Managing campaign budgets
Budgets allow you to control the total monetary spending in your campaigns by restricting the benefits they give as you run different promotions. Budgets are useful as a security measure to avoid overspending, prevent fraud, and control the behavior of your campaigns.
You can add budgets for a given campaign in Settings > Budgets. Alternatively, set default budgets for all new campaigns created in your Application by adding default budgets for a given Application.
This feature does not work retroactively. You can track campaign behavior and limit spending only after a budget is created.
Budget types
There are different budget types to match the restriction you need. They can refer to the entire campaign or to different entities, like coupons or referrals.
You can create coupon and referral budgets only if the coupon and referral features are enabled in your campaign.
| Budget type | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Campaign Budgets | Applied to the entire campaign. These budgets can be tracked in the Performance & Budget section of your campaign dashboard. tip Add a campaign budget to campaigns whose effects can lead to unintended overspending. | You can define the total amount you want to spend on a certain campaign, including discounts provided as referrals, giveaways, coupons and loyalty points. |
| Profile Budgets | Applied to each customer profile in a given campaign. These budgets can be tracked in the customer profile, in the Budgets tab. | You can limit how much discount and how many coupons, referrals, giveaways and loyalty points a single customer can obtain in a given campaign. |
| Unique Identifier Budgets | Applied to each unique identifier. tip Use identifiers to prevent fraud. | You can limit how much discount and how many coupons, referrals, giveaways and loyalty points can be issued for a unique identifier such as an IP address. This helps you prevent customers from obtaining more discounts by creating several profiles. Important: If you create a unique identifier budget for a campaign and any effect in the campaign impacts the budget, ensure that the session includes an identifier by the time you close it. If the session doesn't include an identifier, the rule containing the budget-impacting effect will fail regardless of whether the conditions are met. For example, if you create a discount budget that refers to a unique identifier and a rule in the campaign contains a discount effect, the rule will always fail if the session does not include an identifier when you close it. |
| Coupon Budgets | Applied to each coupon code. | You can define how much discount and other benefits a single coupon can provide. For example, you can set how many discount effects each coupon code can trigger. Important: If you create a coupon budget for a campaign and any effect in the campaign impacts the budget, ensure that the session includes a coupon code by the time you close it. If the session doesn't include a coupon code, the rule containing the budget-impacting effect will fail regardless of whether the conditions are met. For example, if you create a discount budget that refers to coupons and a rule in the campaign contains a discount effect, the rule will always fail if the session does not include a coupon code when you close it. |
| Referral Budgets | Applied to each referral code. | You can limit how much discount and other benefits a single referral code can provide. Important: If you create a referral budget for a campaign and any effect in the campaign impacts the budget, ensure that the session includes a referral code by the time you close it. If the session doesn't include a referral code, the rule containing the budget-impacting effect will fail regardless of whether the conditions are met. For example, if you create a discount budget that refers to referrals and a rule in the campaign contains a discount effect, the rule will always fail if the session does not include a referral code when you close it. |
| Session Budgets | Applied to each customer session. note You cannot make session budgets recurring. | You can limit how much discount and other benefits to issue in a single customer session. Important: Any limit that you set resets after every session update. |
Default budgets
Default budgets are useful for ensuring that your campaigns are limited without having to set budgets individually for each campaign. You can add budgets for all new campaigns in a given Application in Settings > Default Budgets.
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The limits from a default budget apply only to campaigns created after the default budget is set up.
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The limits set in campaign budgets override the limits set in default budgets.
For example, if you create a default Campaign budget to limit Coupon creations, you can override this default budget after creating a campaign in the campaign's budgets.
Limits
When you add a budget, for each budget type, you can define the following limits:
You can set limits for coupons, referrals, loyalty programs, and giveaways only if the respective features are enabled in your campaign.
See all the available effects in promotion rules.
Effect of reached limits
Reached limits reflect in the Integration API. A reached limit generates a failed effect with a special rejection reason for coupon and referral effects that you can check in the integration layer. See the full list of effects in the Developer docs.
If any effect of a rule cannot be applied because of a reached limit, the entire rule fails. This means:
- The rule is still evaluated in subsequent requests. It is not automatically excluded.
- Any other rules in the campaign whose conditions are met can still trigger their effects.
Budgets are checked by the Rule Engine when evaluating the effects that impact them.
