In the following article, you can read about setting up a Points & Redemption plan. After you selected your plan type and finished with your Account settings, continue with the following:
Languages & currency
If your customers belong to different markets with different languages and currencies, each of them can receive the Loyalty treatment in their own language and currency.
This step is divided into the following parts:
- Language - Select primary and additional languages if needed.
- Store url - You can define the store URL that supports the selected language. This will automatically preset these URLs in all the required settings fields.
- Currency - Select currency and additional currencies if needed.
- Market - Select your primary market (e.g., country or region) and your additional markets if needed. This is an optional free text field that will allow you to target Loyalty offers by selecting the relevant market. For example, your customers are located in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, but you are interested in offering a voucher for points only to the German market. Markets can also distinguish between different websites in the same country or different regions.
The defined primaries will be the default shown on your Loyalty account and for customers without language and currency association.
Plan settings
Here, you can define the basic rules of your plan, that will affect all members regardless of their Loyalty status.
The plan settings are changeable after launch (except for "Yearly calculation for tiers"), but we do not recommend doing so if it is not really required. Any such change will require you to communicate this to your customers.
- Plan name - You can change your plan name set earlier after your first launch here.
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Points name - Points are the Loyalty currency in your plan. You can call them "points" or anything that resonates with your brand like "stars" or "coins". Customers see the points name in their Loyalty offers, rewards and fixed benefits. You are required to define the name of the points in the singular and plural.
Defining a name for your points is not applicable for a Spend & Benefit plan.
Rewards allocation delay
When setting your reward allocation delay, align it with your return policy and shipment time. Additionally, check your actual return times.
- You can delay the rewards only for purchases (purchases & promotions actions), but not for engagement actions.
- Please note that any refund or point cancellation after the configured period has to be done manually by you via the Member Profiles.
Calculation Settings
Emarsys Support has to be notified about tier changes, so they request a tier recalculation.
When changing calculation settings, the new point allocation is only valid from the moment of change, and only for new points, not for current pending points.
Calculation settings includes:
- Tier calculation
- Tier expiration
- Status point expiration
- Points to spend expiration
(You can change the expiration period, but its only valid for newly accumulated points.)
Tier calculations
- The Tier expiration option is not relevant if the tiers are not calculated.
- In the tier settings you can set a different tier expiration that will override this setting.
For example, Bronze and Silver will be calculated once a year while Gold will be calculated once every two years. - Tier expiration vs reward allocation delay:
A member buys 28 days before the downgrade. The points allocation delay is 30 days.
What happens?
The member will be downgraded, but will also get the points 2 days after the downgrade. The member will stay in the lower tier, though.
- Tier expiration can be changed, and its applied to all Loyalty contacts immediately. If a user was in a particular tier for 11 months and you change the expiration from 12 to 24 months, then this user will stay in this tier for 13 more months (if not upgraded).
The following cannot be edited after the first launch:
- Calculation for tiers,
- Tiers expiration
To do so, contact Emarsys Support.
Use case - Yearly tier calculation on the 31st of December
The calculation for tiers is done on December 31st every year. Status points expire and are reset on the day of calculation for tiers:
Use case - Tier calculation 12 months after the date of joining
The calculation for tiers is done 12 months from the date of joining (or upgrading a tier). The status points expire 12 months from the day they are earned:
Status point calculations
The following cannot be edited after the first launch:
- Status points expiration
- Status points validity
To do so, contact Emarsys Support.
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Status points expiration - Select when the Status points expire and reset:
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Status points expire and are reset on the day of calculation for tiers - Once the points are calculated they are reset, but the customers maintain their tier status at least until the next calculation.
This option is not relevant if the tiers are not calculated. - Status points expire and are reset every [X months] from the moment they are earned - At the time of calculation for tiers, only the valid points for that day are calculated. Based on this calculation customers maintain their status or drop out to a lower tier.
- The Status points are not expired or reset - This option is relevant only if the tiers are not calculated.
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Status points expire and are reset on the day of calculation for tiers - Once the points are calculated they are reset, but the customers maintain their tier status at least until the next calculation.
- Status points validity - If the second option is selected, define the validity of status points from the day they are earned.
Activate the Loyalty tactic Point about to expire, and make sure you let the members know when they have points which are about to expire.
When you later decide to switch to a redemption plan, there will be a new setting opening up: Historical Balance points. For more information, see Switching between plans.
Defining membership settings
After specifying the general Plan Settings, consider your Membership settings.
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New members distribution- Select how your contacts will be distributed among tiers once they join your Loyalty plan.
- Add new members to the bottom tier - Ideal option to start a new Loyalty plan from scratch with an equal starting line for all members.
- Add new members to a tier according to their historical spend in a defined calculation period - Ideal option to incentivize new members who were already loyal before they joined the program.
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Points distribution- Select how points will be distributed among new members once they join your Loyalty plan.
- Add Status points - Select how the new members should be rewarded with Status points, according to their historical spend in the selected calculation period.
- Add Balance points - Select how the new members should be rewarded with Points to spend, according to their historical spend in the selected calculation period.
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Calculation period- Define how much historical data you want to use to calculate contacts' and points distribution. The calculation is performed according to the defined period from the moment a new member joins the Loyalty.
- From the beginning of the current calendar year
- By a predefined period - Define the timeframe to reward points for historical purchases.
- If you select Add new members to the bottom tier, the option of Add Status points will be disabled, but you can still decide to give balance points.
- If you select Add new members to a tier according to their historical spend, but you do not select Add Status points in addition, then the system will insert members to a tier according to their historical spend, but will not add any Status points to their account.
Activating your Loyalty account
Now, you are ready to activate your account and configure the rest of your settings such as customer actions, benefits and rewards.
Switching between plans
With Historical Balance points, you can select whether to award historical balance points accumulated by existing members, based on their Loyalty activity from the moment they joined the plan. This is a one-time process that is being performed once you re-launch your plan.
- Reward with Balance points - The ideal option to immediately incentivize members to redeem points for rewards.
- Do not reward with Balance points - Accumulation of balance points starts from scratch and customers will have to earn new points for redemption.
