# Should you run a promotion?

Run one when you can name the behaviour you want to change and can bound it in time. Promotions fire without a customer choosing them, which makes them powerful and makes them the easiest way to give margin to people who were coming anyway.

Source: https://fidella.app/guides/should-you-run-a-promotion
Last reviewed: 2026-08-31

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A promotion is a rule that fires automatically when a customer is scanned.
Nobody buys one, which is exactly what makes it both effective and easy to
overspend on.

## Start with the behaviour, not the offer

Name what you want to change. A quiet Tuesday afternoon. A new product nobody is
trying. Regulars who drift in February.

If you cannot name it, you are about to discount customers you already had.

## Do the arithmetic before, not after

Work out what it costs if everybody who qualifies takes it up. That worst case is
the number that matters, because a promotion that fires automatically has no
natural ceiling other than your customer count.

## Bound it

A start date and an end date, always. Open-ended promotions are the single most
reliable way to lose money slowly on a loyalty platform.

## The measurement problem

The hard part is knowing whether it worked. Sales during a promotion are not the
test, because some of those customers were coming regardless.

Compare against the same period without it where you can, or against a
comparable group. If you cannot, be honest that you are going on judgement rather than evidence.
That is a fair choice, as long as you know that is what you are doing.

## The pattern that usually works

Narrow, time-bounded, aimed at a specific slot. Double stamps on Tuesdays in
February, not double stamps forever.

## The pattern that usually does not

A permanent promotion layered on top of a loyalty programme. Customers absorb it
into their expectations within weeks, so the lift goes away and the cost stays.