How to Set Up Email Newsletter Tracking in Google Analytics

Recently, one of our readers asked how do we measure the impact of our email newsletter?

You can use Google Analytics combined with special tracking links in your email newsletter to see how effective each email is for your business.

In this article, we will share how to set up email newsletter tracking in Google Analytics, step by step.

Why Track Your Email Newsletter Traffic in Google Analytics?

When you send out an email newsletter, it likely contains at least one link to your site. Your email marketing service should be able to tell you how many people click on a link (your click-through rate). However, most providers can’t show you what happens afterward.

That’s where Google Analytics comes in. You can use it to track what people do after clicking a link from your newsletter.

Let’s say you run a restaurant that offers home delivery. You want to see which of your weekly newsletters led to the most people filling out your online food ordering form.

Or perhaps you’re about to start an online store. It would be great to know which of your email campaigns drove the most sales.

Maybe you’re aiming to make money blogging. You want to know which campaigns got people to sign up for your online course.

With Google Analytics, it’s pretty easy to set up email newsletter tracking and see how many sales each email generates for your business.

With that said, let’s get started.

Creating Trackable URLs for Your Email Newsletter

If you want detailed insights in Google Analytics, then you need to add special tracking parameters to each link in your newsletter.

In other words, you can’t use a standard link like this:
https://www.site.com

Instead, you need to use a URL with special parameters that looks like this:
https://www.site.com?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=jan_sale

The ending part of this URL, everything after the question mark, is called a UTM code.

It might look complicated, but don’t worry it’s actually quite easy to create.

Let’s take a look at two easy ways to create these trackable URLs for your email campaigns.

Method 1: Create Trackable URLs using MonsterInsights (Recommended)

MonsterInsights is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. It allows you to easily install Google Analytics in WordPress and shows beautiful traffic reports inside the WordPress dashboard.

You can use the free version of MonsterInsights to access the URL builder tool. However, we recommend upgrading to the PRO plan in order to unlock eCommerce tracking features (we will talk more about eCommerce tracking later in this article).

First, you need to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Next, go to Insights » Tools page in your WordPress dashboard.

The URL Builder tool should open up. The first piece of information you’ll need to enter is the URL you want to add in your newsletter. This might be your main website URL, if you’re linking to your home page.

In this example, we’re running a sale and linking to the website’s online store:

Google Analytics will track your email newsletter visitors as a ‘campaign’. This is simply the term Google Analytics uses for email or advertising promotions.

You’ll need to enter the source, medium, and name for your campaign, so Google Analytics can easily track them.

Source: Set this to ‘newsletter’ or something else meaningful
Medium: This should be set to ’email’
Name: You can use whatever makes sense, e.g. ‘jan_sale’ or ‘april_tshirts_sale’

If you’re using more than one word for the source, medium, or name, make sure you use underscores between words. Don’t use spaces or hyphens.

The Campaign Term field is used if you’re running ads, so you can leave that blank. The Campaign Content can be used if you’re split testing your emails or ads. Again, you can leave it blank for this example.

At the bottom of the page, you should now see your special URL, with the tracking details included:

You can now use this URL in your email newsletter and later track clicks in your Google Analytics account.

Method 2: Manually Create Trackable URLs in Google Analytics

MonsterInsight’s URL builder is a handy tool for saving time, as it creates the UTM codes for you. If you prefer to create your trackable URLs manually, here’s how to do it.

First, get the URL you want to use. We’re going to use https://www.site.com/shop for this example.

Next, you’ll need to create the UTM code yourself. We’ll take it step by step.

Add a question mark to the end of your URL, like this:

https://www.site.com/shop?

Then, add the utm_source:

https://www.site.com/shop?utm_source=newsletter

Next, add the ampersand (&) symbol and the utm_medium:

https://www.site.com/shop?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email

Finally, add another ampersand (&) and the utm_campaign:

https://www.site.com/shop?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=jan_sale

You can use any word or phrase you want for the campaign’s name. If you’re using multiple words for the source, medium, or campaign name, you can separate the words with an underscore.

That’s it. Your tracking URL is ready to be used in your newsletter.

Using Trackable URLs in Your Newsletter Campaigns

Once you’ve created your URL, either using MonsterInsights’ URL builder or manually, you can use it in emails.

You can copy and paste the URL into your email wherever you would have used the standard URL before.

