Why unique codes beat blanket promos
We’ve all run sitewide codes like WELCOME10 or SUMMER2025. They’re easy to launch, but they leak margin, get scraped by voucher sites and muddy your attribution. Unique discount codes change that dynamic. Each customer receives a one-off, single-use code that can expire per person. You regain control: attribution becomes clear, urgency feels genuine, and your brand stops signalling “There’s always a deal if you Google hard enough.”
Because codes are personal and time-bound, experimentation becomes meaningful. You can test 10% versus 15% versus 17.5% without the results being contaminated by a leaked 20% floating around on forums. If you include the code in a campaign, you can resend the very same code in follow-ups so the story hangs together and your tracking stays clean.
How Seguno ties it all together
Seguno’s email platform lives inside Shopify, and its Bulk Discount Code Bot can generate unique codes at serious scale. The tight integration means you can drop codes straight into emails and automations, export large sets to CSV for SMS or direct mail, and report on what actually moved the needle. Think of it as treating discounts like a growth instrument rather than a blunt markdown.
What the data shows
Cara brought insights from Seguno’s analysis of 162,000 discounts across 12,000 brands. A few patterns stood out. First, 20% is the most commonly offered percentage, followed by 10% and then 15%. More interestingly, “Buy X, Get Y” promotions are used six times more by larger brands than by smaller ones, largely because they push up average order value without slashing ticket prices. Gift with purchase performs in a similar way, especially when you use slow-moving stock as the freebie. You lift spend thresholds, clear inventory and keep your premium positioning intact.
Affiliate-led discounting is meaningful too, accounting for a notable share of the activity in the dataset. And in Europe, student, friends-and-family and employee programmes are stronger than many assume. The thread that links all of this is attribution: with unique codes, you can see which channel, creator or partner really brought the sale over the line.
Lifecycle moments where codes earn their keep
If you’re unsure where to start, begin with the big four automations: a welcome offer for new subscribers; a win-back for lapsed customers; a post-purchase nudge while your brand is still top of mind; and browse or cart recovery that escalates by basket size or product type. Pair each with a short expiry and make the incentive fit the margin model. For example, if your average order value is £100 and your paid acquisition cost for a first purchase is roughly £25, then a sub-25% incentive on a second order can be profit-positive compared with reacquiring that same customer via ads.
Just as important is what you don’t do. Keep public banners rare. When everyone sees an evergreen 10% on the homepage, you erode premium perception and teach customers to wait. Quiet, targeted codes get the nudge where it’s needed, without devaluing the rest of your pricing.
Psychology beats markdowns
One of my favourite stories from the episode involved reframing a “dead” SKU. A brand had written off a high-spec product, so we repositioned it as a premium sample and tucked it into orders once a spend threshold was met. Customers loved it, repeat purchases surged and the “stuck” product became a bestseller at a higher price. It’s a good reminder that value is as much about positioning as it is about price. Buy-X-Get-Y and gift-with-purchase promotions lean into that psychology: customers feel like they’re winning, and you increase order size without broad discounting.
Privacy-friendly attribution (that actually works)
With cookies, consent and app journeys breaking traditional tracking, last-touch attribution has become messy. Unique codes give you deterministic, privacy-respecting proof. Run student-only campaigns with student-only codes. Give each influencer their own set. Tag codes by channel and read performance in Shopify or your CRM. When you can trust the read-out, you make calmer decisions about where to spend.
Don’t forget the “insiders”
Students, friends-and-family and employee programmes can be quiet growth machines. Verification keeps things tidy, unique codes keep them contained and the halo effect, especially with retail staff who use and talk about your product, can be substantial. One hardware brand sees roughly seven incremental customer purchases for each employee purchase driven by its staff seeding. That’s word-of-mouth with a steering wheel.
The big idea
Discounts aren’t a race to the bottom. Used strategically, they’re a precise tool for moving behaviour: converting hand-raisers, rescuing wobbly baskets, lifting AOV and proving which channels are worth scaling. Unique, single-use, time-bound codes let you do all of that while protecting your brand.
Check out the full podcast here.
This episode was brought to you by Nick Trueman, Director of PPC & SEO Agency, Spec Digital