There can be multiple approaches when it comes to new customer marketing strategies via discount codes. Thankfully Shopify offers different ways to define groups and segments for new customers.
in one of our previous articles, we wrote about how to create customer groups and set a percentage discount for it and got many questions regarding different ways to create discount codes for customers who never ordered anything yet.
In this article, we are going to go through the most common ways to create a segment for new customers.
Shopify default new customers segment (group) definition problem
Shopify stores that are created after 2021 don’t have predefined new customers segment.
Every Shopify store comes with a pre-configured customer group called “New”. It might be a little bit confusing for some merchants because under this group filter you might also see customers who have registered already some time ago.
Problem is that this group just filters out customers who have never ordered anything from your store. At the same time maybe they registered for your newsletter already many months ago or maybe they left your store in the middle of the checkout process.
Basically, this group should be named “Customer who never placed an order” not “New”.
This video will show how to find Shopify’s default new customer group.
How to create a segment (group) with new customers in it
If you would like to plan your new customer marketing campaign differently and target people who would be actual new customers, basically people who have never entered their personal data into the store before.
Check the following video to see how to filter customers to a segment that would include only new customers who haven’t made an order or registered or signed up for a newsletter before a certain date.
The whole trick lies behind selecting the right date that will exclude all customers who entered data into your site before your campaign starts.
In our next article I described how to create fully automated customer loyalty program with customer segments. You can find it here.
Did you notice that Shopify selected automatically today’s date 31.07.2022 and I had to change it to tomorrow manually? I changed it to 01.08.2022 because in this example I would launch a marketing campaign on 01.08 and I don’t want to include customers from 31.07 and before.
Important to remember! In our example, I didn’t add a Customer account status filter. Make sure you set the Customer account status filter to Active account if you would like to offer discount codes to only new customers who have created an actual customer account in your store but haven’t made an order before.
Creating discount code for new customers segment (group)
After you have created the needed segment then creating the discount code itself is already an easy part. You can make it like any other discount code.
- Select “Discounts” in the admin menu.
- Click to “Create discount”.
- Select “Discount code”.
- Add or generate code for the discount code.
- Choose discount type and other rules.
- Make sure you select “Specific customer segments” and your previously created segment under the “Customer eligibility” section.
- If you want each new customer to be able to use this discount only once then select “Limit to one use per customer” under the “Usage limits” section.
Check the following video to see how I created a similar discount code for my test store.
I hope you found this article helpful and that it makes your Shopify business work smoother. If yes, then you can by buying me a coffee in exchange 🙂
Feel free to contact us with any further questions!
The title of the article is a discount code for new customers. But in the content, nothing is mentioned related to the title.
Thank you for the input, I added a small video at the end of the post which shows how to create the code itself as well. I didn’t add it at first, because we wrote about it in our last articles.
But for real “new customer” who hasn’t subscribed before, they still can not use this discount code when purchase.
Sure they can and I just tested it again just in case. Shopify checks an email address When a customer is filling information step in checkout and if this email has not been subscribed or registered before then it’s valid to use the discount code. This is the reason why I added a date to the customer group/segment, the date does not allow customers who created an account or subscribed to the newsletter before to use the code.
Thanks for the video! I am confused as to why you need the number_of_orders >= 0 at the beginning of the filter? Wouldn’t it be number_of_orders=0?
Thank you for pointing it out and you are correct. Number_of_orders=0 is a correct rule. I will make a new updated video soon.
I think if you wanted existing customers who signed up but haven’t purchased OR new email subscribers your logical operator should be an ‘or’ not an ‘and’. I think the current logic would prevent anyone who had signed up prior but had yet to purchase from being included in this segment.
Yep, you are right. With your logic, you could include people who had entered their details before but didn’t make a purchase.
In this article, logic is like it mentions “basically people who have never entered their personal data into the store before.”.