Creating a Buy 3 Get The 3rd Item for Free Promotion

Buy 3 and give one item for free is one of the most common campaign promotions. This guide gives a detailed step-by-step guide on how to set up this type of promotion on Talon.One.

Use Case:

If a customer buys 3 items from a specific category, give the 3rd item for free.

• Discount only items from the same category
• Give the user the cheapest product for free.

Important! Before creating this campaign enable the Cart Item Flattening feature.

We recommend reading these articles before creating this campaign:

• Using Cart Item Filters
• Creating a Cart Item Discount 
• Create and Test a Campaign

Cart Item Filter

For this campaign you need to create three cart item filters. 

In the first cart item filter, you can choose which items are eligible for the discount. 

The second cart item filter creates the rule that every third item receives a discount.

The third item filter sorts the buyer's cart from the cheapest to the most expensive so that later we can apply the discount to the cheapest item.

Step 1: First Cart Item Filter

Start by creating a cart item filter to select which item categories or SKUs are qualified for a discount. This filter counts how many items from the eligible categories the customer has in their cart.

1. Create a campaign
2. Click on rule builder > Add rules > Cart item filter > Add filter step.
3. Under filter & sort, click on filter items by condition.
4. Select the attribute you want to filter: item category or item SKU.
5. Change the operator to is one of.
6. Paste the list of items qualified for the discount.
7. Click on add filter step.
8. Under calculate select counts the number of items in the list and name the filter.
9. Click on save filter.

Step 2: Second Cart Item Filter

The second filter selects all qualified items in the customer's cart and divides them by 3. 

If you would like to give the 4th or 2nd item for free, you can change the divisor from 3 to 4 or 2.

1. Click on new filter > add filter step > select the first no. of items.
2. Add the operator ROUND_DOWN().
3. Click on +.
4. Add the filter you created on step 1 on the text field and divide it by 3. See screenshot below.
5. Click on add filter step.
6. Under calculate, click on counts the number of items in the list.
7. Name the filter.
8. Click on save filter.

Step 3: Third Cart Item Filter

The third filter rearranges the customer's cart. The cheapest item is put as the first item on the cart and is the item that receives the 100% discount.

1. Click on new filter > add filter step > Under filter & sort, click on filter items by condition.
2. Select the attribute you want to filter: item Category or Item SKU.
1. Important! For this step, you need to select the same attribute you used on the first cart item filter.
3. Change the operator to is one of.
4. Paste the list of items qualified items for the discount.
5. Click on add filter step > Under filter & sort, click on sort items by attribute.
6. Click on add filter step > Under select, click on select the first no. of items > Click on +.
7. Add the filter you created in step 2.
8. Name the filter and click on save filter.

Rules

Step 4: Define the Condition

This campaign setup has one condition. The condition evaluates if the value of the second filter is greater than 1. If a value is equal to 1, the user has 3 eligible items on their cart. If the value is equal to 2, the user has 6 eligible items on their cart, and so on.

1. Click on add condition > Under attribute, click on validate attribute value.
2. Change the attribute to the second filter.
3. Change the operator to is greater than or equal to 1.

Step 5: Define the Effect

Add the effect that applies the discount to the cheapest item.

1. Click on add effect > Under discount, click on discount individual items.
2. Under pick a list of items, change the attribute to the third filter.
3. Name the discount.
4. Change the discount value to Item.Price * 100%.

Troubleshooting

• The discount is applied to all items instead of one item
  • Make sure you enabled Cart Item Flattening. This feature allows the Rule Builder to evaluate all item quantities individually.
• I can't add the Item.Price on the discount value
  • To add the attribute Item.Price click on the + button and search for the attribute Quantity of Item.