Here’s how that looks when inserting a URL in Constant Contact:

Tip: You can even use trackable URLs in your regular emails. This would make sense if you do a lot of email outreach. You can also create trackable URLs to use on social media, in ads, and more.

Once you are done with your email, send out your newsletter and wait for some clicks. After that, you can go to Google Analytics to view your report.

Viewing Your Email Newsletter Report in Google Analytics

Log in to your Google Analytics account and click Acquisition » Campaigns » All Campaigns link.

You should then see data for the campaign(s) you’ve created.

Tip: If you’ve only just sent out the newsletter, change the date for the report to the current day. Google Analytics defaults to showing you data for the previous 7 days.

It’s a great idea to use this report along with your Google Analytics goals. For instance, here we’re viewing how effective our newsletters were in getting people to fill in an inquiry form:

Tracking Email Newsletter Conversions

The most important part of your newsletter tracking is what users do after they arrive on your website.

For instance, if you run an online store you might want to see which emails led to a sale. If you wanted users to fill out an order form, then you might want to track that.

The easiest way to do this is by using MonsterInsights to do almost all the setup for you.

Switching on eCommerce Tracking in Google Analytics

First, you’ll need to switch on eCommerce tracking in Google Analytics. This is a quick and easy process.

Login to Google Analytics. Make sure you have the correct website selected on the top left.

Click the Admin link on the bottom left.

Then, in the View column, click ‘Ecommerce Settings’.

You can now toggle ‘Enable Ecommerce’ on. We recommend also enabling ‘Enhanced Ecommerce’ at this point. This will track additional data. It also lets you see eCommerce reports in MonsterInsights.

Click the Save button.

Switching on eCommerce Tracking in MonsterInsights

You’ll need the Pro version of MonsterInsights in order to use its eCommerce features. These work with WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, MemberPress, and LifterLMS.

Install and activate MonsterInsights, if you’ve not done so already.

Then, enter your license key under Insights » Settings and click the Verify button.

Once you’ve entered your license key for MonsterInsights, go to Insights » Addons, find the eCommerce addon, and then click the Install button below it.

After that, you need to go to Insights » Settings and click the eCommerce tab. You should see that your eCommerce plugin (e.g. WooCommerce) has been automatically detected.

Tip: We recommend switching on ‘Use Enhanced eCommerce’ as this means you can view the MonsterInsights eCommerce report too.

That’s all you need to do because MonsterInsights handles everything else after that. Google Analytics will now be able to track eCommerce transactions on your site.

Now, when you visit Google Analytics, you’ll be able to see details of your eCommerce transactions.

Go to Acquisition » Campaigns then click the ‘All Campaigns’ link, as before. Next, select ‘E-commerce’ from the Conversions dropdown menu.

For detailed instructions, see our article on how to setup WooCommerce conversion tracking.

Tracking Links, Clicks, Buttons, and Forms

Not all websites use an eCommerce platform with a shopping cart.

For instance, if you have a simple order form, then you can track which email campaigns led users to submit that form. If you have a click to call button on your website, then you can track that as well.

We have a separate detailed guide on tracking links and button clicks in Google Analytics with step by step instructions.

We hope this article helped you learn how to set up email newsletter tracking in Google Analytics. You might also want to see these tested and easy ways to grow your email list faster.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Set Up Email Newsletter Tracking in Google Analytics appeared first on WPBeginner.

April 27, 2020 at 04:23PM

7 Best Backlink Checker Tools – Free & Paid Options (Compared)

Do you want to see where your backlinks are coming from? Or check on a competitor’s backlinks?

Backlinks can help boost your search rankings and increase your traffic.

In this guide, we’ll compare the best backlink checker tools that you can use to audit your site’s backlinks as well as competitor backlink profile.

What Are Backlinks and Why Are They Important?

A backlink is a link to your website from another website. In the eyes of search engines, backlinks are a bit like votes for your site. The more links you have, the higher your site is likely to rank in search engines.

Not all backlinks are created equal, though. The best backlinks are ones from big, respected websites. Backlinks from spammy or suspicious websites can be actively harmful to your site.

After installing a WordPress SEO plugin like All in One SEO or Yoast and following the best practices, the next step is to think through your backlink strategy.

There are a lot of ways to get backlinks to your site, but the process always starts with using a backlink checker to check existing backlinks for your site, and your competitors have.

That being said, let’s take a look at the best tools to track backlinks of any website.

1. SEMRush

SEMRush is our top recommendation for a backlink checker. It’s one of the best keyword research tools on the market, and it has lots of powerful tools to let you analyze backlinks.

