This article recaps the "Deals vs. Campaigns" segment of our Drive More Orders webinar (AppFront Growth Series).
What's the difference?
Deals are high-visibility offers that live on your ordering platform for as long as they're active. They're available to anyone ordering online — guests or members — and are built for acquisition: getting new people into the app and into your loyalty program.
Campaigns are behavior-triggered messages (email, SMS, push) sent to a specific group of members. They're built for retention: keeping existing, loyal customers engaged.
Deals: online ordering only (web or app); can be guest- or member-only.
Campaigns: members only; can reflect both in-store and online behavior.
Using them together
Deals and campaigns work well combined. Example from the webinar: a juice bar inside a gym created a deal giving gym staff 10–15% off. Instead of manually adding each new hire to the discount group, they used a campaign as the mechanism — new staff sign up through a registration link, which automatically triggers a campaign that adds them to the group the deal applies to. Result: zero manual work, and every staff member gets the discount automatically.
Quick decision guide
Want an always-on or scheduled offer anyone can see and redeem? Use a deal.
Want to reach or reward a specific segment of existing members? Use a campaign.
Want a deal to apply automatically to a changing group (staff, VIPs, etc.)? Use a campaign to manage group membership, and a deal to deliver the discount.
For step-by-step setup instructions, see "Building Deals & Upsells in the New Portal: A Step-by-Step Walkthrough."