Coupon management or Coupon software

[papajohn56]

Does anyone know of any software to manage coupons? i.e., I send out a coupon to people on my facebook/twitter/email list, and I want to make sure only one per person/subscriber/browser footprint is used. Cookies, or a database or something. Any suggestions?

 

[dchuk]

so you want to limit the number of access attempts to the coupon or the number of uses of the coupon? You'll need to take different approaches depending on how you want to limit the use of the coupon

 

[bingoo]

I think he wants a user to be able to only use 1 coupon.

You could code some php/sql which puts the users IP in a database after using a coupon. When a user enters a coupon, simply check if their IP is in the database, and if so, deny the use of the coupon. I'm not a good coder, but for someone with decent knowledge of php/sql this should be easy to make.

 

[dchuk]

You could code some php/sql which puts the users IP in a database after using a coupon. When a user enters a coupon, simply check if their IP is in the database, and if so, deny the use of the coupon. I'm not a good coder, but for someone with decent knowledge of php/sql this should be easy to make.

You'd need more granularity than that, like name/email and ip, or else you could block whole schools or anywhere with large amounts of shared ip address internet access

 

[BigWill]

I think he wants a user to be able to only use 1 coupon.

You could code some php/sql which puts the users IP in a database after using a coupon. When a user enters a coupon, simply check if their IP is in the database, and if so, deny the use of the coupon. I'm not a good coder, but for someone with decent knowledge of php/sql this should be easy to make.

Using name/city or phone number would be a much better way to go.

 

[bingoo]

Yea you guys are right, IP isn't the best way to do it.

Using cookies is another way, it works quite well but it's definitely not as good as a database (since cookies are easily deleted). It's very easy to code and doesn't need a database though. I have used cookies once to put users on a separate e-mail lists based on the actions they performed on the page.

Below part my old cookie code, first code simply checks if there is a cookie present, and can execute a different code for true or false. 2nd code is to create the cookie. If you edit it a bit you could play around with different value's of the cookie too. You could always use cookies combined with a database to block people using proxies or dynamic ips. But again, if they have a bit more knowledge about browsers, its easy as shit to just clear the cookie..

<script type="text/javascript">

checkCookie()

function getCookie(c_name)
{
if (document.cookie.length>0)
{
c_start=document.cookie.indexOf(c_name + "=");
if (c_start!=-1)
{
c_start=c_start + c_name.length+1 ;
c_end=document.cookie.indexOf(";",c_start);
if (c_end==-1) c_end=document.cookie.length
return unescape(document.cookie.substring(c_start,c_end));
}
}
return ""
}

function checkCookie()
{
abcd=getCookie('abcd');
if (abcd!=null)
{
code when cookie exists here
}
else
{

code when cookie does not exist here

}
}
</script>

<script type="text/javascript">

efgh='blabla'

setCookie('abcd',efgh,365);

function setCookie(c_name,value,expiredays)
{
var exdate=new Date();
exdate.setDate(exdate.getDate()+expiredays);
document.cookie=c_name+ "=" +escape(value)+((expiredays==null) ? "" : "; expires="+exdate.toGMTString());
}
</script>

 

[Crisis]

Using javascript for any proper validation checks is a total failure. Firstly javascript isn't enabled for every user and secondly it can be manipulated by anyone right from the browser because it processes on the client side.

You could always generate a md5 hash of each persons username/email as a unique identifier for the individual coupons. Then you'd want to cross-check the other things like location, IP address, full name, web browser, etc. You could also put time limits of say 24/48/72 hours from coupon release to ease abuse.

 

[bingoo]

Using javascript for any proper validation checks is a total failure. Firstly javascript isn't enabled for every user and secondly it can be manipulated by anyone right from the browser because it processes on the client side.

You could always generate a md5 hash of each persons username/email as a unique identifier for the individual coupons. Then you'd want to cross-check the other things like location, IP address, full name, web browser, etc. You could also put time limits of say 24/48/72 hours from coupon release to ease abuse.

Depends on the way he wants to use those coupons. As I said, cookies and javascript are easy to manipulate, but it really depends on how important it is that people don't use a coupon twice. If its for selling real life stuff and its gonna cost you money, it's important to have something very secure. If it's for some online stuff which won't make you lose money, than having a few people deleting cookies or having javascript disabled isn't to much of a problem. 99% of people (especially if your niche is woman targeted) will be stopped by some simple javascript.

Javascript cookies you can (probably) easily write yourself within an hour, for md5 stuff most people will need to hire someone to code it.

But yeah, best option is a database which stores name/e-mail/phone etc.

 

[stmadeveloper]

Remember when KFC did the coupon thing for a free baked chicken meal? They tied it to only one e-mail being printed per e-mail addy.

Amazingly enough people own scanners and there are plenty of online throw away addys.

Huge huge f'up for them and I would say it ended up being a pr nightmare.

Worked like this. Coupon was good for ONE day. After about 3 hours of being open they started taking down names and addresses and told everyone they would mail them a coupon because they were getting "scammed" so bad.

Almost riots at some of the KFC's

Serial numbers on the coupons for the win I would say. You can generate pdf files on the fly that contain a unique serial number. Serial numbers are used on-line like a software unlock key or tracked at location. Serial number only good one time.

Use cookies, sessions, log in's and e-mail confirmation to track accounts as you generate the pdf's.

If you are working with a brick and mortar they will LOVE writing down the serial number -- and it makes you look awesome when they had to track the new xxx customers you brought in.

 

[marketingmagic]

No point busting my balls over this... still will have no clue about it.. Post this in some programming forum.

 

[LotsOfZeros]

Remember when KFC did the coupon thing for a free baked chicken meal? They tied it to only one e-mail being printed per e-mail addy.

Amazingly enough people own scanners and there are plenty of online throw away addys.

Huge huge f'up for them and I would say it ended up being a pr nightmare.

Worked like this. Coupon was good for ONE day. After about 3 hours of being open they started taking down names and addresses and told everyone they would mail them a coupon because they were getting "scammed" so bad.

Almost riots at some of the KFC's

Serial numbers on the coupons for the win I would say. You can generate pdf files on the fly that contain a unique serial number. Serial numbers are used on-line like a software unlock key or tracked at location. Serial number only good one time.

Use cookies, sessions, log in's and e-mail confirmation to track accounts as you generate the pdf's.

If you are working with a brick and mortar they will LOVE writing down the serial number -- and it makes you look awesome when they had to track the new xxx customers you brought in.

If you're having them print out a physical coupon, consider bar coding the serial number. Most POS systems can scan that and it would most likely go farther in impressing your clients (if you are doing this for a client).

 

[papajohn56]

If you're having them print out a physical coupon, consider bar coding the serial number. Most POS systems can scan that and it would most likely go farther in impressing your clients (if you are doing this for a client).

I'm looking at it for a restaurant client, I'm not sure if they have a POS system that can do bar-coding, probably just a simple credit card terminal, so I'm going to be the one to have to prevent "coupon fraud". I guess the easiest way for discount coupons is just to have an expiry date and terms on it, but I liked the idea of one per email too. If there's a software that does all this, I'll take it. A Joomla extension would be nice, too.