options will appear on the same screen. Proceed to configure them:
   • Fallback code (Optional): Enter a single, default promo code that will be given to customers if the list of personalized codes runs out.
   • Upload Personalized Codes: Click to upload or drag and drop your prepared .csv file into the upload area.
5. Click Next to continue.

Step 2: Add Meta Data (Optional)

1. The Meta Data screen allows you to add extra details to help categorize, search, or manage your promotion.
2. You can click Add Property to include optional tags or info that helps identify the promotion.
3. Click Next to continue.

Step 3: Define Rewards

On the Rewards screen, you will link your promotion to an External Reward. This is the standard method for personalized promotions, as your own system (e.g., e-commerce platform, point-of-sale) manages the actual value of the code.

1. Select External Reward as the reward type.
2. Click Next to continue.

Step 4: Set Budget & Constraints

1. On the Budget & Constraints screen, you can set limits to control promotion distribution.
2. Audience Cap: Click Add Cap to limit the maximum number of customers who can receive the promotion. Once the limit is reached, the promotion will end.
3. Budget Reward: You can also set a maximum monetary budget for the promotion.
4. Click Next to continue.

Step 5: Review Summary and Activate

1. The Summary screen allows you to review all the configured details before proceeding.
2. Verify that the "Code Type" is "Personalized" and check your other settings like the "Default Code" (fallback) and "Allocation Method".
3. When ready, choose one of the following options:
   • Save: The promotion is saved as a Draft and will not be available for campaigns.
   • Save and Activate: The promotion status becomes Active, making it available inside the campaign builder.

Integrating Your Promotion into a Campaign

An active promotion must be connected to a campaign to be distributed to customers.

1. Navigate to the Campaign Builder.
2. Set up your campaign details (name, audience, schedule, etc.).
3. In the Execution Details step, click "Add Promotions".
4. From the list of available promotions, select the Personalized Promo Code promotion you just activated. Each customer in the target audience will now be eligible to receive a unique code.

Tracking and Monitoring Usage

You can track the usage and performance of all your promotions from the main Promotions lobby. This screen provides an at-a-glance overview of your campaigns.

• Check Code Inventory: The Available (Used/Total) column is the best place to track your code supply. It shows a progress bar and the exact numbers of codes used out of the total you uploaded (e.g., "43/100" means 43 codes have been used from a pool of 100). When the pool is empty, it will show 0 Available.
• Monitor Promotion Status: You can quickly see which promotions are Active and check other key details like the Code Type and Reward type directly from the list.
• Identify Fallback Usage: When a personalized code pool is depleted, the status may change to indicate that the fallback is now active (e.g., "Default Code On"). This signals that you may need to upload more codes for a future campaign.
• Find Promotions Easily: Use the Search bar and the filters for Status and Type at the top of the page to find a specific promotion quickly.

Use Case in Action: 48-Hour Loyalty Flash Sale

To see how these features work together, here is a breakdown of a 48-hour “20% off” flash sale for loyalty program members.

Prerequisites: First, you would create a "Percentage Off" Reward Type in Promotion Settings. Then, you would generate a list of unique promo codes (e.g., 50,000 codes for your 50,000 loyalty members) and save it as a .csv file.

Step 1: Promotion Details: Create a new promotion named "Loyalty Flash Sale 20%". You would select Personalized Codes, upload your .csv file, and enter a Fallback Code like "LOYALTY10" in case of any issues.

Step 2: Rewards: On the Rewards screen, you would select Single Reward and choose your "Percentage Off" Reward Type, entering "20" as the value.

Step 3: Budget & Constraints: You could set an Audience Cap of 50,000 to ensure the promotion is limited to your intended audience size.

Step 4: Activate: After reviewing the summary, you would click Save and Activate.

Integration: In the Campaign Builder, you would create a new campaign targeting your "Loyalty Program Members" segment. In the execution channel (e.g., email or push notification), you would use a personalization tag to insert the unique promo code and attach the "Loyalty Flash Sale 20%" promotion.

For a detailed walkthrough on how to pull these unique codes into your email or push templates, see our guide on Using Data Connections to Personalize Templates with Promotion Properties.