How to Sell Thrivecart Learn Courses on AppSumo

If you're hosting your courses in Thrivecart Learn and you ever wanted to sell them on AppSumo (who wouldn't!), you'd quickly stumble into a rather annoying challenge that, unless handled, will cost you (or your VA) hours of manual work.

And that challenge is generating single-use codes.

As you know, AppSumo sells access to software or courses via redemption codes. And if you want to sell your course on AppSumo, you have to provide them with a CSV file with 100-10,000 codes.

A cursory look into your Thrivecart Coupons module will quickly tell you that Thrivecart does not allow generating promo codes in bulk as of the date this article is published (see below).

And while Thrivecart's dev team is planning significant updates for 2023, until these are implemented, you'd have to generate single-use coupons for your AppSumo listing manually. If you're only planning to sell ten courses, perhaps, it's not an issue. However, if you're gunning for hundreds, maybe thousands of units sold, you might want to consider an automated approach.

Thankfully, this is what we'll walk you through in this article (or this video if you prefer a video tutorial).

Before we get into the weeds, we wanted you to know that we might use affiliate links when recommending various tools throughout this website. This means we'll receive a commission if you sign up for one of their paid plans (it doesn't cost you anything extra). We always recommend tools and services we use ourselves and stand by their quality.

Objective

Build a user experience for Sumolings where they can redeem hundreds of codes and receive access to a Thrivecart Learn course automatically, without the course admin (that's you!) having to create them manually in Thrivecart.

AppSumo - Thrivecart Learn User Journey

As soon as someone purchases your course on AppSumo, they will be offered a redemption code. Your instructions will advise the user to navigate to a web form where the redemption process will start (see below, download as PDF).

The first web form only captures the user's email address to verify it. If the user enters their email address correctly, they will receive an email with the link to the second web form to redeem the coupon.

If they enter the coupon correctly, Thrivecart will create a new student with the associated email address and send the login details to the user.

Behind the scenes, there are two automations at work.

Automation #1 - Email Verifier

This automation picks up the email address from the first web form and sends an email to this email address with the link to the second web form (with the user's email address being in the hidden field and pre-filled).

Automation #2 - Course Fulfiller

This automation picks up the code from the second web form and checks it against the database of codes. If the code exists, the automation marks this code as "redeemed", and adds the redeemer email address and the redemption date. It then connects to Thrivecart via the API and creates a new student while granting the course you sold on AppSumo.

If the automation cannot locate the code (e.g., the user made a mistake while entering it), it will email the user advising them as such.

Thrivecart Learn - AppSumo - How to Build

Step 1: Create accounts

You will need the following accounts:

1. ​Tally Forms - the web form software we'll be using to host the two web forms we need for the automation to work
2. A Google account. Google Workspace will make it easier for you in the long term, but you can start with a free one.
3. ​Make - this will be our automation tool of choice. You can probably use Zapier, but we prefer Make due to its versatility.

Step 2: Create web forms

Once you've created a Tally account, import two forms - Email verifier and Code acceptor. Feel free to customize them as you wish by adding extra text and graphics.

Step 3: Create the codes in bulk

Use Voucherify to create promo codes in bulk. Export the codes into Excel. Nothing stops you from reading 5000 codes in one go.

Step 4: Provide the codes to AppSumo

Save the Excel file with the codes as plain text CSV and, on your AppSumo listing setup screen, upload the file to your AppSumo listing.

Step 5: Create a codes database in Google Sheets

Create a Google sheet to store and track code redemptions in your Google Drive. You will need four columns with the following headers - "Code", "Status", "Date" and "Redeemer". Plonk the codes you generated with Voucherify into the first column ("Code"). See below.

Step 5: Build automations

Create an API key in Thrivecart (Settings => API & Webhooks => API Keys), and copy and store the API key somewhere safe.

In your Make account, you must build two scenarios - Email Verifier and Course Fulfiller. To do this, download the blueprints we've pre-built for you: Email Verifier Blueprint and Course Fulfiller Blueprint.

Now create the first scenario - Email verifier - and import the relevant blueprint using the "Import Blueprint" option in the "more" (aka three dots) menu.

Now create the first scenario - Email verifier - and import the relevant blueprint using the "Import Blueprint" option in the "more" (aka three dots) menu.

Your scenario should look like this:

In the Tally module, create a connection with the Email Verifier form.

In your email module, create a connection with your Gmail account. The process requires two clicks if your Gmail account is with Google Workspace (you'll see a standard Google authorization dialogue asking you to authorize the connection between Make and Google). If you're connecting to a free Gmail account, follow these instructions to create the connection.

In the text of the email, replace the placeholder "REPLACEME" with the URL of the second form (Code Acceptor). Then replace "YOURNAME" placeholder with your first name (as below).

Feel free to customize the email text further to your heart's desire. If you don't feel comfortable with HTML, use Rich Text to HTML converter.

Save this scenario and test to see if it works by entering your email into the web form.

Now create the second automation scenario - the Course Fulfiller, and import the relevant blueprint. Your scenario should look like this:

In the Tally module, create another connection - now with the Code Acceptor form.

In both Google Sheets modules, connect with your Google account and locate the Google sheet where you plonked the AppSumo codes.

In the Email module, connect your Gmail account. Then, in the email content, replace the "REPLACEME" placeholder with the URL to the second form (Code Acceptor). Replace "YOURNAME" with your first name.

In the HTTP module (where we're making an API call on Thrivecart to create a new student), do the following edits:

1. In Headers => Item 1 => after the word "Bearer", create a space and paste your Thrivecart API key.

2. In Fields => Item 2 => Value, replace the value with the course ID you're selling on AppSumo.

To find the course ID, navigate to Thrivecart Learn and locate the course you're selling on AppSumo. Click "Edit". Then inspect the URL in your browser. The number after "/edit/" is the course ID.

Step 6: Test everything

Save both scenarios and enable them. Then test them by navigating to the first form, entering your email address correctly, receiving the link to the second form, and entering the code correctly.

We also recommend testing errors - e.g., enter an incorrect code in the second form and see if the automation sends you an email.

Step 7: Provide redemption URL to AppSumo

When the new listing setup workflow in AppSumo asks you for the redemption URL, provide them with the URL of the first form - email verifier.

Conclusion

If you set everything up correctly, you'll be able to sell thousands of courses on AppSumo without generating single-use codes manually. If you're struggling with the implementation, feel free to contact us via the web chat (or in the Thrivecart Facebook group).

Did we help you?

If you found our tutorial helpful, feel free to buy us a coffee to support our work!

Where next?

A paid Discord server could be a great additional revenue stream if you sell a successful course. And if you're looking for more automation tutorials, check our Easy Automations Blog.