Scheduling Offers

Learn how to schedule promotional offers to run at specific times and dates, including best practices for offer scheduling.

This guide explains how to schedule your promotional offers to run at specific times and dates.

Understanding Offer Scheduling

Scheduling allows you to create offers in advance and have them automatically activate and deactivate at specific times. This is useful for:

• Seasonal promotions
• Holiday sales
• Limited-time offers
• Flash sales
• Special event promotions

Setting Up Offer Schedules

Basic Date Scheduling

1. During offer creation or editing, locate the “Active Dates” section
2. Configure the following settings:
   • Start Date: When the offer will automatically activate (required)
   • End Date: When the offer will automatically deactivate (optional - leave empty for an offer with no end date)
   • Time Zone: Select the appropriate time zone for your business

Recurring Scheduling (Daily and Weekly Windows)

Recurring scheduling lets you run offers on repeating time windows instead of a single start/end date range.

Recurring schedule features

• Enable/disable recurring mode with a dedicated toggle in the scheduling section
• Time zone selection per recurring schedule
• Frequency options: Weekly or Daily
• Multiple repeat windows using Add repeat
• Weekly windows with:
  • Start day + Start time
  • End day + End time
• Daily windows with:
  • Start time
  • End time
• At least one window required while recurring scheduling is enabled
• Overnight time ranges supported (for example, start late evening and end the next day)
• Localized time display in window summaries based on your locale and selected time zone

Set up a recurring schedule

1. Open your offer and go to Scheduling.
2. Turn on Recurring Schedule.
3. Select your Time Zone.
4. Choose Frequency:
   • Weekly for day-based windows (e.g., Friday 9:00 AM to Saturday 2:00 AM)
   • Daily for repeating every-day windows (e.g., 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM)
5. Configure the first window.
6. Use Add repeat to add more windows as needed.
7. Save your offer.

Viewing Scheduled Offers

After creating scheduled offers, you can manage and monitor them in several ways:

Offers Dashboard

1. Navigate to the Offers section in your admin panel
2. View the status column to see which offers are:
   • Active: Currently running
   • Scheduled: Set to start in the future
   • Recurring: Uses a recurring schedule configuration (daily/weekly windows)
   • Expired: End date has passed
   • Inactive: Manually deactivated

Recurring indicates the offer is configured with recurring windows rather than only a single date range. Recurring offers activate during their configured windows in the selected time zone.

Filtering Offers by Status

You can filter the offers list to focus on specific types:

1. Use the Status filter dropdown
2. Select “Scheduled” to see all future offers
3. Select “Active” to see currently running offers
4. Select “Recurring” to see offers configured with recurring windows

Editing Scheduled Offers

You can modify the schedule of an existing offer at any time:

1. Find the offer in your offers list
2. Click on it to open the editing view
3. Navigate to the scheduling section

Edit a date-based schedule

1. Open the Active Dates area.
2. Update your start date, end date (optional), or date-based timing.
3. Save your changes.

Edit a recurring schedule

1. Turn on Recurring Schedule (if it is not already enabled).
2. Update the Time Zone.
3. Change Frequency (Weekly or Daily) if needed.
4. Update window values:
   • Weekly: Start day/time and End day/time
   • Daily: Start time and End time
5. Use Add repeat to add windows, or remove windows you no longer need.
6. Save your changes.

Switching frequency resets window structure to match that frequency. Re-check your repeat windows before saving.

Best Practices for Offer Scheduling

• Plan ahead: Schedule offers at least 24 hours in advance to ensure proper setup
• Avoid overlaps: Be careful with overlapping offers that target similar products
• Consider time zones: If you serve customers globally, choose the time zone that makes the most sense for your primary audience
• Use date restrictions strategically: Combine date and time restrictions for highly targeted promotions such as “Weekend Morning Specials”
• Review regularly: Periodically check your scheduled offers to ensure they align with your current marketing strategy

Next Steps

• Learn about Managing Active Offers
• Explore Best Practices for effective promotions