To use the backlink features, login to SEMRush, select ‘Backlink Analytics’ and type in the name of the domain you want to investigate. You’ll then see lots of information about the domain and its backlinks.

If you want to dig into more details on any section of this overview, just click the link beneath that section to view the full report.

You can use SEMRush to see check what links your site has, which could help you pinpoint any issues such as low-quality links. In fact, SEMRush makes this easy for you by letting you see how many total links a page linking to you has. If the page has hundreds of links, that can indicate that it’s a spammy website.

When it comes to competitors’ backlinks, you can use SEMRush to see which high-authority sites are linking to them, what keywords they are ranking for, and so much more. This can give you a whole list of sites to target for your own backlink building.

Price:

SEMRush costs from $99.95/month, though you can take this down to $83.28/month if you pay upfront for a year.

You can get an exclusive 30 day free trial by going through our link to SEMRush. If you want step by step instructions on how to get this deal, check out our SEMRush coupon code page.

2. LinkMiner

LinkMiner is designed specifically to check backlinks. It’s a tool from Mangools, so you’ll need a Mangools account in order to use it.

As with other tools, LinkMiner lets you filter links by nofollow, deleted, new, and lost.

One handy feature you’ll want to try is the ability to ‘favorite’ backlinks, so you can come back to them easily. This could be a great way to make a shortlist of competitors’ backlinks to target.

You could also use this feature to keep track of any of your own backlinks that you want to fix. For instance, you could create a list of lost backlinks that you want to concentrate on recovering.

While LinkMiner isn’t as fully featured as SEMRush, it is a great option if you’re on a tight budget.

You’ll likely want to use it in conjunction with Mangools’ SiteProfiler to view details like a site’s total backlinks and top referring domains.

Price:

You can take a completely free 10 day trial without needing to enter any credit card details. After that, you’ll need to pay $29/month.

This fee covers all Mangools’ tools. These are LinkMiner, KWFinder, SERPChecker, SERPWatcher, and SiteProfiler. It’s a great budget option.

3. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a tool from Neil Patel. The main tool offers keyword research features, but there’s also a Backlinks tool that you can use to view details of your site’s backlinks.

Ubersuggest has similar features to the other tools we’ve been looking at. For instance, it can show you new backlinks, backlinks you’ve lost, which backlinks are marked as nofollow, and more.

You can use the free version to see this information, but you’ll only get details of a small number of backlinks for each domain. You need to upgrade to the paid version of Ubersuggest if you want everything.

Ubersuggest’s other tools can analyze traffic, and help you come up with keyword and content ideas.

Price:

Ubersuggest’s free version can give you a good sense of what the tool can do. To do any serious backlink analysis, you’ll want the Pro version which costs $29/month, or $290/year if you pay upfront.

There’s a 30-day “no questions asked” money back guarantee.

4. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is another powerful keyword research tool. Like SEMRush, it’s easy to use. It’ll give you an overview of your chosen domain, and you can drill down to look at lots of details of backlinks.

Ahrefs also makes it really easy to see backlinks that you’ve lost. These are links you once had that have now vanished. Perhaps the website owner deleted the page that linked to you, for instance.

You can also identify backlinks that are broken. These are links that point to your site, but using a broken URL that lands on your 404 page. You might need to contact the site owner to fix them.

When examining competitors’ backlinks, you can filter these by ‘Link type’ and pinpoint domains that you want to target yourself.

You can also use Ahrefs to examine internal links on your site. You can filter these to check for internal links you’ve accidentally nofollowed, so you can fix those.

Price:

You can take a 7 day trial of Ahrefs’ Site Explorer for just $7. After that, it’s priced from $99/month. If you pay for the year up front, it’s $82/month.

5. Moz Pro

Moz Pro, the suite of SEO tools from Moz, includes their Link Explorer tool.

Link Explorer can give you a detailed link profile of your site, which you can compare with the profile of up to 4 competitors. This lets you figure out what they might be doing differently from you.

It also has a handy tool called Link Intersect, where you can see which sites are linking to your competitors but not to you. These sites are great ones to target for building links.

Like the other tools we’ve looked at, Moz also lets you see what backlinks you’ve lost. This gives you the chance to try to get those links replaced.

As well as the backlink tools, you’ll also get access to all Moz’s other SEO tools. These include Campaigns to track and analyze your site, Rank Checker to evaluate your search engine performance, and more.

