Discount Coupons Feature

Available in:

Post Affiliate Pro , Post Affiliate Pro Ultimate , Post Affiliate Network

What are affiliate discount coupons?

As a marketing strategy, coupon marketing targets consumers’ desire to save money on their purchases. To accomplish this, affiliates offer coupons to their current and prospective followers in order to promote brands and increase sales. Digital coupons generally offer a certain discount, free shipping, or some other type of bonus to entice consumers to make a purchase on a retailer’s website.

What can coupons do for merchants?

With coupons, you are able to offer special promotional pricing for your website’s visitors, and you can also reward your affiliates for referring customers who use their coupons. Coupons are an effective way to offer product discounts and motivate your affiliates to advertise your site more frequently. Affiliates can also use this when they are not able to or don’t want to use links/banners (for example, on Instagram or YouTube videos). It is no secret that people love saving money on purchases, this makes the ability to offer products at a discount drastically impact customer loyalty and satisfaction.

A coupon is one of the banner types that is offered in Post Affiliate Pro, allowing you to create as many coupon groups (promotions) as you wish within one campaign. In Post Affiliate Pro, coupons work just like banners; as in, they cannot actually provide discounts. The same coupon needs to be in Post Affiliate Pro for tracking the affiliate and in your store for providing the actual discount; having it just in Post Affiliate Pro or just in your store is not enough. There is no limit to the number of coupons or coupon banners you can display in any of the campaigns defined in your affiliate program. Alternatively, you can set a maximum number of uses per coupon and/or limit the number of uses per coupon.

For instance, you may have a 10% discount promotion and a 30% discount promotion. Affiliates can either request new coupons or you can assign coupons to them, automatically or manually, for both promotions, and you can generate separate sets of coupons for each promotion.

Automatic Coupon Generation for New Affiliates

Post Affiliate Pro includes a powerful plugin that automatically creates personalized coupons for every new affiliate who registers in your program. This automation eliminates manual coupon assignment and ensures that each affiliate has their unique coupon code ready to use immediately upon signup.

How Automatic Coupon Generation Works

When a new affiliate completes the registration process, the system can automatically:

• Generate a new unique coupon code based on affiliate profile data
• Assign an existing unassigned coupon to the new affiliate
• Use a combination approach: first try to assign an existing coupon, and if none is available, generate a new one

The coupon code can be derived from various affiliate profile fields, including:

• Username - The affiliate’s login username
• Referral ID - The affiliate’s unique referral identifier
• Custom profile fields - Any custom data fields configured in your affiliate profiles

Configuration Options

The coupon generator plugin offers flexible configuration options to match your business requirements:

Assignment Rules:

• Generate new coupons - Creates a fresh coupon for each new affiliate using the specified user field value as the coupon code
• Assign existing coupons - Links pre-created unassigned coupons to new affiliates based on matching coupon codes
• Use existing or generate new - First attempts to find and assign an existing coupon; if not found, generates a new one

Banner Selection:

• Choose which coupon banner (promotion) the generated coupons will be associated with
• Support for up to two different coupon banners simultaneously, allowing affiliates to receive coupons for multiple promotions at once

Validity Period:

• Set a specific number of days for coupon validity
• Leave unlimited for coupons that never expire
• Validity countdown begins from the date of affiliate registration

Duplicate Coupon Protection

The system includes built-in duplicate detection to maintain coupon uniqueness:

• Prevents creation of coupons with codes that already exist in the system
• Blocks assignment of coupons already linked to other affiliates
• Validates coupon codes during affiliate signup before account creation
• Provides clear error messages when coupon conflicts are detected

Advanced Coupon Generation

For bulk coupon creation beyond automatic affiliate assignment, Post Affiliate Pro provides comprehensive coupon generation tools.

Custom Coupon Formats

When generating coupons in bulk, you can define custom formats using pattern placeholders:

• {Z} - Uppercase letter (A-Z)
• {z} - Lowercase letter (a-z)
• {9} - Numeric digit (0-9)
• {X} - Uppercase alphanumeric character (A-Z, 0-9)

Format Examples:

• PROMO-{ZZZZ}-{9999} generates codes like PROMO-ABCD-1234
• SAVE{99}{ZZ} generates codes like SAVE15XY
• {XXXX}-{XXXX} generates codes like A1B2-C3D4

You can combine static text with pattern placeholders to create branded coupon codes that align with your marketing campaigns.

Bulk Generation Options

When creating multiple coupons at once, you can configure:

• Number of coupons - Generate any quantity needed for your campaign
• Coupons per affiliate - Automatically distribute a set number of coupons to each affiliate
• Validity dates - Set start and end dates for coupon validity
• Usage limits - Define maximum number of times each coupon can be used

Coupon Assignment Automation

Coupons can be assigned to affiliates through multiple methods:

Automatic Distribution:

• Assign coupons evenly across all active affiliates in a campaign
• Assign to specific affiliates based on commission group membership
• Assign to affiliates in public campaigns versus private campaigns

Manual Assignment:

• Select specific affiliates to receive coupons
• Import coupon codes from external sources (CSV)
• Match imported coupons to specific affiliates

Email Notifications

When coupons are assigned to affiliates, the system can automatically send notification emails containing:

• Coupon code(s) assigned to the affiliate
• Banner and campaign information
• Coupon validity period (valid from and valid to dates)
• Coupon description and usage instructions

This ensures affiliates are immediately informed about their new promotional materials and can start using them right away.

With the use of Post Affiliate Pro’s affiliate coupon tracking feature , you can identify which campaign your customers are participating in, which affiliate gave them the coupon, and which promotion the coupon belongs to. With this information, you will know exactly when conversions take place and how much commission is paid to your affiliates.

How to create coupons?

In Post Affiliate Pro , you can generate coupons directly in the software or import them from your shop software. It is possible to customize the coupon formats when you generate them in Post Affiliate Pro, and they can later be exported from Post Affiliate Pro and imported into your shop software or any payment processor.

How to design and use offline coupons?

Your affiliates can request coupons for each campaign or banner, and print them directly from Post Affiliate Pro. Merchants can easily label each campaign and the HTML design of the coupon, which can be used to print attractive adverts for customers. You can insert designs into the coupons, including bar code images, which can be later read by bar code readers. Bar codes are automatically generated by Post Affiliate Pro, and each bar code matches the respective coupon ID. After scanning the bar codes with bar code readers, you can enter the coupon code conversions into the system.