How to Write a Discount Offer Email with AI (Template Included)

For marketers in both B2B and B2C businesses, it's important to know how to position the perfect discount offer to your customers. A well-crafted promo can help attract new customers, encourage customer loyalty, and ultimately drive sales.

What are you waiting for? Start lowering prices (temporarily, of course) and bringing in first-time clients, while turning those one-time customers into repeat buyers, and reach revenue targets more quickly.

Offering a limited-time offer or exclusive discount can be a positive move for your e-commerce business. Whether it's a flash sale, a discount email for new customers, or a special offer for loyal clients, the right approach can significantly boost conversion rates.

But to get the most out of your discount promotion, however, you need more than just a great deal—you need compelling communication that encourages recipients to take action.

Email Personalization as Part of Your AI-Powered GTM Strategy

While crafting the perfect discount offer email is crucial for immediate conversions, it's essential to understand how email personalization fits into your broader AI-powered go-to-market (GTM) strategy. In today's competitive landscape, successful businesses are moving beyond isolated marketing tactics to embrace comprehensive GTM AI platforms that unify sales, marketing, and customer success efforts.

Email personalization represents just one component of a holistic GTM approach. When integrated with AI-powered tools across your entire revenue engine, personalized emails become part of a seamless customer journey that drives both acquisition and retention. By leveraging platforms like Copy.ai—the world's first GTM AI platform—you can ensure your discount offers align with broader sales initiatives, customer success touchpoints, and cross-functional goals.

This strategic approach transforms discount emails from one-off promotions into coordinated revenue-driving activities that:

• Align with sales team outreach and follow-up sequences
• Support customer success initiatives for retention and upselling
• Feed valuable data back into your GTM intelligence layer for continuous optimization
• Enable consistent messaging across all customer touchpoints

Understanding this bigger picture ensures your email personalization efforts contribute to sustainable growth rather than just short-term wins.

What is a Discount Offer Email?

In both B2C and B2B industries, discounts are an essential tactic used to win over new business, re-engage existing customers, and drive revenue. And whether you work in marketing or sales, chances are that you've had to write an email or two letting clients know about a discount—i.e., you've written a discount offer email.

Discount offer emails are emails used to tell customers about special discounts or a limited-time discount available on all or specific products or services. They can be high-volume and generic (such as a Cyber Monday or Black Friday sale) or unique and completely personalized (like giving an enterprise client an exclusive discount for switching over from a competitor).

The email on the left is more general and sent out to a wider audience (for Cyber Monday), while the email on the right (generated by CopyAI) is personalized and unique to one specific client.

10 Steps to Write the Perfect Discount Offer Email with AI

No matter the approach, well-executed email campaigns should create a sense of urgency and persuade potential customers to act fast.

The best discount email examples include an engaging email subject line, a clear call to action (CTA), and strategic use of design elements such as a countdown timer to instill FOMO (fear of missing out), like including a “last chance!” offer.

Additionally, leveraging discount email templates ensures a streamlined and consistent approach across multiple email campaigns.

Below, we'll walk you through the 10 steps to writing a discount offer email that converts, with plenty of help from AI along the way.

1. Do the Math

First up: you need to understand how deeply you can discount your product. This means taking a look at key metrics, like your potential profit margin and customer acquisition costs (CAC). Before you decide on a discount amount, calculate how much you can lower your prices while still maintaining a healthy profit and realistic CAC.

2. Understand How Discounts Might Impact Your Brand

When you think of some brands—like Target, Walmart, or Sephora—regular discounts are pretty much a guarantee. In fact, they may discount products so often that some people decide to shop there only when they run a specific sale.

For certain upscale brands, however, discounts are basically unheard of. Tiffany & Co., for instance, reportedly won't even run a sale on Black Friday; others will only run one sale a year.

When you decide on a sale price, think about how the discount might affect how consumers perceive your brand. Discounts that run too deep or too often can:

• Devalue your product
• Decrease consumers’ confidence in your brand
• Train your customers to wait for discounts before buying
• Attract deal shoppers, rather than your target audience

This doesn't mean that you shouldn't run a sale, mind you. It just means timing it right, setting the discount at a reasonable amount, and marketing it the right way.

3. Decide Who to Offer the Discount to

Most marketing teams will segment their audience into several different groups. Decide if you want to target this offer to one specific customer, one audience segment, or all of your customers.