Price:

Moz costs from $99/month ($79/month paid upfront annually). There’s a 30 day free trial, though, which gives you full access to all their tools.

6. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is designed to let you analyze your content and your competitors’ content. It’s a great way to come up with topic ideas, but you can also use it to help you with your backlink strategy.

You can simply type in a keyword or a domain name to see the most popular content for that keyword, or the most popular content on that domain. You can then click the link icon next to any of the results to see the backlinks for that piece of content.

You can even type in the URL of a specific piece of content and see just the backlinks that point to that. This could be a great way to see which sites are linking to your competitors’ top posts.

Their straightforward Backlinks tool lets you find the pages linking to a specific URL or domain. This is an easy way to see your competitors’ backlinks at a glance.

You can easily filter the backlinks to view ones from various periods of time between the past 24 hours and the past 5 years.

Price:

The basic version of BuzzSumo is free. For in-depth backlink analysis, though, you’ll need to upgrade to BuzzSumo Pro. It costs from $99/month, or $79 if you pay annually.

There’s a 7 day free trial available, too. You don’t need to enter any credit card details for this.

7. OpenLinkProfiler

OpenLinkProfiler is a free tool that lets you analyze the backlinks of any domain. It comes from SEOProfiler (a paid tool) and gives you free access to link data.

You can download 1000 links per website, though you’ll need to create an account in order to that. You can also filter and sort results, view which links are nofollowed, and more.

There are loads of different options for filtering backlinks, and you can even take a look at when a site’s links were acquired:

Given that it’s free, it offers an impressive number of options and a large volume of data. It’s not going to be a match for all the features and power of paid tools like SEMRush, but it’s worth using if you can’t afford a paid tool.

Price:

OpenLinkProfiler is free. You’ll need to create a (free) account and sign in to access some features.

Which is The Best Backlink Checker Tool?

Any of these backlink checkers could help you build your site’s backlinks and rank more highly in search engines. Some of them offer a lot more helpful information than others.

Our top recommendation is SEMRush. It is one of the best SEO tools on the market and helps you grow your business.

If you’re on a tight budget, though, LinkMiner and Ubersuggest are good value. And OpenLinkProfiler is completely free.

We hope this article helped you learn about the best backlink checker tools. You might also like to take a look at our ultimate guide to WordPress SEO for beginners and our tips on how to increase your blog traffic.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 7 Best Backlink Checker Tools – Free & Paid Options (Compared) appeared first on WPBeginner.

April 24, 2020 at 05:47PM

How to Display Recent Posts in WordPress

Do you want to show your recent posts in WordPress? Displaying recent posts help users easily discover your new content and spend more time on your site.

You can add a list of your latest posts in your sidebar, after the end of your post content, inside your post content with a shortcode, in your footer widget area, or anywhere else you like.

In this article, we will show you how to display recent posts in WordPress using a variety of different methods

Why Add Recent Posts in WordPress?

If you have been running a WordPress blog or website for a long time, then you may have some older articles getting regular traffic from search engines and other sources.

Many of these users will check out the information they were looking for and leave. More than 75% of those visitors will never see your website again.

To keep users coming back to your website, you need to ensure that they spend more time on your website.

One way to do this is by showing them other recent posts that they should see. This helps users uncover more content on your website which leads to them spending more time on your website.

As users view more pages, this gives you time to convince them into signing up for your email newsletter or making a purchase.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily display recent posts in WordPress using multiple methods. Click on the quick links to jump straight to that method:

• Use WordPress’s Latest Posts Gutenberg Block
• Use the WordPress Recent Posts Widget
• Use the Recent Posts Widget With Thumbnails Plugin
• Display Recent Posts Using a Shortcode
• Display Recent Posts Manually in WordPress

Method 1. Use WordPress’s Latest Posts Gutenberg Block

The WordPress block (Gutenberg) editor has a built-in block for displaying your latest posts. You can easily add this to any of the posts or pages on your site.

To use this block, simply edit the post where you to display recent posts. On the post edit screen, you need to add the ‘Latest Posts’ block to the content area.

There are lots of different ways you can configure this block. By default, it just shows the post titles, but you can easily customize it.

For example, you can toggle the post content on and off in the right-hand pane. This lets you choose to add post content or excerpt next to the title.

You can also customize excerpt length which defaults to 55 words, but you can pick any value between 10 and 100 words.

If you want, you can display the post date. This will appear just below the title.

