Tiers determine the level of benefits customers can enjoy from your Loyalty plan.
In order to upgrade to the next tier, customers must pass a pre-determined milestone. This milestone could be based on spent and the number of purchases they have made over the last year. Every plan has a starting tier, which has no entry requirements, and can have up to 10 tiers in total.
Next to the tier name and icon, you can define the entry requirements in terms of required spend and number of purchases. A minimum required spend is mandatory; a minimum number of purchases is optional.
If you decide to define both, these two requirements must be fulfilled. You can also decide that there is no drop-down scenario for a specific tier (except the first one).
For more information on tiers, see Before you start with Loyalty.
To add new tiers or fixed benefits after the first launch, select Edit next version at Add-ons > Loyalty Management > Plan Settings.
Adding new tiers
You can add additional tiers to your program by navigating to Add-ons > Tiers & Benefits > Tiers and clicking the relevant icon.
Notice that all existing tiers are in the Ready to launch state. This shows that new tiers and changes to existing tiers become live after clicking Launch Plan at Add-ons > Loyalty Management > Plan Settings.
When you create a new tier, it is always added above the highest tier. You cannot create a new tier and insert it between two existing tiers. Likewise, you can only delete the highest tier; all the customers in that tier will be automatically added to the tier below.
You can choose between requiring a yearly check of status points (the exact date defined in Plan Settings) or letting members stay in their tiers indefinitely.
The latter can be useful, for example, to reward customers staying the longest with you or those achieving the highest tier.
By default, you cannot drop out of the first tier.
Points from purchases are one of the key definitions of your plan, since these are the basic benefits of any points program. In the Purchase Benefits screen, you can define the point rewards for general purchases for tier members and extra point rewards for specific product categories.
We recommend you to assign additional points at a different rate on a category and brand level on your product catalog. You can use this to promote a specific category or brand, but you can also assign a different rate of points on full priced items and on discounted items. As long as your catalog structure allows this, you can use this feature in a variety of ways.
Benefit message is the promotion for this benefit that your customer will see in their wallets. You can use a predefined message or enter your own text.
Tier creation FAQ
- Can I use my own icons for the tier badges?
Currently, you can not upload your own icons independently. You can either select icons from our library or request Emarsys support to forward your icons to the Loyalty team so they can upload them for you.
Send us the icons according to the following requirements:
- Provide the icon in SVG and PNG formats
- The icon has to fit a square area of 200*200 px
- The image has to touch the border of the square area
- Why am I not allowed to set requirements for entry into the first tier?
The first tier is the entry level into the Loyalty plan. If you want to set entry requirements before customers can receive benefits associated with the lowest tier, then you must start your redemption plan on tier 2 and allow no redemption for tier 1 members.
- Can I award more than one reward per tier?
Yes.
- How valuable should I make my points?
In our experience, it is best to keep the value of your points low and let customers accumulate them in large numbers. The most recommended definition is 1 point earned per $1/€1 spent. If you run a plan that supports multiple currencies, the flexibility of the system allows you to change both values (X points earned per $/€ spent). You have complete control over the value of points when you define the number of points required to redeem vouchers or benefits.
- Can I define different point values in each tier?
Yes you can, this can be an excellent incentive for the higher tiers.
- How many tiers to create?
You can have up to 10 tiers, depending on your strategy and plan structure. In our experience, if you decide to go for more than 1 tier, 3-5 tiers will provide the best results in most situations.
If you are considering using more than 5 tiers, please do so, but feel free to discuss this with your Success Manager first.
Just remember that more tiers require a greater investment in customer data, as you will need to know more about your customers in order to be able to differentiate between the tiers with more accuracy and relevance.
- Can I delete tiers?
Only before the first launch. While new tiers can be added, existing ones cannot be deleted after being launched. Deleting a tier instantly affects its members and benefits, so if you still want to do that, please contact Emarsys support.
- What is the difference between a single-tier and multi-tier plan?
In most cases, there are two main reasons for a one-tier program.
- Quick start with minimum complex decisions that need to be made
- A plan that is essentially based on redeeming points for awards
Note that at any point, you can add more tiers to your plan and change strategy.
A multi-tier plan increases the gamification element and regularly encourages members to upgrade to the next tier. The most significant decision that should be made in this plan is the entry requirements for each tier.
Adding fixed benefits
These are the annual benefits you offer in advance to your loyalty members. All members of a tier, without any exception, are entitled to enjoy the fixed benefits defined for the specific tier. Each tier can have different fixed benefits.
Our recommendation is to build a hierarchy of benefits based on your tiers. Start from the lowest tier and gradually increase the value of benefits and create an incentive to move forward to the next tier. You can create an unlimited number of fixed benefits.
Adding fixed benefits requires defined tiers, rewards and optionally actions or events depending on the benefit type.
Navigate to Add-ons > Tiers & Benefits and click Create New Benefit.
1. Select your benefit type:
- One-time voucher - This is the standard benefit type, for example, a discount voucher or free shipping on one order voucher. To support this benefit, you will need to set up and activate a benefit voucher pool first.
- Yearly voucher - These vouchers are valid for a calendar year (or 12 months, depending on your tier points expiration settings). You will need to define multi-use vouchers for this kind of benefit.
- Event reward - This can be any kind of benefit that is triggered by an event in the customer's lifecycle, e.g. their birthday. To provide this benefit, you will need to set up an event action first. The rewards for this benefit are defined by the action you have defined.
- Exclusive access - Offer your loyalty members access to areas of your website that other customers cannot see. This allows free access to all defined areas throughout the year.
- Custom benefit - Allows you to enter the description of the benefit. You are the responsible for delivering this reward (e.g. a VIP support line).
2. Name your benefit.
3. Select your applicable tiers and reward pools.
4. Click Create.
The benefits table is shown to loyalty members in the wallet, where they can see the benefits of each tier:
- If you edit an existing benefit you will see the changes immediately, but your customers will only see it in their Wallets after the plan has been launched or re-launched.
- You can create an unlimited number of fixed benefits.
Tier upgrade and downgrade
What happens to a tier fixed benefits when a contact is upgraded or downgraded a tier?
In the following table you can see the behaviour of each fixed benefit before and after redemption.
- Before redemption - from the moment the customer joins the tier and earns the reward to the moment they first click the Redeem Button (to expose a voucher code or unlock an Exclusive Access).
- After redemption - from the moment the customer first clicks the Redeem Button.
| Fixed benefit type | Before redemption | After redemption |
|---|---|---|
One time voucher |
Voucher will be removed |
Voucher will not be removed |
Multi use voucher |
Voucher will be removed |
Voucher will be removed |
Exclusive access |
Exclusive access will be removed |
Exclusive access will be removed |