If you decide to target specific segments or customers, you can generally run more personalized campaigns at a lower overall cost—such as offering students 15% off during finals or sending a customer a coupon for leaving a great testimonial.

On the flip side, a more general sale that targets your entire audience can help you hit monthly or yearly targets in one fell swoop—but since the discount is available to everyone, it can cost your company more.

4. Personalize Your Promotional Email

Everyone likes to feel special, and this holds true even when you're sending out discount offer emails. According to research by McKinsey, brands that personalize their marketing materials generate 40% more revenue from those efforts than brands that don't.

Over three-quarters of consumers also say that they're more likely to consider purchasing, re-purchasing, and referring friends and family members to brands that personalize their communication.

Fortunately, even if you're sending out hundreds of promotional emails, many marketing platforms will allow you to plug in customers’ names to the message and subject line automatically. If you're using an AI tool like CopyAI to generate your email message, just make sure to replace the "[customer name]" prompt with either a name plug-in or the customer's name.

If you're using AI to generate your email copy, just swap out the name prompt for your customer's name when sending your email.

5. Make Your Discount Offer Limited or Time-Sensitive

Your sale shouldn't last forever, and you should be wary of giving customers the impression that it will. Use scarcity to create urgency and encourage customers to act now.

Let them know that your offer is only available for a limited time and that this is a special event that doesn't happen often.

Include the end date and time of the offer. You can even add a counter to the email.

6. Focus on the Value You’re Providing Your Customer

While a sale is enticing, it shouldn't be the main reason your customer is buying from you. Use this discount offer email as a chance to remind your customer of the value that you bring to their lives.

While your discount offer email focuses on customer value, AI enables you to extend this value creation across your entire revenue organization:

For Sales Teams:

• AI analyzes which discount offers resonate with specific customer segments, enabling sales reps to make more targeted recommendations
• Automated lead scoring prioritizes prospects who engage with discount emails for immediate follow-up
• Conversation intelligence captures successful discount positioning from top performers and shares best practices across the team

For Marketing Teams:

• AI identifies optimal discount percentages and timing based on customer behavior patterns
• Content generation scales personalized messaging across multiple channels beyond email
• Predictive analytics forecast which offers will drive the highest lifetime value, not just immediate conversions

For Customer Success Teams:

• AI tracks which discount recipients become long-term customers versus one-time buyers
• Automated workflows trigger retention campaigns for customers acquired through discounts
• Sentiment analysis identifies customers who may need special offers to prevent churn

This cross-functional approach ensures your discount strategy creates lasting value rather than just driving short-term transactions.

7. Keep Your Email Short and Sweet

Your discount offer email has one purpose: to inform your customers about an ongoing sale. Longer emails aren’t necessarily better, and brevity is essential when capturing customers’ attention.

Once you complete the most important task of getting your customers to open the email, you should:

• Get to the point
• Introduce your offer
• Provide the discount code (where necessary) and expiration date

Using AI to craft your copy? Just instruct your AI generator to keep the message short, and it'll do just that. In CopyAI, you can also see just how long each AI-generated option is by peeking at the word and character count in the bottom right corner.

8. Set the Tone

Make sure that your message matches your brand voice and tone. For some brands, this might mean using a punny subject line and plenty of exclamation marks. For others, it might mean focusing more on the craftsmanship behind the products and highlighting that this is a once-a-year sale.

Regardless of the vibe you’re going for, let your AI generator know by using specific inputs.

9. Give Your AI Platform as Much Detail as Possible

AI is smart, but it can't read your mind (yet).

To get the best results from your AI platform, feed it as many details as possible, including:

• The tone you’d like to use
• The audience you’re targeting
• The problem your product or service solves
• Your discount amount and code (if applicable)
• Which products or services are included (if applicable)
• What makes you unique
• The end date of your sale
• Your unique value proposition

The more details you can provide, the more accurate your end result will be.

10. Have a follow-up plan

Once you have your email ready to go, start planning how you’ll keep your new (or returning) customers engaged after the sale. What will your follow-up emails look like? How will you educate them about your product? How will you drive the next sale?

Make sure that your discount offer email fits into a larger plan to retain and grow your audience.

