09 — Discount codes and promoters
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What it is
Discount codes let buyers pay less, or see tickets nobody else can. Promoters are people you give a personal link and code to, so you can see exactly which sales they brought in.
Both live under Marketing on your event.
Discount codes
Go to Marketing → Manage Discounts and choose Create Discount Code.
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Discount code | What buyers type. Letters, numbers, dashes. Not case-sensitive — summer20 and SUMMER20 are the same code. |
| Discount type | Percentage off (a whole number up to 100), Fixed amount off (in dollars), or Free (100% off). |
| Total uses limit | How many orders can use it, across everyone. Leave blank for unlimited. |
| Uses per customer | How many orders one person can use it on — whether they're signed in or not. Defaults to 1. |
| Valid from / until | Optional. Times are at your event's location, not wherever you happen to be. |
| Applies to | Leave everything unticked to discount the whole order. Tick tickets or extras to discount only those. |
| Unlocks hidden tiers | Shown if your event has hidden tickets. See below. |
Codes are per event. The same code can exist on two of your events and mean different things on each.
Hidden tickets
A ticket tier marked hidden doesn't appear on your event page at all — not greyed out, not "sold out", simply absent. A code that unlocks it makes it appear for whoever enters the code.
A code can unlock tickets without taking anything off. Set it to 0% and tick the hidden tiers: buyers see "Unlocks hidden tickets", and pay the normal price. Use it for a friends-and-family tier, a members' allocation, or a promoter's own tier.
Unlocking and discounting are separate: a code can do either, or both.
Uses per customer applies to hidden tickets too. A code set to 1 per customer lets each person buy the tickets it unlocks once. Someone trying again is told they've already used it.
Sharing a code
Buyers can type the code on your event page or at checkout. You can also share a link
that applies it for them — add ?code=YOURCODE to your event's address.
How it behaves
- The discount comes off before fees, so fees are worked out on what the buyer actually pays. An order a code brings to zero has no fees at all.
- Only the items the code applies to are discounted. A fixed amount never takes more off than those items cost.
- If a code stops working while someone is checking out — it expires, or the last use goes to someone else — they are stopped before paying and shown the new total. Nobody is charged a price they weren't shown.
- Limits hold under pressure. If two people try to take the last use at the same moment, only one gets it.
- Repeated wrong guesses are blocked for a while. Someone trying code after code to find a hidden tier is stopped; buyers with a real code are unaffected.
Switching off and deleting
Switch a code off to stop it working straight away. It can be switched back on.
A code that has been used can't be deleted — only switched off — because it's part of the record of what those buyers paid. An unused code can be deleted.
Promoters
Go to Marketing → Affiliate Promoters, enter a name and email, and choose Add. Straight away they get:
- A tracking link to your event.
- Their own discount code, 10% off by default. It's an ordinary code — change the amount, dates or anything else in Manage Discounts, and it stays theirs.
They're emailed an invitation. If they already have an account, it's linked immediately; otherwise they create one. Their events appear under Events Shared With Me, with their link, their code, and their figures.
Promoters only see their own event, link, code and sales. They can't edit your event, see other promoters, manage discounts, or see anything about your buyers — no names, emails or order details.
Who gets credit for a sale
- If the buyer uses a promoter's code, that promoter gets the sale.
- Otherwise, the last promoter link the buyer followed for this event, within the last 30 days.
- Otherwise, nobody.
Credit stops when your event ends. A link from one event never earns credit on another.
Promoters don't earn credit on their own purchases. If a promoter buys with their own code or through their own link, they still get the discount, but the sale isn't counted as theirs.
What the figures mean
| Figure | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Visits / unique visitors | Times their link was opened, and by how many different people. Quick repeat visits count once. |
| Orders | Completed sales credited to them. |
| Tickets sold | Tickets in those orders. |
| Gross sales | Ticket value before discounts. |
| Discounts given | What their code took off. |
| Net sales | Gross, less discounts, less anything refunded. |
| Conversion | Orders ÷ unique visitors. It can go above 100%, because someone can use their code without ever clicking the link. |
Refunds come off. A partly refunded order shows reduced net sales; a fully refunded order no longer counts as a sale for them.
Resend, disable, enable
- Resend emails a fresh invitation. Their link and code don't change.
- Disable stops their link and code earning new sales, and switches their code off. Past sales stay in the figures.
- Enable turns both back on.
Switching off only their code (in Manage Discounts) stops the discount, but their link still earns credit.
Who can manage these
Discount codes can be managed by owners, admins, managers and the marketing role. Promoters can be managed by owners, admins and managers. Anyone else on your team — door staff, box office, promoters themselves — can't create or change codes.
Good to know
Choose codes people can say out loud. Avoid letters and numbers that look alike —
O and 0, I and 1 — if a code will be read off a flyer or spoken on stage.
A total uses limit on a hidden-tier code limits purchases. Each order that buys the hidden tickets uses the code once, even if it takes nothing off.
Refunding an order doesn't give back its code use. If someone is refunded, the use still counts toward the code's limits. Plan limits with that in mind.