Promotions & Discount Codes Add-on

The Promotions add-on for Event Espresso 4 adds powerful and flexible promotional pricing features to your website. You can now create discount codes and promotions that can be applied when registering for an event. This gives the person registering the ability to apply a discount code, or receive an automated discount that reduces the price of a registration.

Overview

This add-on’s basic features include:

• Promotional pricing discount codes
• Promotional pricing without discount codes
• Create a global promotion code and assign to several events
• Optional usage quantity limits per discount
• Optional start and expiration date for each discount
• Percentage or fixed discounts
• A shortcode and a widget that display a list of non-coded promotions on your website

Installation

This add-on is a plugin for WordPress and can be installed through your WP dashboard (WP-admin).

You download the latest version of the Promotions add-on from your Event Espresso account page.

Then log in to your WordPress dashboard (WP-admin) and go to Plugins. Next, click on Add New –> Upload and browse to the plugin on your computer. Then select the zip file and begin the upload process. Wait for the plugin to upload and then click on Activate.

Setup and Configuration

You can access the Settings page by going to Event Espresso > Promotions and click the Settings tab. The first setting is very important if you set taxes on your tickets. In some locales the tax needs to be applied to the the price pre-discount, in other locales the tax needs to be applied to the discounted price.

The other settings are for changing how non-coded promotions are displayed.

You can display a list of non-coded promotions on your website by activating the Promotions widget in WP > Appearance > Widgets. Alternatively you can place the [ESPRESSO_PROMOTIONS] shortcode on a page and it will display upcoming promotions there.

Usage

Managing Promotions

You can add new and edit promotions by going to Event Espresso > Promotions. There you can click the Add new button or click on one of the existing promotions to edit.

Promotions fields

• Name You can use the Name field to identify each promotion. The name of the Promotion is not the same thing as the discount code.
• Code This is the field where you input the promotional code. You leave this field blank for non-coded promotions
• Type You select Percent Discount or Dollar (fixed) Discount here
• Amount You input the discount amount here
• Scope Currently a promotion’s scope is limited to Events
• Apply Promo to ALL Scope Items If set to “Yes” then this promotion will be applied to all events
• Promo is Exclusive When the promotion is set to be exclusive, it cannot be combined with any other coded promotions at checkout
• Number of Uses Here you can set a limit to how many total uses this promotion can have. For example, if you set this field to 5 and set the promotion to apply to one event, a maximum of 5 uses of this promotion will be allowed. Another example, if you set this field to 5 and set the promotion to apply to 2 events, a maximum of 10 uses of this promotion will be allowed.
• Valid From and Until Promotions can automatically begin and expire on the dates you set here
• Banner Text/Description This is the text that will be displayed in the Promotion Banners if they are being used (see Settings Tab) as well as anywhere that the Promotion details are listed.
• Accepted Message If using Promotion Codes, this will be shown when a code has been successfully verified and applied to a registrant’s order
• Declined Message If using Promotion Codes, this will be shown when a code entered by a registrant can not be verified or applied to their order

• Promotion applies too…
  This is where you check the boxes next to the events that you want the
  promotion to apply to.
• Advanced Filters You click the settings icon to toggle the Advanced event view filters. Here you can set a range of dates, search for an event by name, or filter the events by category
• Sort You click Sort to view the list of events in reverse order (earliest added upcoming events first)
• Pagination links When you have more than 10 upcoming events, the pagination links will allow you to page through groups of ten events

Applying Promotions at Checkout

Non-coded promotions are automatically applied to the prices at checkout. Registrants can input and submit promotional codes on the same checkout step where they select a payment method.

Viewing Applied Promotions

You can view information about the promotion applied to an order by viewing the transaction via the Event Espresso transactions list table. When a registration has a promotion applied to it you’ll see a price breakdown in the Registration details for each registration.

The Registrations CSV report will also include a column that shows the promotional code that was applied to the order.

Troubleshooting

• The plugin will not activate. Can you help?
  Please first check that you have Event Espresso version 4.8 or greater installed.

Frequently Asked Questions

• How do I change the color of the submit promo code button?
  As with most style oriented customizations, button colors, fonts, and text styles are all controlled by your WordPress theme. You can change the color using the theme’s settings (if included) or with CSS
• How can I import discount codes?
  At this time Event Espresso 4 promotions does not include a discount code import feature. We’ll release an update to the add-on when the importer is ready. You can sign up for our email newsletter to get a notification when it’s available.

Customizations

CSS classes for the promotional code input field and submit button

Input field classes: ee-promotion-code-input ee-reg-qstn ee-promo-combo-input

Submit button classes: button button-primary ee-promo-combo-submit

Example CSS for styling the promo code submit button:

input.ee-promo-combo-submit {
background-color: green;
color: #fff;
}

Examples that show how to change default settings using WordPress filter hooks

More custom code snippets

can be found in the Event Espresso code snippet library