How to Set Limits on a Promotion

For many promotions in Maestra, you can set your own restrictions on how often they apply. For example, you can make a promotion trigger no more than a thousand times total, prevent it from awarding more than 500 points per day to a single customer, or stop it from applying multiple times within the same order. Limits are available in both discount and points promotions.

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Where limits are available

You can apply limits to the following benefits: In the Products block:

• Apply a discount
• Use price from an additional field
• Display text
• Allow discount by points
• Award points

In the Order composition block:

• Apply a discount
• Shipping discount
• Apply a discount to N products when an order is placed for N units of a product
• Display text
• Allow discount by points
• Award points
• Apply a personal offer (only limits on discount sum or points accrual/deduction)

Limits aren’t yet available for other promotion types.

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General promotion limits

When general limits are in use, the remaining balance is shown on the promotion page.

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Limit on the number of triggers

Restricts how many times the promotion can trigger over all time, or over N calendar days, calendar weeks, or calendar months.

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Limit on the discount sum

Available in discount promotions. Restricts the total discount sum over all time, or over N calendar days, calendar weeks, or calendar months.

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Limit on the accrual/deduction sum

Available in points promotions. Restricts the total accrual or deduction sum over all time, or over N calendar days, calendar weeks, or calendar months.

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Personal promotion limits

Remaining balances for personal limits aren’t shown in the interface. If you need this information, you can pull it via API (the “Customer — Get available promotions” step).

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Limit on the number of triggers

Restricts how many times the promotion can trigger for a single customer over all time, or over N calendar days, calendar weeks, calendar months, or rolling days, weeks, or months. Example: a promotion is set to limit a customer’s participation to “no more than two times per week.” When the customer places an order, Maestra checks whether the promotion has been used by that customer two or more times in the last seven days. If not, it can be applied to the order.

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Limit on the discount sum

Available in discount promotions. Restricts the total discount sum for a single customer over all time, or over N calendar days, calendar weeks, calendar months, or rolling days, weeks, or months. Example: a promotion has a limit of “discount sum no more than $500 per day.” When the customer places an order, Maestra checks whether the customer has received discounts from this promotion totaling $500 or more over the last 24 hours. If not, the promotion can be applied to the order. The $500 limit is calculated by subtracting all discounts already given to the customer under this promotion in the last 24 hours.

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Limit on the accrual/deduction sum

Available in points promotions. Restricts the total accrual or deduction sum for a single customer over all time, or over N calendar days, calendar weeks, calendar months, or rolling days, weeks, or months. Example: a promotion has a limit of “no more than 1,000 points awarded per month” for a customer. When the customer places an order, Maestra checks whether the customer has been awarded 1,000 or more points under this promotion over the last 30 days. If not, the promotion can be applied to the order. The 1,000-point limit is calculated by subtracting all accruals already made to the customer under this promotion in the last 30 days.

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Per-order limits

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Limit on the number of triggers

Restricts how many times a promotion can trigger within a single order.

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When the limit isn’t enough

Promotions apply with maximum benefit to the customer, except when the benefit setup explicitly resolves the discount product in favor of the store.

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The limit isn’t enough for multiple applications

If the remaining limit isn’t enough to cover all possible applications of the promotion within an order, the promotion runs with maximum benefit to the customer. Example: a promotion is set on orders — “For each product, grant a 100% discount on one more of the same product, applying the discount only to the discounted product” — with a remaining limit of 1. The customer places an order with two laptops and two keyboards. If the promotion had no limit, it would trigger twice on the order — once per line. But because of the limit, it applies only once, to the most expensive product. The customer ends up paying for one laptop and two keyboards.

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The limit isn’t enough for one full application

If the expected discount, accrual, or deduction amount exceeds the remaining limit, the promotion still uses the most customer-favorable option and spends the remaining limit in full. Example: a product promotion is running — “Award points equal to 100% of the product price.” A customer with a 5,000-point limit and one allowed participation buys jeans for $60 and socks for $2. The most beneficial product for the customer is the jeans. Maestra awards the maximum possible number of points for that item — 5,000 points.

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Adding a limit after launching a promotion

A limit doesn’t account for orders placed before it was set. Example: you launched a promotion without a limit. Customers received discounts totaling $15,000 under it. You then decide to set a limit of $200,000. Customers will be able to receive discounts totaling $200,000 from the moment the limit is set (or $215,000 in total, counting the orders placed before the limit was added).

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Editing a limit

Changes to other sections of the promotion don’t affect the remaining limit balance.

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General limits

A general limit can’t be edited after the promotion is launched — only deleted. When you delete it, the usage counter resets. Example: you launched a promotion with a deduction limit of 10,000 points per calendar month. After a week, 8,000 points had been deducted, and you decide to raise the limit to 20,000. To do this, delete the existing limit and add a new one. Because deleting the old limit also resets the counter, you’ll need to calculate the new limit value yourself: 20,000 − 8,000 = 12,000 Set the new limit to 12,000 points per calendar month. Now, no more than 20,000 points will be deducted for the current calendar month. If the promotion needs to keep running in the next month, you’ll need to recreate the limit at the end of the billing period and set it back to 20,000 points per calendar month.

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Personal limits

Personal limits can be edited. The counter isn’t reset. Example: you launched a promotion allowing a customer to participate three times. The promotion applied to one of the customer’s orders. You then raised the limit to five. The customer now has a remaining balance of four applications.

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Per-order limits

Per-order limits can also be edited. They don’t have a counter.

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Limits after an order is canceled

Canceled orders are excluded from the counter. Example: a customer has used up their participation limit in a promotion. They then cancel one of their orders — their remaining balance now goes back to one.

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Customer limits after profile merging

When customer profiles are merged, their promotion participations are combined. Example: a promotion has a limit of no more than 1,000 points awarded to a customer. Customer A has been awarded 100 points under the promotion, and Customer B has been awarded 200 points. The profiles are then merged. That customer can now be awarded no more than 700 points under this promotion.