Spend the promotion budget where the orders stay bought
A voucher is judged on the day it runs and paid for weeks later, in returns and refused deliveries. This puts three Pulse products in order: read what your past offers actually kept, decide for each group of shoppers before the next campaign, and check the listing repair you chose instead of a discount.
Built from Promotion Audit · Decision API · Return Verification
- 01Promotion AuditWhich past offers beat doing nothing, net of returns
- 02Decision APIOffer, no offer or test for each group, before the campaign
- 03Return VerificationWhether the repair you chose moved the returns
Each one works on its own. In this order they close the loop from campaign to returns.
The campaign report closes before the returns arrive
Orders jump on the day a voucher runs, so the campaign looks like it worked. Weeks later some of those orders come back, some are refused at the door, and some came from shoppers who would have paid full price anyway. None of that reaches the report that decided to run the voucher again.
So the same discount keeps going to everyone, and a product page that leaves out the size keeps losing orders that no voucher wins back.
Sometimes the best promotion is none, and sometimes it is a better product page.
- How many orders the voucher broughtAnswered
- How many of those orders came backReturns arrive weeks after the report closesNot in the report
- Who would have bought without itNot in the report
- Whether fixing the listing would have done moreNot in the report
1 of the four is answered on the day the campaign runs.
Three possible answers for every group, and one of them is nothing
For each group of shoppers you can already see, such as new buyers, a region or cash on delivery, the answer is an offer that beat doing nothing at the cautious end of its range, no offer, or a named test.
- ✓An offerIt still beats doing nothing at the cautious end of its range
- 0No offerNothing beat doing nothing for this group
- ?A testThe history is too thin to tell, so the group and offer are named
Which products, in what order
Each step is a Pulse product you can use alone. The order is what turns a report into a decision.
- 01Promotion Audit
Read what your offers actually kept
Send the history of your vouchers, price cuts and free-shipping offers, with the orders, returns and failed deliveries they produced. Each offer is measured against the same group of shoppers when no offer ran.
- 02Decision API
Decide for each group before the next campaign
The same rule, as an API call: for each group, the offer that still beats doing nothing at the cautious end of its range, no offer, or a test. Your tools call it before a campaign goes out.
- 03Return Verification
Check the repair you chose instead
Where fixing a product page beats a discount, your team fills the missing fact and Return Verification compares those products with similar ones that were not repaired, over the same weeks.
What changes about the next campaign
One measure for every option
A voucher, a price cut, free shipping, a listing repair and no offer, all judged on the contribution kept after returns and failed deliveries.
Where to give nothing
The groups of shoppers where no offer beat doing nothing, and how many shoppers each choice covers.
A repair priced against a discount
Fixing the size or the compatibility on a page, with its one-off cost spread over the shoppers it reaches, set beside the vouchers it competes with.
A test instead of a guess
Wherever an option could win but has not been measured, the offer worth trying and the group to try it on.
What this does and does not do
What this does
- Judge every past offer on contribution kept, net of returns and failed deliveries
- Give each group of shoppers an offer, no offer or a test, before the campaign
- Price a listing repair against a discount on the same terms
- Verify whether the repair you chose moved the returns it was meant to move
What it does not do
- Promise more profit or fewer returns. Nothing has been measured on your history yet, and another shop's result is not evidence about yours
- Target individual shoppers. It works on groups you can already see
- Set prices or run campaigns for you. It recommends; you decide
- Guess an effect. Every rate comes from your history or a test you ran
The ones that decide it
- Do I need all three products?
- No. The Promotion Audit alone tells you which past offers paid. The Decision API adds the decision before each campaign, and Return Verification adds proof that a listing repair worked. Most merchants start with the audit on one category.
- How is this different from the Promotion Audit page?
- The Promotion Audit is one product: a reading of your past offers. This page is the goal, and shows where the audit sits next to the products that act on it and check the result.
- What data do you need?
- For each group of shoppers and each offer you ran, including periods with no offer: visitors, orders, failed deliveries, and returns with their reasons. Plus your margin per kept order and what a return and a failed delivery cost you. No names, phones or addresses.
- Will this raise my margin?
- We will not give you a figure, because nothing has run on your history yet. What it gives you is which offers left you better off than doing nothing, measured on your own orders.
Start with the last campaign you ran
One category, the offers you ran on it, and the orders and returns that followed.
Nothing is priced until a pilot has run on your own history.