7 April 2026 · 3 min · Wesley Veldeman
Discount codes and measuring where your sales come from
Run a promotion with discount codes, and find out which channel actually sold the tickets with promo links. Codes are on every plan; tracking links are on Studio and Pro.
Two questions every organiser asks
"How do I run a discount?" and "where are my sales actually coming from?" are two of the most common questions in ticketing. ClearTix answers both. Discount codes are available on every plan, including the free one. Promo and tracking links are available on Studio and Pro.
Discount codes (every plan)
A discount code is the classic promotion tool: a code your customer types in at checkout to get money off. In ClearTix you control all the moving parts.
For each code you set:
- the code text itself (what the customer types);
- a percentage or a fixed amount off — say
10%or€5; - whether it applies to the base ticket price or the total including add-ons;
- optional conditions: a minimum ticket count, specific ticket types it is valid for, or a date range;
- an active/inactive switch to turn it on and off.
Codes also come with redemption tracking, so you can see how often each one was used — handy for judging whether a campaign actually worked. And because codes are not tied to a single event, they work across all your events, so a launch offer can apply to your whole programme at once.
| Setting | Options |
|---|---|
| Type | Percentage or fixed amount |
| Applies to | Base ticket price or total incl. add-ons |
| Conditions | Minimum count, specific ticket types, date range |
| State | Active or inactive |
| Scope | Works across all events |
A few practical patterns
- An early-bird code with a date range that switches itself off after the cut-off.
- A bundle nudge with a minimum ticket count, so the discount only applies from, say, four tickets up.
- A partner code for a specific ticket type, with redemptions tracked to see how much business the partner brought.
Promo and tracking links (Studio and Pro)
Discount codes tell you that a campaign was used. Promo links tell you where the sale came from in the first place — even when there is no discount involved at all.
A promo link has three parts:
- a slug (a short identifier);
- a label (so you remember what it is for);
- a target — either one specific event or all your events.
You then share your event URL with the slug appended: your-event-url?ref=slug. ClearTix counts the clicks on that link and attributes the orders that come through it, so you can compare your channels side by side. Which sold more — the newsletter, the Instagram post or the partner site? The links tell you.
| Channel | Link |
|---|---|
| Newsletter | your-event-url?ref=newsletter |
| your-event-url?ref=instagram | |
| Partner site | your-event-url?ref=partner |
No cookies, no consent banner
Here is the part that matters for European organisers: this tracking needs no cookies and no consent. It works from the link itself, not from anything stored in the visitor's browser. So you get genuinely useful channel analytics without bolting a third-party tracker onto your checkout and without adding another consent pop-up. That fits ClearTix's wider stance — EU-hosted, privacy-first, no tracking cookies.
Use them together
The two tools complement each other. Give each channel its own promo link to see where attention comes from, and layer a discount code on top when you want to run an actual offer. A newsletter might carry both: a ?ref=newsletter link so you know it drove the visit, and an EARLYBIRD code so subscribers get a perk. Between them you learn what worked and reward the people who responded.
Want to see exactly where each capability sits across the plans? The pricing page lays it out, and the features overview shows the rest of the toolkit.
Related reading
- Private presales and members-only tickets — access codes that unlock hidden tickets and track who used them
- GDPR-compliant ticketing — why cookie-free tracking keeps you compliant