To learn more, check out this conversation with Tomas Tunguz

7 Discount Offer Email Templates

It only takes a minute to generate a discount offer email that's unique to your brand using an AI copy generator—but if you're looking for something pre-built, check out our CopyAI-generated templates below.

1. Discount for Signing up to a Newsletter

Convert new subscribers more quickly by giving them a discount on their first order.

Subject line: Thanks for joining us—here’s [discount]% off your first order!

Copy:

Hi [name],

Thanks for signing up for our newsletter! We're so glad you're here, and we'd like to offer you [discount]% off your first purchase. Just use the code [code] at checkout.

If you have any questions about our products, please feel free to email us at [email]! We always love hearing from you.

2. Abandoned Cart Discount

Did a customer leave your site with a cart full of goodies and no checkout? Win them back by sweetening the deal.

Subject line: Remember you wanted to buy this? (Take [discount]% off!)

Copy:

Hi there!

We're so sorry to hear that you didn't get around to finishing your order. We know it's no fun to leave a cart full of stuff behind, but we hope that you'll give us another shot sometime soon.

If you do decide to complete your order in the next [time limit] hours, we'd like to offer you [discount]% off your purchase.

Just enter "[code]" at checkout and let us know if there's anything else we can help with.

3. Customer Reengagement Discount

Turn one-time customers into repeat customers by giving them a deal on their next purchase.

Subject line: We miss you, so here’s [discount]% off your next purchase!

Copy:

Hey there!

We just wanted to check in and see how you're doing. It's been a while since your last purchase, and we miss you!

So we have a special deal for you: [discount]% off your next purchase! Just use the code [code] when checking out to get the discount.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out! We're always here for you.

4. Loyal Customer Discount

Let your customers know you appreciate them with a “just because” discount.

Subject line: Thanks for being a loyal customer! Here's [discount]% off your next purchase.

Copy:

Hey there, [customer name]!

We wanted to reach out and thank you for being a loyal customer. We love having you around, and we're always working hard to make sure your experience with us is the best it can be.

To show our appreciation, we'd like to offer you [discount]% off your next order with [company name]. Just enter the coupon code "[code]" at checkout, and we'll take care of the rest.

Thanks again for being awesome!

5. Product Launch Discount

Drive adoption for your latest product by giving your existing customers a cut on its cost.

Subject line: Try [product name] at [discount]% off—this week only.

Copy:

Hey there, [name]!

We know you're always looking to try new things and we've got a great one for you. We just released our newest product, [product name], and we want you to be the first to try it out. Not only will this be a great opportunity to try something new, but it will also save you [discount]% off the normal price.

The offer expires next week, so don't miss out on this amazing deal!

6. Seasonal Sale Discount

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Boxing Day… if you need to increase revenue, every month brings new opportunities to discount your products.

Subject line: [discount]% off all products on [sale event]!

Copy:

Hey there!

We know you've been waiting for this one.

For [sale event], we're giving all of our customers [discount]% off on all products. This deal is available on everything, so don't miss out!

This sale only lasts for [time limit], so make sure to take advantage of it before it's too late.

7. Discount Reminder

Don’t let customers forget about your promotion if they haven’t taken advantage of it yet.

Subject line: Don’t miss out on this deal!

Copy:

Hi there!

We just wanted to remind you that our discount is running this week only, so if you've been thinking of taking advantage of it, now's the time.

Just type in the coupon code "[code]" at checkout for [discount]% off your order. We hope you enjoy it!

Reducing GTM Bloat: How AI Accelerates Your Revenue Engine

One of the biggest challenges facing modern go-to-market teams is GTM bloat—the accumulation of disconnected tools, redundant processes, and siloed data that slows down your revenue engine. When it comes to email marketing and discount offers, this bloat manifests as:

• Multiple platforms for email creation, sending, and tracking
• Manual processes for personalization and segmentation
• Disconnected data between email campaigns and sales activities
• Time-consuming coordination between marketing and sales teams

AI-powered GTM platforms address these challenges by creating what we call "GTM velocity"—the ability to move from insight to action at unprecedented speed. For your discount offer emails, this means:

Streamlined Workflow Automation: Instead of manually crafting each email variant, AI generates personalized messages at scale while maintaining your brand voice and strategic messaging.

Unified Data Intelligence: Your email performance data automatically flows into a centralized system where it informs sales outreach, customer success initiatives, and future marketing campaigns.

