Retention Offers
Retention offers allow you to offer discounts to customers who subscribe to your app and are considering canceling their subscription. A customer that starts the cancellation process is asked for the reason that is causing them to consider cancellation. Options they can choose from are: price is too high, dissatisfied with the content/service, dissatisfied with my device, something else, or prefer not to say. Regardless of the reason for cancellation, you can offer a discounted price to eligible customers for a duration you choose. If a customer accepts the offer, the discounted price is applied starting from their next renewal, for the length of the offer period, as defined in the offer.
Retention offers are currently only available to customers through the Amazon retail web. If you are looking for information on how to set up list price drops for your apps or in-app items, see Price Drops.
Customer eligibility
A customer can select any reason for cancellation to see the retention offer. You can configure retention offers in the Developer Console and choose the amount and duration of the discount you want to offer.
After you configure an offer through the Developer Console, customers will be eligible for the offer if they meet the following criteria.
- Has an active, full-price subscription (cannot be on a free trial or other offer)
- Has not benefited from a retention offer within the last 12 months (customers can only take advantage of one retention offer per subscription within a 12-month period)
Create a retention offer
Retention offers are set up in the Promotions Console. You can access the Promotions Console from the Developer Console dashboard by selecting Apps & Services > Promotions. To create a retention offer, click Retention Offer.
The retention offer creation workflow has three steps: Define Campaign, Define Discount, and Confirm Discount. You can cancel the creation process at any time.
Step 1: Define campaign
After selecting Retention Offer, you are taken to the Define Campaign screen as shown in the following image.
To create your campaign, follow these steps
- Enter the campaign name.
- Select the target app using the drop-down menu.
- Choose the subscription on which you want to enable this offer. You can set up retention offers only for subscription items that don't already have an active retention offer.
Important: Before you create and publish a retention offer, make sure you submit the subscription item and resubmit the app.
- Select the tier or term of the subscription for this offer. If a subscription has tiers, you must select the tier first, and then the term.
- (Optional) Add additional subscriptions to this campaign.
- Select one or more marketplaces where you want to make this offer available. This drop-down will be inactive until an app is selected.
- Choose the start and end date for this offer. Dates are in UTC.
- After all fields are complete, the Next button becomes active. Click Next.
Step 2: Define discount
On the Define Discount screen, you enter the list price discount percentage and term duration for each subscription that you selected in the previous step.
To set up your discount, follow these steps
- Set Round to nearest "9" preference.
- If you would like the calculated adjusted list prices to be rounded to the nearest 9, check the box.
- For example, if the original list price of your subscription is $5.00 USD, and your discount is 50%, without rounding to the nearest 9, the adjusted list price would be $2.50 USD. With rounding to the nearest 9, the adjusted list price would be $2.49 USD.
- Set the discount amount.
- For retention offers, the discount is defined as a percentage of the original list price.
- The percentage must be a whole number, decimals are not allowed.
- Valid values for this field are 1 through 100.
- The discount will be automatically applied on all selected marketplaces, but can be manually overridden, as described in step 4.
-
Each marketplace has a minimum price. Hover over View minimum prices to see them. The price must not be set to lower than the minimum for the marketplace.
Minimum prices Marketplace Minimum price US 0.99 USD UK 0.59 GDP JP 85 JPY CA 0.99 CAD BR 1.99 BRL DE 0.69 EUR FR 0.69 EUR IT 0.69 EUR ES 0.69 EUR AU 0.99 AUD
- Set discount term.
- On the previous screen, you chose the term for the subscription discount. On this screen, choose the duration of the discount. For example, if the term you chose was monthly, here you choose the number of months you want the discount to be applied.
- The duration must be a whole number, decimals are not allowed.
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The duration must be lower than the maximum limit for that term.
Max term limits Term Max term limit Weekly 3 BiWeekly 3 Monthly 3 BiMonthly 2 Quarterly 2 SemiAnnually 1 Annually 1
- (Optional) View and override the prices for different marketplaces. To view the prices, select View the original and discounted prices for different marketplaces. To override an adjusted list price, click the Adjusted List Price field for a specific marketplace and enter a different price.
- After all fields are complete, the Next button becomes active. Click Next.
Step 3: Confirm discount
On the Confirm discount screen, you can review the selections you made on the previous screens. If you want to make changes, select Edit next to the information you want to update. When you have completed reviewing and are ready to submit, click Submit. The campaign is created and you are directed back to the Promotions Console.
Manage a retention offer
After a retention offer is created, it's added to the campaign list on the Promotions Console. In the campaign list, you can see the current status of an offer. A retention offer can have a status of Scheduled, Running, or Ended, as described here.
Scheduled. This offer is not yet active. You can view or delete this offer.
Running. This offer is currently active. You can view or end this offer.
Ended. This offer has ended. You can view this offer.
View a retention offer
After creating a retention offer campaign, you can view the details of the offer, such as discount percentage, adjusted list price, and units sold, in the Promotions Console.
To view details of an existing retention offer campaign, follow these steps
- Go to the Promotions Console.
- In the campaign list, find the retention offer and click the eye icon to view the details.
Delete or end a retention offer
A retention offer with a Scheduled status is not yet active and can be deleted. To delete a retention offer, find the offer in the campaign list and click the trash can icon. If you delete a retention offer, the Promotions Console will no longer contain the offer details and the offer will not go live.
A retention offer with a Running status can be ended immediately, instead of at the scheduled end date and time. To immediately end a retention offer, find the offer in the campaign list and click the trash can icon.
Retention offer FAQ
The following are frequently asked questions (FAQ) about retention offers.
- Q: How can I determine the effectiveness of my retention offer?
- The Developer Console provides monthly retention offer reports that you can download in CSV format. The reports are updated daily with the most recently available data. To access the report, follow the instructions in Retention offers report. The retention offer report provides daily aggregated data on subscriptions renewed with retention offers and subscriptions that expired.
- Q: How do I determine whether a customer is currently on a retention offer?
- The receipt returned through Receipt Verification Service (RVS) includes promotion details. If a customer renews a subscription with a retention offer discount, the JSON response would have the value
Retention Offerin thepromotionTypefield andInProgressin thepromotionStatusfield. For more details, see Promotions in RVS.
Last updated: Aug 21, 2024