Check whether a discount or promotion will actually pay off
A break-even and margin analysis for a proposed promotion, including the extra sales it needs and hidden costs.
The prompt
Help me work out whether a planned discount or promotion is worth running.
Promotion: [e.g. "25% off sitewide for 5 days", "buy 2 get 1", "first month free"]
Normal price and unit cost: [PRICE, COGS or variable cost per unit]
Typical sales in the same period without a promotion: [UNITS or revenue]
Other costs: [ad spend for the promo, free shipping, payment fees, extra staffing, affiliate commissions]
Goal: [e.g. clear inventory, acquire new customers, hit a revenue target, reactivate lapsed customers]
Past promotion results, if any: [DETAILS]
Calculate and explain:
1. Contribution margin per unit before and during the promo.
2. Break-even sales lift: how many more units I must sell just to earn the same profit as without the promotion.
3. Hidden costs: sales pulled forward from future weeks, discounting to customers who would have paid full price, higher return rates, training customers to wait for sales, brand perception.
4. For customer acquisition promos: what LTV the new customers need for this to pay back, and how to check their repeat rate later.
Then suggest:
- Smarter alternatives (targeted offer to lapsed or new customers only, bundle, gift with purchase, threshold discount) and why they might protect margin.
- How to measure the true result (control group or comparison period).
Show your math step by step using my numbers only. Mark assumptions with [ASSUMPTION].
Highlighted [brackets] are blanks to replace with your own details.
Fill in the blanks and use this promptMore Marketing & Brand prompts
What to fill in
- PRICE, COGS or variable cost per unit
- UNITS or revenue
- DETAILS
- ASSUMPTION
How this prompt is built
This prompt follows the Few-Shot structure (Few-shot prompting). A few-shot prompt includes one or more worked examples of the input and the output you want, so the model can copy the pattern instead of guessing it.
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