What Is an Evergreen Campaign? Always-On Offers

What Makes a Campaign Evergreen

The name comes from evergreen trees, which stay green all year. An evergreen campaign is the same idea. You set it up once and it keeps going, with no start or end date on the calendar. Some marketers call it an always-on campaign.

A lot of them are triggered by something the shopper does. Others are simply always there. You've probably seen these:

A welcome discount for signing up to your email list.
The email someone gets after leaving items in their cart.
Free shipping on every order over a set amount.

On Shopify, a discount with no end date runs until you switch it off. Shopify can also send abandoned checkout emails on its own. Those are both simple evergreen campaigns. A scheduled campaign is the opposite. It runs once, between dates you pick, like a Black Friday sale.

Evergreen Deadlines Are Personal

Since an evergreen campaign never ends, there's no single date for it to count down to. So if you want a deadline, each shopper needs their own.

That's the job of an evergreen timer. Every visitor gets a personal clock, often starting at their first visit or when the offer first shows up. A fixed-date timer counts down to one end time that everyone shares. For help choosing, see our guide to evergreen vs fixed-date timers.

A personal deadline is only honest if the offer really ends at zero. If the clock resets on a refresh, or the code still works afterward, that's fake urgency. Shoppers who catch it may stop trusting your other deadlines too. Shopping for a tool? Start with these countdown timer apps that don't fake urgency.

What a Year-Round Discount Really Costs

An always-on discount goes to everyone who qualifies, every day of the year. That includes dedicated buyers who'd have paid full price anyway. On their orders, the discount is just margin you lose.

The Math on a Tea Shop's Welcome Code

A tin of tea sells for $30 and costs $12, so it earns $18. The shop gives new subscribers 15% off their first order, all year. With the code, that tin sells for $25.50 and earns $13.50. Every first order is one tin.

Now say 300 first orders a month use the code. That's 300 × $13.50 = $4,050 in profit. What if 250 of them would've paid full price anyway? Without the code, those 250 would have brought in 250 × $18 = $4,500. So the code is costing the shop $450 a month, or $5,400 a year.

The code only breaks even if 225 of the 300 would have bought anyway (225 × $18 = $4,050). So at least 75 of the 300, or 1 in 4, have to be shoppers the code actually won over.

There's a slower cost too. If a code is always just one signup away, some shoppers stop buying without one. That's known as discount fatigue.

Evergreen Doesn't Mean Set and Forget

It's tempting to think an evergreen campaign runs itself forever. And it does run on its own. But your costs and prices change, and so does what you sell. A 15% code that fit last year's margins might be losing money today. So check each always-on offer now and then, like you would a seasonal sale. Evergreen doesn't have to mean a discount, either. Free shipping over a set amount, or a free gift, can be evergreen too.

How Growth Suite's Always-On Offers Work

Growth Suite is our Shopify app, and its main offers work like an evergreen campaign. They aren't tied to a sale date. Each one has its own time limit.

Offers are saved for walk-away customers, the visitors who seem less likely to buy. Shoppers already set on buying don't see them.
Each visitor gets a unique, single-use code that's added to their cart.
When the timer hits zero, the code gets deleted on our server, so the deadline is real.
Refreshing the page or opening another tab won't reset the timer.
Cooldown periods help prevent offer fatigue.