A free gift is easy to promise and awkward to deliver. The gift has to enter the cart itself, at
Native Shopify discounts reduce the price of something already in the cart — they do not add a gift, which is why this mechanic usually needs an app or Functions.
The gift must not be independently orderable, or you will ship free products to people who bought nothing.
Inventory is the most common failure: the gift is consumed by demand for other products, at a rate nobody forecast.
Decide in advance what happens when the cart drops below the threshold after qualifying, because shoppers do remove items.
Not straightforwardly. Native discounts reduce the price of items already in the cart; they do not insert a product.
The full guide has the formats, the deadlines and the worked examples.