Creating and Executing Promotions: A Guided Demo

There are two ways a business user, such as Chris, can create a new promotion rule. One we have already discussed. That is to create a promotion rule from a promotion template, in which case the promotion rule will inherit all settings from the template.

The other is to create a promotion rule from scratch. This is also done in the Backoffice Administration Cockpit (1). Here, Chris can find the Marketing navigation node (2) once again, and open Promotion Rules (3).

Here he will find a little plus icon (4), with which to create his new promotion rule.

The steps that now follow are the same, no matter whether Chris wants to create a promotion rule from scratch or set up a new promotion template. We are going to watch Chris create a new promotion rule.

First, he must provide a code and name for his new promotion rule, "Get 50% off T-shirts with a Pair of Shorts".

After this step, the new promotion rule is listed amongst all the other promotion rules already created but is so far nothing more than an entry with a name and code.

Chris can open the new promotion rule and start with his configuration.

• Under Rule Properties (1), he can configure the basic settings for this promotion rule.
• Under Rule Management (2), he can add a description, assign a priority, and add the promotion rule to a rule group. In addition:
  • As his company ACME runs multiple storefront, Chris can also limit which storefront this promotion is to apply on (3),
  • and limit the number of times a customer can receive the benefit of this promotion (4).
• Then Chris can set a timeframe during which this promotion is to be active (5).

So far, we’ve seen conditions and actions that cover fairly simple use cases. SAP Commerce Cloud also offers some special conditions and actions, which allow Marketing Managers to create promotions that go beyond these typical scenarios or handle more complex variations of these simple examples.

To make our upcoming demo more interesting, we now want to introduce containers.

Containers are used to group products that are part of a promotion, such as multiple product categories. They are essential for certain promotion types, as they hold the individual products or categories involved in the campaign.

Especially, containers are needed for the following promotion types:

• Partner Product
• Buy-one-get-one
• Product Bundle
• Product multi-buy
• Product discount with limited quantities

Instead of simply adding a Qualifying Products or Qualifying Product Categoriescondition under Conditions and Actions (1), Chris must create a container (2).

Let’s look at the promotion: Buy a pair of shorts and get a t-shirt 50% off. Here, containers allow SAP Commerce Cloud to differentiate between full-price and discounted products sold in combination.

• The products sold at full price are defined in the first container – CONTAINER_SHORTS (3).
• The products to which a discount is to apply are defined in the second container – CONTAINER_SHIRTS (4).

As shown in the screenshot below, Chris can then apply a special action "percentage discount on partner products" (1) to reference the containers in the condition. Please note that the configuration is specific to the selected action; in our example:

• Qualifying product containers (2) - references the full price container - CONTAINER_SHORTS, typically used as the trigger condition for the promotion.
• Target product containers (3) - references the second container - CONTAINER_SHIRTS, on which the percentage discount will be applied.
• Percentage discount value (4) - the discount percentage to be applied; in this case, 50%.

Consequently, with the help of containers, the promotion is set up as follows: "If a customer buys a pair of shorts, they receive a 50% discount on a shirt."

Before a promotion rule can apply on a storefront, it needs to be published. The Promotion Engine will not consider any promotion rule that is not yet published.

Any promotion rule that Chris creates initially has the status unpublished (1).

Section 1 - Publishing a Promotion

To publish a promotion rule, Chris has to select the promotion rule he wants and can then click on the icon depicting a paper airplane (1).

Multiple promotion rules can be published at the same time by selecting more than one using the checkboxes on the left (2).

Section 2 - Editing a Published Promotion

Once a promotion rule is published, it can still be edited. Chris simply needs to edit the part of the promotion rule that he would like to change, save, and publish his promotion rule once again.

However, this will not overwrite the existing promotion rule. Instead, a new version of the promotion rule is created. Newly created promotions will always start at version 0, with changes creating new versions in incremental steps: version 1, version 2, and so on (1).

The old promotion rule is retained, and its status is set to inactive (2). The old promotion rule version 0 will still apply to any existing orders or carts created before the new rule was published. Therefore, customers do not go through negative experiences just because they happened to be shopping while the change was made.

Section 3 - Deleting a Published Promotion

If Chris wants to delete a published promotion rule, he first needs to unpublish it (1). Once this is done, the promotion rule’s status will change to inactive.

Now, the delete button (2) will become available, and Chris can remove the promotion rule. Only inactive or unpublished promotion rules can be deleted.

Note

Deleting promotion rules should be handled with extreme care and ideally avoided entirely. While it is technically possible, it may have unintended business consequences related to reporting, returns and other issues.

Note

Changes can also be made to promotion templates after they are created. Any change will only be applied to promotion rules created from the template after the changes are made. Already existing promotion rules are not affected.

We now have the theoretical foundation for everything that we need to create and publish a promotion rule to a storefront. It’s time to see this in action. Let’s watch a demo with Chris as he creates a promotion rule and publishes it to the storefront.

• Promotion rules can be created from promotion templates, or from scratch under the Promotion Rules navigation node in the Backoffice Administration Cockpit.

• The Rule Properties allow basic configurations for a promotion rule, such as a description, applicable rule groups, or what websites to apply this rule to.

• Containers allow the grouping of products for a promotion rule and are needed for certain promotion types.

• Promotion rules have three different statuses. Unpublished, published or inactive, depending on whether they are created, published or no longer published.

• A fresh version of a promotion rule is created if it is edited while the promotion rule is published.

• Only unpublished and inactive promotion rules can be deleted.