Strategically incorporating discount codes in your abandoned cart recovery emails (as well as your other automations) is a powerful way to drive purchases.

But there can be a slight problem. You want to offer a great discount code to your subscribers—let’s say the cost is “20PCTOFF” for 20 percent off any purchase—but that code finds its way onto a discounts website. Then another and another. Suddenly the discount you created for your subscribers is out there in the world for anyone to use. That ruins its exclusivity—and, depending on your margins and marketing strategy, it may not have been an offer you wanted to present to millions of people.

Fortunately, there’s a solution built right into Jilt to solve that generic discount code problem. Jilt can automatically generate a unique, single-use discount code for every single one of your subscribers. And those codes will automatically sync back to your Shopify, WooCommerce, or Easy Digital Downloads store—no extra steps required on your end!

We’ll walk through the process of setting up your first dynamic discount code in the rest of this article.

You have two options for creating a unique discount in Jilt: the Discounts area, and in the email editor. First we’ll go through the Discounts area, which you may find helps you keep your discounts better organized long-term.

After logging into your Jilt account, click on “Discounts” in the left navigation bar. Then click on the gold-colored “+New Discount” button in the top right.

Now you’ll need to enter a few items:

• Name: the internal name for your discount. Your customers won’t ever see this.
• Type: choose what discount you want to offer. The options are a percentage off, a fixed amount off, or free shipping. (Easy Digital Downloads stores won’t see the free shipping option.)
• Amount: if you chose a percentage off or a fixed discount, enter the amount of the discount.
• Valid for: set an expiration date on the discount code. This timer goes live when you send your email, so if you set it for three days, the customer can use the discount for the 72 hours after the email is sent.
• Minimum order price: enter a minimum price if there’s a spending threshold to use the discount.

Notice you don’t have to enter a coupon code like 20PCTOFF or FREESHIP. That’s because the codes themselves will be automatically generated for each user.

To use the discount you just created in your automations, enter the email editor for your automation.

• Click on Rows in the top right.
• From the drop-down menu that says “Products,” select Build custom row.
• Choose Discount Row.
• For “Select a discount option,” pick Use a saved discount.
• For “Discount type,” choose Unique discount code.
• Select the discount you just created by name.
• Click on the Create discount row button.

Now you can drag that custom discount row anywhere you want to put it in your email. When you preview your email, you’ll see the discount in action.

Here’s your second option for creating unique discount codes. Let’s say you’re creating an automated email and you realize you want to put a discount in, but you don’t want to break up your work flow by going to the Discounts area to create the discount then coming back to the email editor. No problem.

• Click on Rows in the top right.
• From the drop-down menu that says “Products,” select Build custom row.
• Choose Discount Row.
• For “Select a discount option,” pick Create a new unique discount.
• Enter all of the discount information.
• Click on the Create discount row button.

Now you can drag that discount row into your email. You can also manage the discount you just created in the Discounts area of the Jilt app.

Your customers will now receive an email with an enticingly unique discount code.

The unique discount codes that are generated by Jilt will automatically sync to your Shopify, WooCommerce, or EDD store where you can view and manage them. As these are one-time-only codes, once a customer uses it, the code will no longer be eligible for any future purchases.

If you have any questions about using Jilt’s dynamic discount codes in your automated emails, feel free to reach out to support!

Have you already had success using discount codes in abandoned cart emails, or seen any particularly effective or creative coupons in recovery emails you’ve received? We’d love to hear about them in the comments below!