Goal Offers on Shopify with Ultimate Special Offers

by Orbit Team | Jun 8, 2022

This post is part of a series on the offers available from Ultimate Special Offers. To read about other offer types, check out the series homepage.

Setting a spend goal is a great way to bring in more revenue! Since Goal offers are one of Ultimate Special Offers’ nine offer types, we’re going to tell you all about them – how they work, why you might want to offer one, how to design a goal offer with Ultimate Special Offers, and some tips to make your goal offer succeed.

What is a goal offer?

Here’s a goal offer in a nutshell:

You set a goal amount, and when a customer’s cart hits that amount, they get a discount.

It’s easy! Where it gets more complex is in the flexibility that Ultimate Special Offers provides. You get to decide which products, variants, or collections are eligible to be part of the deal, and you also set the discount, which can be a percentage or a dollar amount. This flexibility means you can try out different goal offers and see what works best in your store!

Why run a Goal offer?

Like we said above, goal offers bring in more revenue! Here’s why you should try one out:

Goals increase Average Order Value (AOV). Just like with a free gift, when you set a target for customers, they are more likely to spend more to hit the goal and get the reward. In this case, the reward is a great discount! By being strategic about how you set up the offer, you can increase AOV and still give the customer a deal.

Goals can encourage shoppers to buy specific products. The goal doesn’t have to apply to your entire store – you can be selective about which items are included. This means you can encourage people to shop in certain collections or for specific products, perhaps drawing their attention to something new, or incentivizing them to buy items you are trying to move more of.

Goals are a way to ensure discounts are only being given on large orders. By enforcing a target spend, you’re rewarding shoppers who are spending larger amounts. You’re still offering a great sale, you’re just putting some parameters on it to make sure it’s working well for your business.

How to set up a Goal Offer with Ultimate Special Offers

To set up a Goal offer in Ultimate Special Offers, first determine a strategy, then set up the offer in the app admin.

Determine a strategy

To start, consider the following questions:

- How much does a customer need to spend to receive the discount?
- Which products, variants, or collections will be part of the offer?
- Will the discount be a percentage or a dollar amount?
- How will you promote this offer to your shoppers?

We want to highlight the third question – percentage versus dollar amount. Using a percentage discount is going to have a very different impact on your margins than a dollar amount will. If you use a set dollar amount, it doesn’t matter how much the customer spends, the discount amount is the same. Alternatively, if you’re using a percentage amount, then the customer’s savings increase along with their spend. For example:

Spend $50, get $10 off:
Customer spends $55, pays $45.
Customer spends $200, pays $190.

Spend $50 get 10% off:
Customer spends $55, pays $49.50
Customer spends $200, pays $180

When applied across many customers, those differences in totals are going to impact your overall revenue and margins. So consider your strategy carefully!

Set up the offer in the app admin

Our Help Center will walk you through this part step-by-step! Head over to the page Making a Goal offer.

Goal offer tips

Be strategic about the target amount

Check your Shopify analytics to find out the AOV for your store, and set the spend goal higher than this amount. Then make sure that after the discount is applied, the spend amount will still be higher than your AOV. Follow that formula and you’re sure to raise your AOV!

Provide enough variety of product choice

Make sure that customers have enough product choices to hit the goal amount. If their options are limited, they may not go through with the purchase. Consider including entire collections in the offer, or if selecting specific products, pick a wide variety to give shoppers lots of choice.

Test variations on the offer

Run a few goal-based sales to see what brings in the most revenue. Try different goal amounts, mixed and matched with different products and collections. Try including all products, and then narrowing to certain collections. Experiment to see what works best for your store!

Goal Offer Resources

To see the Goal offer in action, check out the Ultimate Special Offers demo store. The video below also offers info on running a Goal offer on Shopify with Ultimate Special Offers.