Sometimes, having a fantastic product just isn’t enough to achieve the sales you’re aiming for. In today’s digital landscape, customers are spoiled for choice when online shopping, and standing out often means offering a little something extra. But standing out in a crowd of competitors isn’t the only reason you should be incorporating offers into your marketing strategy. You want to convince your customers to take action now while the offer is available.
The ultimate goal is to increase the contribution margin per customer. For one-time purchase products, increasing the AOV will help to achieve this increase in contribution margin. Equally, CPG products (where the AOV is naturally lower) will benefit from offers creating a higher AOV, helping you to increase the contribution margin enough to make paid acquisition possible and scalable.
Deciding on the right offer can feel like navigating a maze. So how do you know what will truly resonate with your audience while keeping your business on track to meet its revenue goals? In this guide, I’ve broken down some of the most effective types of offers you can use to boost sales, increase customer loyalty, and grow your business. Remember, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach here. Each industry, product, and audience is unique, so it’s all about testing, tweaking, and finding out what works best for your brand.
Want to talk to an eCommerce specialist about testing offers for your business? Simply, get in touch.
Positioning in the market
Let’s start with a less obvious kind of ‘offer’, one that doesn’t involve discounts or bundles but instead hinges on how you position yourself against your competitors. This approach is all about understanding your unique selling point (USP). To figure this out, ask yourself: what’s missing from the market that I can provide?
One great way to uncover opportunities is to read through your competitors’ reviews and look for recurring customer complaints. For example, if customers consistently mention that a competitor’s product lacks durability, you could focus your messaging on how your product is built to last.
By addressing these pain points directly, you’re not just offering the same old product as everyone else, you’re offering a solution, which can be a powerful way to win over customers. This positions your business as the ‘better choice’ without adjusting sale prices, giving you the edge against your competitors to build long-term brand value.
Bundling
When it comes to offers, bundling is a personal favorite of mine which I use across many of my own businesses as well as when working with clients. This strategy works well because it aims to increase your average order value (AOV) and enhances the perceived value for your customers, all without cutting into your profit margins.
When taking the approach of bundling, there’s a couple of different ways you can go. The first is the classic set bundle which combines a best-selling product with smaller, complementary items. This not only boosts the perceived value but also allows you to shift slower-moving stock by allowing you to include it in a bundle.
This classic bundling approach on landing pages can be demonstrated by skincare brand Qure who offer a range of set bundles.
Want to try bundling while offering your customers the freedom of choice? Try offering ‘build-your-own’ bundles, allowing customers to mix and match products to create a personalised bundle. This adds an interactive element that can make the shopping experience more fun and engaging whilst retaining the perceived increase in value for money.
GLAMRDIP offers ‘build-your-own’ bundles on their landing page, allowing customers to select exactly what colour nail powders they want.
Another bundling approach is ‘breadcrumb bundling’. This focuses more on increasing AOV by upselling and cross-selling. To do this, you’ll need to set up a 2-step process. The first step is when the customer adds their main item to their basket. The second step is a follow-up page suggesting complementary products that can be added to the basket with a single click. It’s seamless, subtle, and highly effective at increasing AOV without feeling too pushy.
eCommerce brand Fahlo takes this approach when the customer adds one of their wildlife bracelets to their basket. This triggers a pop up on the right side of the page confirming the item has been added to the basket and a list of other wildlife bracelets that can be easily added to the basket by clicking one button.
Buy more, save more
If your products are the kind that customers buy often or can be used in larger quantities, then a ‘buy more, save more’ offer can work wonders. It’s a straightforward approach: the higher the quantity of an item your customers purchase in one order, the bigger the discount they receive. Similar to bundling, this encourages larger AOVs by creating a higher perceived value for the price.
Kudd.ly has an offer on their landing page where the cost of each individual hoodie blanket reduces with the increased quantity of hoodie blankets in the order.
Subscriptions
Another option for regularly-bought products like coffee or pet food is to offer a subscription service. Although part of your subscription model could be a slight price discount per item compared to buying an item as a one-off, the main focus of a subscription offer is convenience.
With a subscription, customers can set it and forget it. No more worrying about running out of their favorite coffee beans or skincare essentials. Their order will arrive like clockwork – monthly, quarterly, or whatever schedule works best for them. As a bonus, subscriptions can create steady, predictable revenue for your business while deepening customer loyalty.
For example, haircare brand Vegamour offers subscriptions on their landing pages, offering a 19% discount and free delivery as an incentive.
Gift with purchase
To encourage a larger purchase, you could offer a free gift if the customer orders over a certain value or takes out a subscription. This gives the customer an incentive to add more to their basket to get over that threshold. This also allows you to shift leftover seasonal or underselling stock in the form of a free gift while providing increased perceived value for the customer.
Glossier leverages the offer of a gift with purchase for a limited time by offering a free beauty bag when a customer places an order over $100.
Discounts
Sometimes, the simplest approach is the most effective. Discounts are usually successful in grabbing attention and driving quick sales. However, they do come at a cost to your profit margins and should be used strategically.
Rather than relying on discounts year-round, save them for special occasions, like holiday sales or limited-time promotions. This creates urgency and helps avoid the trap of running larger and larger sales to recapture the attention of your audience. Remember, constant discounts can devalue your brand in the long run, so think of them as a tactical tool rather than your go-to strategy.
An example of this is personal care brand Wild, who run discounts on their landing pages for holidays like their 25% off Boxing Day sale.
Offer testing for LTV
Once you’ve decided which types of offers might work for your business, it’s time to test them. But when testing these offers, don’t just focus on the short term metrics and profit from the initial purchase. Instead, take a look at the wider picture of the long term LTV performance of your offers. It’s important to take this into consideration as the offer that performs best on initial purchase may not be the same as the offer that performs best over the following 6 months, 9 months, 12 months etc. Therefore, if you don’t take LTV into consideration when testing your offers, you could make decisions about which offers to focus on that won’t bring you the best results. Want to find out more about offer testing for LTV? I take a deep dive into the topic in my LTV blog.
When using offers as part of your business strategy, it’s all about knowing your audience, experimenting with different tactics, and finding what resonates best. With the right approach, you can turn a good product into a must-have in your customers’ eyes.
Want some advice on what offers might work best for your business and how to set them up? I’m here to help. Just drop me a message and I’ll get in touch to discuss how I can help your business.