Cross-Functional Visibility: Sales teams can see which prospects engaged with discount emails, customer success can track which offers drive retention, and marketing can optimize based on comprehensive revenue impact.

Rapid Iteration and Testing: AI enables you to test multiple discount strategies, messaging approaches, and timing variables simultaneously, learning and optimizing in real-time.

By reducing GTM bloat and increasing velocity, your discount offer emails become more than just promotional messages—they become strategic revenue accelerators that drive measurable business growth.

Best Practices for Implementing AI Across Your GTM Teams

Successfully leveraging AI for discount offer emails and broader GTM initiatives requires thoughtful implementation. Here are essential best practices to ensure success:

Start with Clear Objectives
Define specific, measurable goals for your AI implementation. Whether it's increasing email conversion rates by 20% or reducing time-to-create campaigns by 50%, clear objectives guide your strategy and measure success.

Ensure Data Quality and Integration
AI is only as good as the data it processes. Before implementing AI-powered email campaigns:

• Audit your customer data for accuracy and completeness
• Integrate data sources across sales, marketing, and customer success platforms
• Establish data governance practices to maintain quality over time

Foster Cross-Functional Adoption
AI-powered GTM strategies require buy-in across teams:

• Provide comprehensive training on AI tools and workflows
• Create shared metrics that encourage collaboration
• Celebrate early wins to build momentum and enthusiasm

Balance Automation with Human Insight
While AI excels at generating content and identifying patterns, human expertise remains crucial:

• Review AI-generated discount offers for brand alignment
• Use human judgment for strategic decisions about pricing and positioning
• Maintain personal relationships with high-value customers

Iterate Based on Performance Data
Continuous improvement is key to AI success:

• Monitor performance metrics across all GTM activities
• A/B test different AI-generated approaches
• Refine your AI inputs based on what drives results

Common Pitfalls to Avoid:

• Over-automating without maintaining quality control
• Implementing AI in isolation without cross-functional coordination
• Neglecting to update AI models with new data and insights
• Focusing solely on efficiency gains while ignoring customer experience

By following these best practices, you'll ensure your AI-powered discount offer emails contribute to a comprehensive GTM strategy that drives sustainable growth.

Write a Discount Offer Email in under 5 Minutes

Now that you know what makes a good discount offer email and have seen some inspiring examples, you're ready to create your own.

Not a writer? That’s perfectly fine!

All of the templates you saw above were created using Copy.ai, which uses AI to generate unique and effective discount offer emails in minutes.

This means you don’t have to struggle to write your copy without sacrificing quality. You’ll save time so you can focus on other aspects of your business, like optimizing your marketing strategy, improving customer retention, and streamlining workflows with automation.

Start for free and get 2,000 words on us.

Final Thoughts

Crafting a compelling discount offer email doesn't have to be time-consuming. With AI-powered tools, you can create high-quality emails that engage your email list and boost conversions effortlessly. Whether you're sending a welcome email, announcing a new product, or sharing an exclusive offer, AI can help you optimize your messaging for maximum impact.

Make sure your emails include a clear call to action—like “shop now”—and consider adding a promo code to enhance engagement. Using integrations with your existing CRM and leveraging social media can also expand your reach and strengthen customer relationships.

Most importantly, don't treat discount campaigns as isolated events. The most successful marketers weave these offers into their broader customer journey, using them to acquire new customers, re-engage dormant ones, and reward loyalty—all while maintaining their brand integrity.

Ready to dive deeper into AI-powered marketing strategies? Check out these resources:

• 10 Generative AI Prompts for Email Marketers - Scale your email marketing efforts with proven AI prompts
• AI for Email Campaigns: Better Results with Fewer Resources - Learn how AI is transforming email marketing and what you can do to stay ahead
• How to Reduce Customer Acquisition Costs: 11 AI-Powered Solutions - Discover AI-driven strategies to lower your CAC while improving campaign performance

Do not forget, Copy.ai’s GTM AI platform is the best thing that can happen to your GTM efforts. By leveraging GTM AI tools, you enhance your GTM AI Maturity, reduce GTM Bloat, and increase GTM Velocity. This propels your business forward in the digital marketplace. Our free tools site is also available for you to explore.

With these tools at your disposal, you'll be well-equipped to launch a successful go-to-market campaign!

Harness the power of these Free AI Tools to revolutionize your go-to-market strategy:

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