Discount limits
| Limit | Description | Budget type |
|---|---|---|
| Discount total | Set the maximum amount that can be discounted. For example, you can use this limit within a Campaign budget to set a total discount of $100,000 to be awarded in any way possible. |
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| Discount effects | Set the maximum number of discount effects (including per-item discounts) that can be triggered. After this limit is reached, other effects in different rules can still be triggered if limits that may affect them have not yet been reached. All other effects in rules where there is a Discount effect fail to trigger. |
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Referral limits
| Limit | Description | Budget type |
|---|---|---|
| Referral redemptions | Set the maximum number of referral code redemptions that can take place. |
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| Referral creations | Set the maximum number of referrals that can be created. |
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Limit referral redemptions for individual referral codes when you create a referral code as an effect or on the Referrals page after creation.
Coupon limits
| Limit | Description | Budget type |
|---|---|---|
| Coupon redemptions | Set the maximum number of coupon code redemptions that can take place. |
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| Coupon creations | Set the maximum number of coupon codes that can be created. |
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Limit coupon redemptions for individual coupon codes when you create a coupon code as an effect or on the Coupons page after creation.
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Set how much discount a code can give by creating a gift card.
Loyalty limits
| Limit | Description | Budget type |
|---|---|---|
| Loyalty points total | Set the maximum number of loyalty points that can be collected by customers. |
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| Add loyalty points effect | Set the maximum number of Add loyalty points effects that can be triggered. After this limit is reached, other effects in different rules can still be triggered if limits that may affect them have not yet been reached. All other effects in rules where there is an Add loyalty points effect fail to trigger. |
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| Loyalty points redeemed | Set the maximum number of loyalty points that can be redeemed by customers. |
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| Redeem loyalty points effect | Set the maximum number of Redeem loyalty points effects that can be triggered. After this limit is reached, other effects in different rules can still be triggered if limits that may affect them have not yet been reached. All other effects in rules where there is a Redeem loyalty points effect fail to trigger. |
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Giveaway limits
| Limit | Description | Budget type |
|---|---|---|
| Award giveaways | Set the maximum number of giveaways that can be awarded. |
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Other limits
| Limit | Description | Budget type |
|---|---|---|
| Add free item effect | Set the maximum number of Add free item effects that can be triggered. |
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| Custom effects | Set the maximum number of custom effects that can be triggered. note Custom effects triggered on open sessions are taken into consideration. |
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| Webhook triggers | Set the maximum number of webhooks that can be triggered. |
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Recurrence
When you add a budget, you can make it a recurring budget depending on the budget type. For example, you can create campaigns with daily discount limits or set the number of coupons that each customer can redeem per week.
Regardless of when you launch your campaigns, the reset time for recurring budgets follows calendar dates in your Application's time zone setting.
You can create one budget for each of the following recurrence options:
| Recurrence option | Reset time |
|---|---|
| No recurrence | Does not reset after the budget is fully used. |
| Every year | January 1 at |
| Every month | The first day of each month at |
| Every week | On Mondays at |
| Every day | Every day at |
Use cases
You can use budgets to restrict the following benefits:
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Coupon redemptions within a campaign.
Create a Campaign budget and limit Coupon redemptions.
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The number of coupons that each customer can redeem.
Create a Profile budget and limit Coupon redemptions.
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The maximum amount that can be discounted per coupon.
Create a Coupon budget and limit Discount total.
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The number of times a discount effect can be triggered for each coupon.
Create a Coupon budget and limit Discount effects.
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The number of times a discount effect can be triggered for each referral.
Create a Referral budget and limit Discount effects.
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The number of loyalty points each customer can collect.
Create a Profile budget and limit Loyalty points total.
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The number of giveaways provided for a given IP address.
Create a Unique identifier budget and limit Award giveaways.
Adding a budget
You can add a budget at any point, but its limits are not applied retroactively to campaigns without a budget.
To add a budget:
- On the left-side menu of your campaign, click Settings > Budgets.
- For the budget type you need, click Add.
- For Limit, select the limit you want to apply.
- In Value, type the maximum value of your budget.
- In Recurrence, choose when the budget resets. By default, No recurrence is selected.
- Click Create Budget.
To add a default budget, on the left-side menu of your Application, click Settings > Default Budgets and follow the rest of the steps listed above.
Editing a budget
You can modify the maximum value of a budget at any time. Modifying this value does not affect the usage counter.
To edit a budget:
- On the left-side menu of your campaign, click Settings > Budgets.
- Click to the right of the budget you want to edit.
- In Value, edit the maximum value of the budget.
- Click Save.
To edit a default budget, on the left-side menu of your Application, click Settings > Default Budgets and follow the rest of the steps listed above.
Deleting a budget
Deleting a budget permanently removes any applied budget restrictions and clears the usage counter.
To delete a budget:
- On the left-side menu of your campaign, click Settings > Budgets.
- Click to the right of the budget you want to delete.
- In the confirmation pop-up, click Delete Budget.
To delete a default budget, on the left-side menu of your Application, click Settings > Default Budgets and follow the rest of the steps listed above.