📣 Promo Playbook

10 campaign types · Click any type to see specific plays · Click a play for the full playbook

🔵 Leads 🟢 Customers 🟣 Leads + Customers
🎯 10M sends/mo goal = combined list output
•
Lead list: 350-400K × 25-30 sends/mo ≈ 8M
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Customer list: 25-30K × 10-14 sends/mo ≈ 350K
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Every campaign maps to one of these lists.
📚 Campaign Types — Click to Expand
💰 Revenue Targets by Campaign Type
Campaign Type Best For Duration Revenue Range
🚀 Product Launch New features, products, big moments 3-14 days $5K-$100K+
⚡ Cash Machine Quick revenue, no external reason needed 3-4 days $10-35K
🎄 Seasonal Promo BFCM, NYE, holiday anchors 3-7 days $10-80K
⚔️ Competitor Blitz Migration plays + reactive strikes Evergreen + spikes $10-50K/mo
🎙️ Webinar Launch High-ticket offers ($500-$5K+) 2-3 weeks $15-75K
⚙️ Activation Campaign Existing customers, retention plays 7-30 days $15-40K + retention
🔁 Win-Back / Reactivation Dormant or churning customers 7-30 days $10-60K + saves
⬆️ Upsell / Upgrade Expansion MRR + cash injection Evergreen + rolling $20-60K/mo
⭐ Social Proof Campaign Testimonials that power every other campaign 1-2 weeks Indirect · +20-40% lift
📖 Content-Led Campaign Cold → warm, trust building 5-14 days $5-25K
Ranges based on PagesAI launch + historical SamCart promos. Update after every debrief.
🛠️ Execution Best Practices
📋 Best Practices: VSL, CTR, Checkout, Tracking, Cart, SEO ›

🎬 Video / VSL

Video player choices and autoplay strategy that impact watch rates and conversions.

Use Wistia over Vidalytics
Wistia is more reliable for embeds, has better analytics, and loads faster. Vidalytics has had embed and tracking issues during high-traffic promo periods.
No-autoplay may outperform autoplay
Test both variants. No-autoplay means the viewer made an active choice to watch, which often leads to higher engagement and watch-through rates. Don't assume autoplay wins by default.
Autoplay benchmark: 80%+ play rate
If autoplay is enabled, the play rate should be at least 80%. If it's below that, something is broken (slow load, muted audio confusion, mobile issues) or no-autoplay would be the better choice.

🔗 Sales Page → Checkout (CTR)

Click-through rate from your VSL/sales page to the checkout page. Warm traffic during a promo window with email + ads driving visitors.

Good
8-12%
Great
12-18%
Elite
18-25%+
Email visitors should hit 10%+ CTR on their own
Email traffic is your warmest audience. If email-sourced visitors aren't converting to checkout at 10%+, the page has a leak regardless of what ad traffic does.
UTMs on internal CTAs break GA4 tracking
Adding UTM parameters to CTA links between your own pages (e.g., sales page → checkout) resets the GA4 session, breaking page-path attribution. Use event-based click tracking instead to measure CTR without losing session data.

💳 Checkout Page (CVR)

Conversion rate on the checkout page when visitors are already sold (post-VSL, warm traffic, embedded checkout). The only things killing CVR at this stage are friction, not persuasion.

Good
15-25%
Great
25-35%
Elite
35-50%+

📊 Tracking / Analytics

Get tracking right before the promo starts. Fixing tracking mid-promo means losing data you can never get back.

GTM tag on every page before launch
Don't add tracking mid-promo. Every page in the funnel needs GTM installed and verified before cart opens. Adding it after launch means you lose Day 1 data, which is usually your highest-traffic day.
GA4 event tracking on all CTA buttons
Pageviews alone don't tell you what's working. Fire custom GA4 events on every CTA click so you can see which buttons convert and which pages leak. Track button location (nav, mid-page, bottom) to know where engagement happens.
SamCart UTM attribution is the source of truth
For purchase attribution, use SamCart's UTM data, not GA4. GA4 sessions break on redirects, UTM handoffs, and cross-domain. SamCart captures UTMs at the moment of purchase, which is the only number that matters.
Dashboard live before cart opens
Build your promo dashboard before launch, even if every number shows zero. You want to watch data flow in real-time on Day 1, not scramble to build reports while the promo is running.

🚪 Cart Management

Opening and closing the cart cleanly so no one hits a dead end or buys after the deadline.

Build a cart-closed redirect page and schedule the cron
Before the promo launches, create a dedicated "cart closed" page and set up a cron job to swap the redirect at the exact close time. Don't rely on manual page swaps — you'll forget, be asleep, or be mid-livestream. Automate it so every checkout URL redirects cleanly the second the deadline hits.

🔒 SEO / Indexing

Keep promo pages out of search engines so Google doesn't cache stale offers or leak pricing.

No-index checkout pages and all variant/subsidiary pages
Add <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow"> to every checkout page, upsell page, and any variant URLs (A/B test versions, query-param variants). Google will crawl and index these if you don't block them — leading to stale pricing in search results, leaked offer details, and SEO dilution from duplicate content.
Last updated: April 21, 2026 · 10 campaign types · 28 specific plays · Living doc