Which way should I design coupon codes?

Question

There are two ways of creating a coupon code:

• The easy way Something like bike17.
• The random way Something like fj348osfgl.

For the first one following applies: It's easy to remember. However, I always feel like such a coupon code isn't special. I don't feel like this is a unique coupon.

For the second one: It's hard to remember, but it feels special to know this code.

So, what should I do? Easy to remember or Feeling special about the code?

Info: Both codes are meant to be equally on what they do, it's just about psychology.

Answer 1

My company recently did a piece of user research around promotional codes.

Users ultimately said that they want shorter, easy to remember combinations which are related to the actual offer. For example, we've moved from a random generated (kjgfo24) code to (first10) for 10% off a first order.

The general feedback was that user didn't want to have to copy and paste a random code into notebook etc. to remember it for future use. They'd much rather prefer something they can recall.

I can't share exact numbers but the consensus was so strong they've overhauled the entire process to accommodate!

Answer 2

Research:

Let's take a look at some examples. As you can see - 3 companies use different codes, and only one of them uses an actual word in it. The idea behind using the world is to highlight the event of voucher validity, as description stated - it is only valid on your first booking, as if company was saying "hello" to you. A code with the actual word is also easier to remember.

Another detail to notice here is that all codes are short and do not contain a random combination of letters and numbers, but instead letters go first and numbers go after.

Answer:

You should use short codes with combinations that are easy to remember.

Examples: