BOGO sale video ad: on-screen terms that match Shopify Buy X get Y

A BOGO video should say exactly what the discount rule does. In Shopify, Buy X get Y has a Customer buys part, a Customer gets part, a value (percentage, amount off each item, or free) and an optional maximum number of uses per order. Write one on-screen line per setting, then burn them in as caption cues. Most important, the Shopify page says the discounted item is never added to the cart automatically, so the video should tell shoppers to add both.

Shopify facts here come from its help page, read 2026-10-03. I did not read Shopify's other discount pages.

Rule to on-screen line

Fill the right-hand column from your actual discount settings, not from the creative brief.

If the value is Free

Calling the second item free brings in the FTC's free-offer guide, 16 CFR 251.1 (read 2026-10-03): terms belong in close conjunction with the offer, and a footnote is not disclosure at the outset. So "50% off" is a plainer claim than "free" when the second item is actually discounted, and the cue should match what checkout does. This is guidance, not legal advice.

Burn the lines

Use video captions with authored cues. One clip, three cues, $0.20 for up to 60 seconds. If you run several variants, such as a code version and an automatic version, change only the cue text and keep the same source clip, which is how the stored Black Friday variants post works.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/video-captions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: bogo-tees-oct-001" \
  -d '{
  "video_url": "https://media.sume.com/artifacts/example/tees.mp4",
  "cues": [
    {
      "text": "Buy 1 tee, get 1 at 50% off",
      "start": 0.5,
      "end": 5
    },
    {
      "text": "Add both to your cart. Discount applies at checkout",
      "start": 5,
      "end": 10
    },
    {
      "text": "Limit 1 per order. Ends Oct 31",
      "start": 10,
      "end": 14
    }
  ]
}'

Before it goes live

Place a test order with the exact items the video shows. Sume does not read your Shopify settings; it prints the words you pass. If the discount rule changes, the burned clip is stale, so re-run with new cues.