How to increase revenue by 15%
Lifecycle emails and the art of bargaining
Whenever we build a sales funnel, we lose some people along the way. Some prospects drop early, but many leave us their emails before leaving at the purchase step.
One common way to recover revenue is to offer discounts through automated email campaigns. In general, I’m not a big fan of discounts. But after seeing companies make an extra 15–20%, I’m willing to reconsider.
From seeing successful setups, there are 3 principles we need to follow:
Timing
Urgency
Bargaining model
Let’s look at each of them.
Timing
Finding the right timing is extremely important.
Offering a discount too soon reduces the value of the product. It tells prospects that our product is not worth the original price and that the real price is much lower.
On the other hand, sending the first email too late leads to lower conversions. After all, our product was not important enough in their life to convert straight away. As time goes, their priorities shift and our product loses relevance.
While the best timing requires experimentation in each case, a good starting point is 24 hours after they drop from the funnel. At that moment, they still feel the struggle that brought them to our product, and the offer does not affect perceived value as much.
Urgency
Adding urgency to your offer is powerful – people do not like missing a good deal. To do this at scale for every new lead, you need the right automation:
Step 1: Add a time limit to your offer – e.g., valid for 2 days.
Step 2: Use a platform that provides email countdown timers. When someone opens the email, they see the clock ticking.
Step 3: Generate individual promo codes in your payment provider and apply the same time limit to them.
Step 3 is not required to launch the campaigns, but it helps in two ways:
Promo codes won’t get leaked.
People who miss the offer can clearly see that your deadline was real.
Bargaining model
Sending a single email with a discount gives only partial results. To make the system work, we need a sequence of offers, delivered with delays.
In his book Never Split the Difference, Chris Voss describes a bargaining technique called the Ackerman Model. Offering a sequence of discounts is a form of price bargaining, so we can use the same structure.
The idea is simple:
Choose the maximum discount you are willing to offer. Then calculate increments based on four steps: 65%, 85%, 95%, and 100% of the maximum.
Let’s say our maximum discount is 50%. The sequence might look like this:
Email 1 (after 24 hours): Offer 32% (50% × 65%)
Email 2 (after a few days): Offer 42% (~85% × 50%)
Email 3 (after a few more days): Offer 47% (~95% × 50%)
Email 4 (final offer): Offer 50% (it’s important to highlight the offer is final)
Following this model achieves a few things:
We get more revenue from people who convert early, instead of giving everyone a 50% discount.
The decreasing size of the increments convince prospects they are getting the best deal possible. By the final email, they feel they received the maximum offer.
This extra 15% will not double your business overnight. But it may be exactly what you need to hit your ROI goals and scale ad spend to the next level.
These cats found their way to get extra 15%.