Before offering a discount, do the gift-with-purchase maths.

A slow trading period creates pressure to put a stronger offer into the market. The quickest response is often a discount. Another possibility is to add something the customer values without reducing the advertised price of the main product.

A gift with purchase can be worth testing. It still has a cost, and an attractive campaign can leave less money in the business if the economics are not understood.

The grooming-brand example

In a Common Thread Collective discussion, Roberto Fink describes an unnamed men’s grooming brand using gift-with-purchase offers during a difficult summer period. The team considered product margins and tested whether better conversion could compensate for the offer’s lower margin per order.

Fink reports that the brand turned a profit during a season that had previously been unprofitable. The customer is not named, and no exact profit figure or quantified incremental lift is disclosed. This is a qualitative example, not a forecast for another store.

The useful exercise is to build the offer’s economics before deciding how persuasive the promotion looks.

Work out what an order contributes

Start with the expected money received from an order after discounts, then account for the costs that change with that order. These may include product cost, the gift, payment fees, pick-and-pack, shipping support, returns and acquisition.

Use your own finance definitions consistently. If a dashboard excludes a cost, make that visible before comparing it with another report. A campaign can appear successful simply because its most inconvenient costs sit elsewhere.

For an explicitly hypothetical example, imagine an order that leaves £32 before advertising. Adding a gift and its handling cost reduces that to £25. At an unchanged £20 acquisition cost, the amount left after advertising falls from £12 to £5. The offer needs a meaningful improvement elsewhere to justify that trade-off.

Those numbers describe an illustration, not the grooming brand.

Choose a gift for its role in the purchase

We would shortlist gifts that make sense alongside the main product. A useful companion product can be easier to explain than an unrelated item added only to create a larger stated value.

Check whether customers already buy the proposed gift. Giving away a product that would otherwise have been purchased can change the economics of the basket. Review stock, fulfilment complexity and any conditions needed to keep the offer deliverable.

The offer should also be understandable. A customer should be able to tell what qualifies, what they receive and whether availability is limited before reaching checkout.

Define what would make the test worthwhile

Before producing the creative, agree the commercial question. For example: will this offer increase contribution after advertising for a defined audience without creating an unacceptable return or fulfilment burden?

Select the primary measure and a few checks. These could include contribution per order, total contribution, conversion, average order value, acquisition cost and return rate. Decide how gift cost and shipping will be recorded.

Set an affordable testing budget and a review point. Avoid treating a single good day as a reliable answer, particularly when order volume is low or customer mix changes sharply.

Keep the creative faithful to the offer

A proposed creative brief should show the product, the gift and the buying situation clearly. Test distinct reasons the bundle may be useful, while keeping the commercial terms consistent.

One concept might demonstrate how the products work together. Another might address a common hesitation about beginning a routine. Neither needs to inflate the gift’s value or hide an eligibility condition.

The landing page and checkout should match the ad. Confirm that the gift is added correctly, stock is handled as intended and the customer can understand the final order. A promotion that needs manual repairs after purchase adds costs the advertising report may miss.

Review the outcome before expanding it

Compare the test with an appropriate baseline or control where feasible. Note changes in audience, spend, season and inventory that could affect the result. Look at the total commercial outcome rather than selecting the most flattering metric.

If conversion improves but contribution deteriorates, revisit the gift, threshold or target audience. If the offer works only for a narrow group, that may still be useful; it does not require a store-wide rollout.

The decision should be repeatable: the team can explain why the offer earned another round of spending. Our Angle Engine connects creative production with that testing process, so the next batch starts with a commercial question the business actually needs answered.