Types of Promotion in Marketing: 6 Types Explained

The main types of promotion in marketing are advertising, sales promotion, direct and digital marketing, public relations, personal selling, and partnerships. The first five are the promotion mix in Philip Kotler and Gary Armstrong's textbook Principles of Marketing. This guide adds a sixth, partnerships with other brands and creators, because creator codes and affiliate links are now a common way for online stores to promote. Each type does a different job, from building awareness over months to getting a purchase today.

What is promotion in marketing?

Promotion is how a business tells people about what it sells and gives them a reason to act. It is one of the four Ps of the marketing mix, with product, price and place. The blend of promotion types a business uses is called its promotion mix.

For how promotions, discounts and offers differ, see promotion vs discount vs offer.

What are the 6 types of promotion?

1. Advertising

Paid messages from an identified brand, in any medium: search and social ads, video, print, radio, billboards.

Good for: reaching many people, building awareness.
Watch for: cost, and the time it takes to work.
For an online store: search and social ads aimed at people already looking for what you sell.

2. Sales promotion

Short-term incentives to buy now: discounts, coupons, free shipping, buy one get one, gifts with purchase, flash sales.

Good for: a quick lift in sales, clearing stock, a first order.
Watch for: margin, and customers who learn to wait for the next sale.
For an online store: the type you control most directly. Of all campaigns stores have created in Discounty, 81% take a percentage off, and 16% are quantity discounts.

3. Direct and digital marketing

Messages to people you can reach one by one: email, SMS, your own app, and personalised offers.

Good for: repeat customers, launches to your list, abandoned-cart reminders.
Watch for: consent rules and sending too often.
For an online store: email and SMS to people who signed up. See how to write a discount offer email.

4. Public relations

Earning coverage instead of paying for it: press, reviews, guides and features in publications your customers read.

Good for: trust, because the message comes from someone else.
Watch for: you do not control what is written or when.
For an online store: product features in gift guides and "best of" lists.

5. Personal selling

One person helping another to buy: a sales call, a demo, live chat, a stylist.

Good for: expensive or complicated products, wholesale accounts.
Watch for: it does not scale cheaply.
For an online store: live chat on product pages, and account managers for wholesale buyers.

6. Partnerships and collaborations

Working with another brand, creator or affiliate to reach their audience.

Good for: new audiences that already trust the partner.
Watch for: your name is tied to theirs.
For an online store: creator codes, affiliate links and joint products.

Which type of promotion should you choose?

Your goal	Types to start with
People do not know you yet	Advertising, partnerships, public relations
Visitors do not buy	Sales promotion: a first-order offer or free shipping
Customers do not come back	Direct marketing to your list, with an occasional offer
Orders are small	Sales promotion: quantity breaks or a spend threshold
Products need explaining	Personal selling: live chat or a demo

Most stores combine a few. A Black Friday sale, for example, is a sales promotion, announced by email and in ads, sometimes with a creator code.

How do you run sales promotions on Shopify?

Discounty runs six campaign types:

Bulk price editor: a sale across a collection, tag or hand-picked list, on every plan.
Quantity discount: a lower price for buying more items, on every plan; more than one tier needs the Essential plan or above.
Cart goal: a saving for spending more, on every plan; more than one tier needs the Essential plan or above.
Buy X get Y: a free or discounted item, on the Lite plan and up.
Shipping discount: free or cheaper shipping, on the Lite plan and up.
Advanced discount code: a code for an email list or a creator, on the Essential plan and up.

Each campaign has a start date and, if you want one, an end date. To undo one, deactivate it. It shows as Reverting while Discounty removes the discount.

How we counted

The two shares are the proportion of all campaigns Shopify stores have created in Discounty that take a percentage off or discount on quantity, read from our own records in October 2026. They are shares across campaigns; no single store can be identified from them. The promotion mix is from Kotler and Armstrong's Principles of Marketing.

Questions

What are the main types of promotion in marketing?

Advertising, sales promotion, direct and digital marketing, public relations and personal selling, plus partnerships with other brands and creators.

What are the forms and methods of promotion?

The same tools: paid advertising, short-term sales incentives, direct messages to customers, earned publicity, one-to-one selling and partnerships.

What is the difference between advertising and sales promotion?

Advertising builds awareness over time. A sales promotion is a short-term incentive, such as a discount, to buy now.

What is promotion in marketing management?

The part of marketing that plans how a business communicates with customers and which promotion types it uses, its promotion mix.

Which promotion suits a small Shopify store?

Usually email to your own list, sales promotions such as a first-order offer or free shipping, and partnerships with creators. They cost less than broad advertising.