During a deal, the discount you are giving behaves exactly like advertising spend. **A £1.17 discount costs you roughly what £1 of advertising costs**, once the referral fee saving is accounted for.

Which means you are already spending heavily to acquire those sales. Running your normal advertising budget on top is how a strong sales day turns into an unprofitable one.

Managing this well is the difference between a deal that makes money and one that only makes revenue.

[Watch the walkthrough](https://kb.trackiq.com/kb-assets/kbvideo-dealppc-explainer-581110b4.mp4)

*Prefer to watch? One hundred and thirty-one seconds on why the discount is already ad spend, how to set the deal-day budget, and which campaigns to cut and which to feed.*

## **Step 1: work out what TACoS you can afford**

Start from what the deal does to your margin.

**Check your gross margin at the deal price**, not your normal price.

**Then subtract the net margin you want to keep.**

**Worked example.** Normal gross margin 37%, falling to **25% at the deal price**. Your usual net margin after advertising is 15–18%.

| Target net margin | Affordable TACoS |
|---|---|
| 15% | 25% − 15% = **10%** |
| 18% | 25% − 18% = **7%** |

**That is your TACoS ceiling for the deal**, and it is much tighter than your normal one.

See [**Pricing and Gross Margin**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/pricing-and-gross-margin) and [**Setting Target TACoS per Product**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/setting-target-tacos-per-product).

## **Step 2: turn that into a budget**

**Estimate deal-day revenue** from previous deals on the product.

**Multiply by the top of your TACoS range.** £5,000 expected revenue at 10% gives a **£500 advertising budget** for the day.

**Use the high end deliberately.** Deal days convert unusually well, so this is when advertising works hardest.

## **Step 3: work out how much to cut**

**The evening before**, open two views of your campaigns: **yesterday's performance**, and **the last 30 days**.

**Yesterday's spend is your baseline for tomorrow** — and tomorrow will likely run higher, because the deal badge lifts click-through and therefore clicks.

**If yesterday was £750 and your target is £500, you need to remove £250.**

![Campaigns sorted by efficiency](/kb-assets/shot-adv-campaigns-view-77ace2.png)

## **Step 4: take it from the worst campaigns**

**Sort by ACoS, descending.** You are cutting the least efficient spend, not spreading a reduction evenly.

**With a break-even ACoS of 35%:**

**Sponsored Products above 55% ACoS** — set the budget to a nominal amount.

**Sponsored Brands, Brands Video or Display above 40% ACoS** — same.

**Keep going down the list until you have removed the amount you needed.**

**Write down every change.** You are going to restore these, and reconstructing them from memory afterwards is how budgets get left wrong for weeks.

## **Step 5: add budget where it will pay**

The other half, and the one people skip.

**Find campaigns that ran out of budget and have ACoS well below break-even.** Those are the campaigns where the deal's improved conversion will do the most good.

**Size the increase from history.** Look at what the product did during a comparable event — if you sold £2k on a normal day and £4k during the promotion, expect roughly 2×.

**For Sponsored Products campaigns under 20% ACoS:**

| Expected uplift | New budget |
|---|---|
| **2–5×** | double the 30-day average daily spend |
| **5–10×** | triple it |

## **Step 6: protect your ranking campaigns**

**Leave ranking campaigns running, even at high ACoS.** They are buying organic position, and interrupting one mid-launch wastes what you have already spent — see [**Profit Campaigns and Ranking Campaigns**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/profit-campaigns-and-ranking-campaigns).

**The exception:** if you already hold the rank you were chasing and you need to find savings, a ranking campaign is a reasonable place to take them.

## **Step 7: clear the other discounts**

**Remove coupons, promo codes and other promotions for the deal period.**

Two reasons. They stack on top of the deal discount and erode margin further. And they push your lowest 30-day price down, which lowers the ceiling on your *next* deal — see [**Maximise Your Deal Price**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/maximise-your-deal-price).

## **Step 8: restore everything afterwards**

**Put every budget back**, using the notes you made.

**Then watch for a few days.** Deal periods distort the following week too — attribution lands late, and the rank you gained changes what your campaigns see.

## **Why this is worth the hour**

**Most sellers run a deal at their normal advertising budget** and wonder why a record sales day produced ordinary profit. The discount and the advertising were both buying the same sales.

Done properly, the deal supplies the conversion lift and advertising supplies only what the deal cannot reach — and the day becomes the most profitable of the month rather than the busiest.

**It matters most on the largest events**, where the volumes make every point of TACoS significant — see [**Prepare for Prime Day**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/prepare-for-prime-day) and [**Run a Post-Event Teardown**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/run-a-post-event-teardown).

## **Common mistakes**

**Running normal budgets** through a deal.

**Cutting evenly** rather than from the worst campaigns.

**Only cutting**, and missing the campaigns worth increasing.

**Not recording the changes**, then leaving budgets wrong afterwards.

**Leaving coupons stacked** on top of the deal.

**Pausing a ranking campaign** mid-launch to save money.

## **Related**

- [**Running a Deal Calendar**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/running-a-deal-calendar) — the planning this depends on.
- [**Bid Optimisation: Six Rules**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/bid-optimisation-six-rules) — the budget rules used here.
- [**Prepare for Prime Day**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/prepare-for-prime-day) — the same process at scale.