Digital Marketing

From Flash Sale to Full Funnel: How to Make Your Promotions Work Harder

|

August 28, 2025

Boost your peak season promotions with the same strategies used by Best Western, Victoria's Secret, Staples Canada, and Amazon Health by applying personalization, automation, and AI to drive stronger results now and sustained performance over time.

Peak Season Without the Overwhelm

For marketers, peak season is the time when inbox noise cranks up, promotions multiply, and every brand is elbowing for attention. The question isn’t whether your sale gets noticed, it’s whether it leaves a lasting impression.

The brands getting it right are using their promotions to turn short-term wins into long-term momentum. They’re building loyalty, encouraging repeat visits, and sparking engagement that stretches well beyond December. Here’s how they’re pulling it off and how you can, too.

Making Promos Feel Fresh

Promotions can lose their spark if they all look the same, but Best Western keeps things playful.

With Movable Ink, the brand created moments that surprised rewards members, from first-name personalization in the sand to interactive “Lucky 7” scratch-off points promos. These campaigns went beyond discounts, turning inbox messages into campaigns that customers looked forward to experiencing.

It’s a reminder that promotions don’t have to be predictable—sometimes the unexpected is what drives the most loyalty.

Timing That Clicks

During peak season, inboxes look like a wall of flashing neon signs. AI helps cut through the chaos by making timing sharper.

Send-Time Personalization studies each customer’s behavior—when they open, when they buy, how often they click—and delivers the email when they’re most likely to engage. It also helps control frequency. For example, if a customer engages less often, AI can reduce the number of promos they receive to avoid oversaturation.

Victoria’s Secret put this into practice with campaigns powered by Da Vinci. By tailoring send times to each subscriber and dynamically deciding who should receive which promotions, the brand made sure messages felt personal rather than pushy. This ensured campaigns reached customers at the right moment and connected with those most likely to take action.

Maximize Your Peak Season Strategies

Download the comprehensive guide to make the most of Cyber 5 sales.

Download Now

Deals That Update Themselves

If there’s one thing marketers don’t have during peak season, it’s extra time. Staples Canada found a workaround by using automatic updates for their promotional emails.

Using web cropping, they pulled live deals straight from their website into emails. Each new week of offers flowed in on its own—no late nights rebuilding creative, and no stress about outdated content. Customers always saw the freshest promotional information, and the team got hours back to focus on strategy instead of scrambling through production.

Adding Urgency With a Personal Touch

Amazon Health proved that promotions don’t just push people to act fast, they can actually make life easier for customers, too.

In their first year with Movable Ink, they added countdown timers to highlight One Medical membership deals before they expired. At the same time, current members got something just as valuable: a map to their nearest office, complete with address and distance, right inside the email.

This blend of urgency and utility worked wonders, boosting conversions by 23% while giving patients the kind of helpful info that builds trust.

Making Promotions Work Harder

Peak season is busy, but that doesn’t mean your campaigns have to burn out after a single click. The best promotions today pull double duty: they drive revenue now and set the stage for long-term loyalty.

Need more inspiration for your peak season planning? Check out the resources below.