How to create and manage promotions

Shoppers receive automatic discounts on your WooCommerce store. The WooDonkey Companion plugin applies these promotions directly on your storefront. Promotions are distinct from coupons, which are managed under the Store > Coupons section in WooDonkey.

What it is

The Promotions section, found under Advanced Tools in the sidebar, is where you manage all your store’s automatic discounts. The page title is Promotions & Discounts, with a subtitle showing the total number of promotions, for example, ‘{{count}} promotions total’ on desktop or ‘{{count}} Total’ on mobile. If no store is connected, it displays ‘No store connected’.

You can view promotions by their status using tabs: All, Active, Scheduled, Ended, and Disabled. Each promotion row displays badges like Active, Scheduled, Ended, Disabled, or Exhausted. Promotions without a name appear as ‘Untitled’. Meta-information includes ‘From date’, ‘Until date’, ‘Used used/max’, and ‘Stackable’.

Bulk actions allow you to select multiple promotions and perform actions like Enable, Disable, or Delete. Toasts confirm actions such as ‘Promotion enabled’, ‘Promotion disabled’, ‘Promotion deleted’, ‘Promotion duplicated’, ‘{{count}} promotions updated’, and ‘{{count}} promotions deleted’. Deleting a single promotion requires confirmation: ‘Delete the promotion “{{title}}”? This will permanently remove the promotion from the system. This cannot be undone.’ Bulk deletion asks: ‘Delete {{count}} promotions?’.

To create a new promotion, click New Promotion. You can describe your promotion in your own words (e.g., ‘Buy 1 get 1 on category X’) and use the ‘Generate with AI’ feature, which requires at least 5 characters. A toast ‘The promotion was filled in from your description – review and confirm’ appears upon success. Alternatively, you can manually choose from four promotion types:

Product Discount: Automatic discount on specific products.
Category / Tag Discount: Automatic discount on all products in a category, tag, or taxonomy.
Buy & Get (BOGO): Buy X products of type A – get Y products of type B at a discount / free.
Quantity Discount (Tiers): Tiered discount by quantity (buy 3 get 10%, buy 5 get 20%).

After selecting a type, the form title becomes ‘New Promotion – {{type}}’. When editing an existing promotion, the page title is ‘Edit Promotion – {{type}}’ with Settings and Usage tabs.

How it helps you

Promotions allow you to run automatic deals on your WooCommerce store without requiring shoppers to enter coupon codes. This simplifies the shopping experience and can encourage purchases. Shoppers benefit from seeing clear price adjustments, visual badges on product images, and informative banners on product pages, making it easy to identify products included in a deal. Merchants can set up various discount structures, from simple product discounts to complex buy-one-get-one offers and tiered pricing, all managed from a central dashboard.

What is included

The Promotions feature includes the following capabilities and settings:

Promotions Dashboard: A central view of all promotions with status tabs (All, Active, Scheduled, Ended, Disabled) and badges for quick status identification (Active, Scheduled, Ended, Disabled, Exhausted).
Promotion Meta-Information: Each promotion displays its ‘From date’, ‘Until date’, ‘Used used/max’ count, and ‘Stackable’ status.
Bulk Actions: Select multiple promotions to Enable, Disable, or Delete them simultaneously.
New Promotion Creation: Access the creation flow via the New Promotion button.
AI Promotion Generation: Describe your desired promotion in natural language, and AI can pre-fill the promotion settings. This requires a description of at least 5 characters.
Four Promotion Types: Choose from Product Discount, Category / Tag Discount, Buy & Get (BOGO), or Quantity Discount (Tiers). The ‘Coupon’ type is not available for new promotions.
Promotion Name: A required field for the promotion’s title, which is shown to the customer.
Target Products: Specify ‘Products the promotion applies to’ and ‘Products the promotion does not apply to’.
Image Badge: An option to ‘Show a badge on the product’s main image so shoppers see it’s in the deal’. The default badge text is ‘1+1’ when enabled.
Product Page Banner: An option to ‘Show a text banner on the page of every product in the deal’.
Banner Placement: Choose ‘Below the price (automatic)’ or ‘Custom location (shortcode)’. The shortcode [woodonkey_promo_banner] can be copied for custom placement.
Apply on Sale Products: A setting ‘Promotion also valid on products on sale’ defaults to true.
Combining with Coupons: Control how promotions interact with coupons: ‘Can be combined with any coupon’, ‘Cannot be combined with coupons’ (default), or ‘Can be combined only with selected coupons’.
Stacking with Other Promotions: An option to ‘Allow stacking with other promotions’ defaults to true.
Coupon Code Gate: An optional field ‘Activate only when this coupon code is in the cart’ to gate the promotion’s activation.
User Role Limit: Limit the promotion to specific user roles. Leaving it empty applies to all visitors.
Schedule: Set ‘Promotion starts on date’ and ‘ends on date’. An option for ‘No limit’ is available.
Minimum Requirements: Set ‘Promotion valid on purchases above currency X’, ‘more than X items’, and/or ‘limited to X units in total’. The default minimum cart value is 0.
Active Status: A toggle to set the promotion as Active, defaulting to true for new promotions.
Priority: A numerical field to determine the order of application, where a higher number runs first. The default priority is 0.
Product Discount / Category Discount Specifics: Choose ‘Percentage (%)’ (default 10%), ‘Fixed Amount’, or ‘Final Price’. ‘Recurring – apply the discount for every multiple of the minimum amount’ is available only for ‘Fixed Amount’ discounts.
Buy & Get (BOGO) Specifics: Define ‘The customer buys X products and gets X products at a discount of’. The discount type can be ‘percent’ (default 100%) or ‘fixed amount’. ‘Include multiples’ (e.g., buy 4 get 2) defaults to true. The ‘Final Price’ discount type is not available for BOGO.
Quantity Discount (Tiers) Specifics: Define tiers with ‘When buying X products’ and apply ‘Final Unit Price’ or ‘Discount percent’ (default 10% for min_qty 3). You can ‘Add’ or ‘Remove tier’.
Usage Tab: When editing a promotion, the Usage tab shows ‘No usage recorded yet’ if there’s no data. You can ‘Reset the usage counter’ with a confirmation dialog.

How to turn on and manage each capability