You can also choose exactly how your posts will display. You can order them differently from the default ‘Newest to Oldest’, and you can show only the latest posts from a specific category.

From the settings panel, you can also choose how many posts will display. By default, the block shows 5 posts, but you can display anywhere between 1 and 100 posts.

You also have the option to display your recent posts in a column grid rather than a list.

You can customize the grid to featured images for your posts, resize the image, and align them accordingly:

Here’s how the finished block looks live on the website:

Method 2. Use the WordPress Recent Posts Widget

What if you want to show a list of your latest posts in your sidebar instead of on a page? WordPress comes with a built-in default widget to display recent posts in your site’s sidebar or any widget ready area.

In your WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance » Widgets and add the ‘Recent Posts’ widget to your sidebar.

The built-in Recent Posts widget doesn’t offer many options. You can give the widget a title, choose whether or not to show the dates of posts, and add the number of posts you want to display.

Once you’re done, click on the ‘Save’ button to store your widget settings.

Here’s the widget live on the blog, with the title ‘New Posts’ and dates enabled:

Method 3. Use the Recent Posts Widget With Thumbnails Plugin

The built-in widget we mentioned above is quite limited.

What if you want to display thumbnails and excerpts with your recent posts? What if you’d like to only show posts from a specific category in your sidebar?

Well, that’s when the Recent Posts Widget With Thumbnails plugin comes in handy. It does a lot more than just thumbnails, and it’s free.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the WordPress Recent Posts Widget With Thumbnails plugin.

Next, go to Appearance » Widgets page where you should see the ‘Recent Posts With Thumbnails’ widget.

You need to add it to your sidebar or another widget-enabled area.

The Recent Posts With Thumbnails widget comes with a lot of options. It gives you full control on how you want to display recent posts on your WordPress site.

You can also show excerpts, show posts from specific categories, ignore sticky posts, display random posts, and more.

Once you are done, don’t forget to click on the save button to store your settings. You can now visit your website to see your recent posts with thumbnails.

Method 4. Display Recent Posts Using a Shortcode

Using the ‘Latest Posts’ block is definitely the easiest way to display recent posts in WordPress posts and pages. However, if you chose to disable Gutenberg and keep the Classic editor, you can use shortcodes instead.

First, install and activate the Display Posts plugin. It works out of the box, and there are no settings for you to configure.

Simply edit a post or page where you want to display your recent posts. Next, use the shortcode [display-posts]. The plugin offers a whole range of parameters that you can use with the shortcode.

Here are some examples of what you can do using this plugin.

Display 3 recent posts with thumbnails and excerpt:

[display-posts posts_per_page="3" image_size="thumbnail" include_excerpt="true"]

Display recent pages instead of posts:

[display-posts posts_per_page="3" post_type="page"]

Change the order to title instead of date:

[display-posts posts_per_page="3" orderby="title"]

Display recent pages under a specific parent page:

[display-posts posts_per_page="3" post_type="page" post_parent="5"]

You can also include additional styling. For instance, you may want to align your featured images to the left. You can do that using the instructions on the plugin’s website here.

Here’s how our list of recent posts looked, using those instructions:

For a full list of parameters visit the plugin’s documentation.

You can also use these shortcodes inside a text widget. First, you will need to enable shortcodes in your text widgets by adding this code to your theme’s functions.php file or a site specific plugin.

add_filter('widget_text', 'do_shortcode');

Method 5. Display Recent Posts Manually in WordPress

More advanced WordPress users may want to add recent posts directly in their WordPress theme files. Of course, you should use a child theme for this so that when you update your theme, you don’t lose your changes.

It’s always a good idea to create a backup before you edit your theme files. If anything does go wrong, you might want to take a look at our list of the most common WordPress errors and how to fix them.

The easiest way to manually display recent posts to use the built-in WP_Query class. Simply add this code where you want to display the recent posts.

<ul>
// Define our WP Query Parameters
<?php $the_query = new WP_Query( 'posts_per_page=5' ); ?>

// Start our WP Query
<?php while ($the_query -> have_posts()) : $the_query -> the_post(); ?>

// Display the Post Title with Hyperlink
<li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>

// Display the Post Excerpt
<li><?php the_excerpt(__('(more…)')); ?></li>

// Repeat the process and reset once it hits the limit
<?php 
endwhile;
wp_reset_postdata();
?>
</ul>

This code displays the five most recent posts with their title and excerpt. The WP_Query class has tons of parameters that allow you to customize it any way that you like. For more information please refer to the WordPress developer documentation.

