In the marketing world there are certain terms that are tossed around so casually that sometimes we forget just how valuable they can really be.

One such phrase is “One-Click Upsell”.

What I’m talking about here is giving someone who has just purchased from you the opportunity to add another product to their order with just one click.

It’s a marketing tactic that has been around for a long time, in large part because of how successful it can be.

This is because you’re interacting with someone who has literally just made a purchase from you.

If the last thing they did was click “buy”, then you’ve already done the job of convincing them that what you have to offer is valuable, and you’ve already built the trust needed for them to pull out their credit card and decide to become a customer.

So this offer is positioned at the absolute optimal time for them to say “Sure, why not” to one more item.

Now, a lot of the success of the one-click upsell is dependent on what you’re offering, the positioning, the price point, etc; but I wanted to use this post to document the steps involved in executing it with Infusionsoft.

Note: There are several third party tools that allow you to run one-click upsells in their own ways (like PlusThis), this blog post talks through how to do it natively – but if you read the following steps and are looking for something a little more flexible – then take a look the third party solutions for this.

Here’s a demo of the PlusThis tactic.

Step 1:

Create a payment plan. Payment plans are a way for you to allow your customers to divide an order total into multiple payments, but in this case we’re going to need the payment plan later in this process.
Finance Charge: $0
Number Payments: 1
Days Between Payments: 30 (doesn’t matter)
Days until start: 0
Merchant Account: Select your preferred merchant account

Step 2:

Create an action set. This is where the order will be created, and is one of the few reasons that action sets aren’t totally obsolete. Choose “Create an order” as the action for this action set. Title the action set “Create Order – ABC” where ABC is the name of the product you’re upselling. Then click the blue link that says “Save this Action”, which is highlighted below.

Snapshot of an Action Set within Infusionsoft

This should reveal some new options. Add the product you’re upselling, and select the payment plan you created in Step 1. Check the appropriate boxes, but ensure that “autocharge this order” is selected. Save the action set.

Upsell CampaignStep 3:

Open the campaign builder. Add a goal, it should be either a web form, or preferably a landing page. This is going to be the page presenting the upsell after the customer has made their initial purchase. Title the goal “ABC Upsell”. Then add a sequence after the goal. You can title this sequence “ABC Upsell – create order”

Step 4:

Configure the landing page to thank them for their first purchase, and to present and position the upsell offer. The only requirement is that this page needs to have a hidden field for email address. You should lay out the benefits of the upsell, not only why it is valuable, but why it is valuable right now. Feel free to reference the product that they have just purchased. Before you finish, change the submit button to say “Buy Now”, and make sure that it is abundantly clear that by clicking the “Buy Now” button, their credit card will be charged, again. You may want to also include a link somewhere on this page that says “No Thanks” or “Return to Website”.

Configure the thank you page of the landing page. Remember that if they make it to that page, they’ve purchased your original offer, as well as your upsell offer.

Switch over to the code tab for the landing page, and copy the hosted URL.

Step 5:

Configure the sequence following the landing page. The only requirement for configuring this sequence is that you include the action set you created in step 2. Here’s a brief article on adding action sets to sequences. But you may also choose to tag them, or send a follow up email.

Step 6:

Ensure that all elements are marked as ready, then publish the campaign.

One Click Upsell module screenshotStep 7:

Head to the ecommerce section, and create an order form. Add the original product you’d like to sell to the order form, and then set the thank you page to the URL of the landing page you copied in step 4. Make sure you check the box that says “Pass contact’s information to the Thank You Page”. Once you’ve done this, grab the order form URL from the links tab and you’re ready to start promoting.


So that’s it. Seven steps later you’ve got yourself an upsell. That wasn’t so bad, right?

There are a few things worth noting about this process:
A. The action set may not create the order immediately. I believe they run in batches every 6 hours or so, so the order might not process right away.
B. Right now the landing pages aren’t natively mobile responsive. So, if they place their original order on their phone, the landing page presenting the upsell may not be optimized for their mobile device.
C. This process is best for order forms, because you know what they are buying, and therefore can present an upsell that makes sense based on their first purchase.
EDITED: D. This requires a Credit Card on file in order to process the charge. So, if the initial order is created via PayPal, their billing info won’t be stored in Infusionsoft and therefore can’t be used to process the order.

One-click upsells can be a great way to capitalize on an important interaction, provide extra value, and drive additional sales. If you have questions about this process or success stories of your own to share, please feel free to comment below.

Or, if you want to see the whole set-up process in less than 13 minutes, check it out here:

PlusThis Method for One-Click Upsells

I mentioned above that PlusThis offers some additional flexibility for your upsells, so I wanted to demo how their tool handles this process: