This article provides a summary of the implementation steps for setting up a Loyalty account so you can have a general idea of the procedure. This summary allows you to prepare for any requirements of the setup procedure. The Implementation Consultant is ready to help you throughout the process.
Phase 1 - Pre-Implementation Requirements Review
Before you start with the Loyalty implementation, make sure you know what type of loyalty program you want to have:
-
Plan Type
- Redemption plan, Single/Multiple Tier
- Benefit Plan
- Spend Plan
-
Tiers
- Number of tiers
- Starting tier number and tier expansion
- Number of points per currency
-
Rewards
- What type of vouchers
- Exclusive access
Every contact that you want to join to your Loyalty program, needs to be in the Emarsys contactDB. Otherwise, they can’t join the program.
More information about the correct flow of creating a contact in Loyalty can be found in Contacts in Loyalty.
Migration CSV requirements
If you already have a Loyalty program from another vendor and would like to migrate that information to SAP Emarsys Loyalty, please consult your Implementation consultant.
The migration can include:
- The tier of the customer
- Number of Spending points
- Number of Status points
- Voucher codes
Further migration requirements need custom implementation. To estimate the time required for the migration, send the Loyalty team the exact number of contacts to be migrated. For details regarding how migration works and what is needed, see Migrating contacts to Loyalty.
Phase 2 - Integrating Smart Insight sales data and the product catalog
Sales data
We only support CSV/API loads in the Smart Insight CSV/API format. Sales Data Batch Loads in the Standard Sales Data format are not supported yet.
Loyalty accepts Sales data from the following sources:
- Upload of CSV file via API or SFTP to Emarsys
- Emarsys Shopify plugin
Upload of CSV file via API or SFTP
Complete the Smart Insight onboarding before implementing Loyalty.
The following field is mandatory for Loyalty:
s_coupon - For more information, see Setting up Referral.
Include the following fields in the uploaded sales data if you use multiple currencies or markets:
s_marketf_original_price
When f_original_price is being used, you also need to provide s_original_currency and s_market.
s_original_currency
All Loyalty fields need to be set as filterable in Smart Insights Settings > Purchase fields.
For more information, see Preparing your sales data file.
Alternatively, the f_original_price field can be used in conjunction with the Price field to enable two different price fields. f_original_price can be used for Loyalty point allocation while Price can be used for SI analytics. f_original_price can cover the gross price while Price contains the net price for calculation purposes.
Price should contain the sum in the account's main currency equal to the sum in the f_original_price in the purchase currency of the customer.
If you don’t provide f_original_price, then the points accrual is done according to the price field.
The Timestamp field
The following field is also highly recommended:
Timestamp
It is highly recommended to include an exact timestamp in a field for the purchase instead of just a date. For example, use 2020-03-25 13:05:00 instead of 2020-03-25 00:00:00. When using the second option, the purchase will be logged as if it has been made at midnight of the previous day, at the beginning of the current day.
The timestamp field solves the following cases:
- Contacts making a purchase on the day of their joining do not get points for their purchase without a timestamp. The purchase will be logged for the midnight of the previous day, which is before the actual join time. Therefore, no points are attributed to the new member without a timestamp.
- Loyalty actions distributed on the same day as a purchase are not considered fulfilled without a timestamp. The purchase will be logged for the midnight of the previous day, before the distribution of the action.
- Loyalty promotions are defined with start and end timestamps. Purchases may fall outside the designated period if no timestamp is attached to them.
Do not forget to flag the additional columns as Available for filtering under Management > Smart Insight Settings > Purchase Fields to ensure proper uploading.
In case it is not possible to upload sales data retroactively, contact the Loyalty team to discuss correct uploading from the moment Loyalty is implemented.
Refund and cancellations are not supported when sales data is only uploaded through Predict.
Complete the Smart Insight onboarding before implementing Loyalty.
The following fields need to be included in the uploaded sales data to enable multiple languages and currencies. For more information, see Preparing your sales data file.
Shopify Plugin
If you use the Shopify plugin to upload sales data to Emarsys, you don’t need to add any fields.
Sales Data Setup in Loyalty
After successfully uploading sales data into Emarsys, go to Loyalty Configurations > Sales Data Import, and select the configuration you chose for uploading sales data.
Pay special attention to the market name to ensure the upload of each row
Product Catalog
The following fields are required to fully support catalog promotion:
| Field | Required | Type | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Brand |
Yes | String | Calvin Klein | The brand of the item |
Category |
Yes | String |
Shirts | The category of the item. An item can be in more than one category. In case of multiple categories, separate the categories using the pipe delimiter (|). |
The Loyalty add-on is functional without the Brand and the Category fields, but selecting brands, categories or products will not be available by promotion actions.
Assuring data quality
Please check your sales data for any duplication. Check that the same order and item are not sent more than one time (exceptions are refunds or order updates).
Furthermore, make sure that all sales and product data fields are filled in and do not include empty strings or nulls for every order.
These checks will speed up the process, otherwise if corrupt data is found we might need to delete all data in Smart Insight and ask for a reupload.
Phase 3 - Starting with the Loyalty add-on
The first step is the "Activation": filling out the first Loyalty screen. As long as the Loyalty plan is not activated, you can not move to the other Loyalty screens. To learn how to fill out those screens, see Activating your Loyalty account - Loyalty Onboarding.
The next step is to create Tiers & Benefits, Actions and Rewards (Voucher & Exclusive Access).
Phase 4 - Implementing Loyalty on your Website
You can choose to implement either the Loyalty Wallet or the API or both on your website, so your users can see their Loyalty data such as Tier status and the number of points they have.
For more information, see Installing and testing the Loyalty Wallet, Exclusive Access and the API on how to get your Wallet and Loyalty API credentials.
The Wallet and the API will only work after the first plan launch.
The Loyalty API is not the same as the Emarsys API, it uses an API key for authentication. More information on the technical implementation of the API and the Wallet can be found in Installing the Loyalty Wallet.
Loyalty Wallet settings
If you opt to use the Loyalty Wallet, you have the following design options:
- Colour choice for the Wallet (in Hexadecimal)
- Placement of the Wallet in your sites (Left or right)
- Font (Currently, only open fonts can be used)
- Logos
Additionally, you will need to provide the links to the following pages of your shop:
- Login page
- Registration page
- Checkout
- Terms and Conditions of your Loyalty program
Please use the below link to download the Wallet form and send the filled-in document to your Implementation Consultant or Support:
Implementing multiple Loyalty plans
By multiplan setups, each plan must have a separate AppID and Secretkey. Also, the additional PlanID parameter defined during Loyalty onboarding needs to be added to the API calls and the Wallet JavaScript.
Phase 5 - Preparing for a plan launch
Launching the Loyalty plan is the action to bring your plan live. Only from that moment will your Loyalty API and Wallet start working, and only from then on you will be able to Join users into your program.
To launch the plan, you need to configure:
- Default Purchase action
- Default Join action
- Set up Tiers
- Create RDS connection and Template segments. Without this, you can’t create Loyalty segments.
- Create two Automation Center programs to fill in the LoyaltyID into the contact DB. Without this, Loyalty segments and Loyalty triggers will not work
- Smart Insight need to be configured. Sales & Product Data needs to be already being imported to Emarsys.
- (Optional) Sign up to Loyalty notifications, and choose the option to get them by email, to make sure you get alerted when Voucher pools expires or there are any other issues arise. For more information, see The Notification Center.
When all this is done, the Launch button will be enabled, and you can launch your plan under Loyalty Management > Update & Launch.
Phase 6 - Testing
It is recommended to test your Loyalty account in a dedicated testing environment. Alternatively, start tests by enabling Loyalty for specific contacts in your website. To successfully limit the Loyalty add-on to the relevant users, these users must visit the website with the integrated Wallet.
Check the following:
- Wallet design and wording
- Wallet placement and visibility
- Do the correct customers see the Wallet?
- Links in the Wallet are correctly working
- Fixed benefits and rewards are correctly shown for members
- Join rewards are correctly attributed
- Purchase action is working
- If you make a purchase, you get rewarded with points
Phase 7 - Importing data
Go to Add-Ons → Loyalty Configurations, and set up your Sales and Product Data Import for Loyalty and activate it.
Once activated, Loyalty will import the data. You can check the upload process under the Data load tab. For more information, see Loyalty Data Import.
Phase 8 - Going live
Before activating the plan in the live environment, if you want to migrate your users from an old Loyalty plan to SAP Emarsys Loyalty, that needs to be done now. More info about migration can be found in Migrating contact information to Loyalty.