We hope that this article helped you learn how to display recent posts in WordPress. You might also be interested in our article on how to create a separate page for blog posts in WordPress, and our comparison of the best drag and drop WordPress page builder plugins.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Display Recent Posts in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

April 23, 2020 at 05:17PM

How to Schedule Coupons in WooCommerce (and Save Time)

Have you ever wanted to schedule coupons on your online store?

Scheduling coupons allows you to easily run seasonal or time-sensitive sale campaigns without having to worry about turning it on / off at specific times.

In this guide, we’ll share our step by step process on how to easily schedule coupons in WooCommerce (and save time).

Why Create Scheduled Coupons in WooCommerce?

Coupons are a great way to promote your online store and make more sales.

However creating coupons for different holiday campaigns, making the sale go live at certain times, and then turning it off at the deadline can be a lot of work.

This is why all smart store owners schedule coupons and promotion campaigns (like popups, notice bars, etc), so they can automatically start and end at specific date / time without any manual intervention.

For instance, you can schedule coupons for top holidays like Black Friday, Christmas, New Years, Mother’s day, Valentine’s day, and so on.

This allows you to save extra time, so you can focus on promoting the sale to get maximum results.

Or if it’s a holiday promotion, then you can use this extra time and spend it with your family and friends.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily schedule coupons in WooCommerce.

The first part of the tutorial covers scheduling coupons in WooCommerce, and the second part covers how to schedule coupon promotional material such as alert bars, popups, etc, so you can automate the entire process.

Creating a Scheduled Coupon in WooCommerce

For this tutorial, we’ll be using the Advanced Coupons plugin. It is the best WooCommerce coupon code plugin on the market, and it adds tons of powerful features to the default WooCommerce coupon functionality.

First, you need to install and activate the Advanced Coupons plugin. For more details, check out our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin

Upon activation, you need to visit WooCommerce » Coupons page in your WordPress dashboard.

Next, you need to click the ‘Add Coupon’ button to create a new coupon. You will be asked to type in the coupon code you want to use at the top of the screen.

After that you need to decide what type of coupon you want to use.

For this tutorial, we’re going to use a percentage discount. You can select the ‘Discount Type’ from the dropdown list and then type in the percentage.

Next, we need to click on the Scheduler tab that’s added by the Advanced Coupon and enter a start date / end date for your coupon.

If you want, you can also change the default error messages that will be shown if customers try to use the coupon code too soon or too late.

Tip: The coupon will start at 12:00:00 on the start date and will expire at 23:59:59 on the day before the end date. Advanced Coupons uses the timezone that you’ve set in WordPress. You can check or change this under Settings » General in your WordPress admin area.

Once you’re done, you can go ahead and publish the coupon. If a customer tries to use it before the correct date, then they’ll see the error message on the shopping cart page.

Aside from saving you time, another benefit of scheduling coupons is that you can use it to boost your marketing efforts. For example, you can use your email marketing service to send a bulk email to all your affiliates / partners, and let them know about the upcoming promotion and the code, so they can share it with their audience.

With Advanced Coupons plugin, you can schedule as many coupon codes as you want, so you can save time and use it to grow your business.

For our eCommerce sites, we plan our sales calendar at the beginning of the year. Since we run a lot of the same sales, this helps us automate parts of the operation process.

Promoting Your Scheduled Coupons in WooCommerce

Now that you have scheduled coupons for different sale campaigns in your store, you still need to promote them.

Often popular stores use dynamic website elements like floating header bar, exit intent popups, slide-in scroll boxes, etc to highlight their sales and promotions.

The best part is that you can automate these too with OptinMonster. It is the best conversion optimization software on the market that helps you convert website visitors into email subscribers and paying customers.

OptinMonster comes with countdown timers, coupon code popup, slide-in boxes, and other tools that help you promote your sales and boost conversion.

You can use their powerful display rules technology to not only schedule each campaign, but you can even use it to personalize them based on user’s geolocation. For example, you can automatically schedule a Christmas Sale for US and schedule a Diwali sale in India.

We hope this article helped you learn how to create a scheduled coupon in WooCommerce, so you can automate your sales. You might also like our article on the best WooCommerce plugins for your store, and our comparison of the best WooCommerce hosting companies.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Schedule Coupons in WooCommerce (and Save Time) appeared first on WPBeginner.

April 22, 2020 at 06:24PM