Although sales promotion is an important strategy for producing quick, short-term, positive results, it is not a cure for a bad product, poor advertising, or an inferior sales team. After a consumer uses a coupon for the initial purchase of a product, the product must then take over and convince them to become repeat buyers. In addition, sales promotion activities may bring several negative consequences, including "clutter" due to the number of competitive promotions. New approaches are promptly cloned by competitors, as each marketer tries to be more creative, more attention getting, or more effective in attracting the attention of consumers and the trade. Finally, consumers and resellers have learned how to milk the sales promotion game. Consumers may wait to buy certain items knowing that prices will eventually be reduced, for example, while resellers have become experts at negotiating deals and manipulating competitors against one another.

Another increasingly perceived drawback occurs with distributed manufacturers' coupons, such as those inserted in Sunday newspapers. While ideally these are offered as an incentive for new or occasional customers to try the product in hopes of making them regular buyers, research has suggested that most coupons are redeemed by individuals who would normally buy the products anyway. In effect, the manufacturers are subsidizing their existing sales, as only a relatively narrow segment of the consumer market actively uses clipped coupons from the newspapers. To address this problem, manufacturers have found that in-store coupon devices or displays reach a wider cross-section of buyers and are more likely to entice targeted customers (in addition to the regular customers who will likely also use the coupons).