Turning customers into fans of your brand is the final and most important phase of the customer journey. A loyalty program is one of the best ways to increase the number of your brand fans. Moreover, customer retention is one of the most important goals for a business, and an ecommerce loyalty program is the best tool for this.
A loyalty program (also known as a rewards program) is one of the best ways to keep customers in your business and increase their lifetime value. How do you choose one for your business? In this post, we’ll talk about that and provide you with some of the best options and detailed information about them.
What is an Ecommerce Loyalty Program?
A loyalty program for ecommerce is a system designed to enhance and deepen the customer experience by creating an engaging community around your brand. Rewards programs are mostly distinguished by the schemes they use. Such schemes can be: level-ups, earning points, earning achievements, etc.
Some programs may combine different schemes. The main idea is to gamify the customer experience in a clear, entertaining, and rewarding way to increase engagement and repeat purchases.
Who Needs a Loyalty Program for Ecommerce?
Implementing a loyalty program will bring many bonuses to any ecommerce business, but that doesn’t mean everyone should implement it. Below, we will present the conditions under which loyalty will save the day and bring the most benefits.
- Your store has a stable number of purchases, starting at 20 per month.
- Customers in your industry are sensitive to changes in prices or offers.
- There are many competitors in your market who are doing everything to outshine you, significantly increasing the competition.
If your business fits at least one of these points, a loyalty program is the best solution for you. Don’t hesitate and start implementing it right now, especially for you, we will discuss all types of loyalty programs and which business they are best suited for.
Varieties of Ecommerce Loyalty Programs
Different types of loyalty programs have been created to meet the different needs of ecommerce enterprises, and below we will name the main ones and describe them.
Tiered Programs
The essence of tiering is that to reach a higher level, a customer must make more purchases. However, his reward will be not only in achieving a certain goal, but also in the exclusives provided by certain levels, and the higher the level, the more loyalty the customer shows and the more exclusives he receives, which as a result increases his lifetime value.
Suitable for: A tiered program is best suited for companies with a low frequency of purchases, as it will give customers an incentive to buy to reach a higher level.
Points-based Programs
For accumulating points, mainly by purchasing branded goods, a customer can receive pleasant bonuses such as discounts, gifts, or exclusive products. This will encourage customers to buy the products they need from you. This type is the simplest ecommerce loyalty rewards program as a way to extend the customer’s lifetime value.
Suitable for: Such a program is suitable for increasing the value of purchases rather than the frequency. This happens due to the system’s feature where the larger the amount of goods, the more points you can get, which will be a significant incentive for your subscribers.
Value-based Programs
Values-based loyalty programs are focused on building deeper connections with your customers by rewarding actions that align with your brand values, such as social responsibility, sustainability, or participation in the community.
Suitable for: A value program is suitable for reducing the extra spend on customer acquisition. Creating such an emotional connection with customers reduces their outflow, which in turn allows you to avoid spending on external companies aimed at increasing engagement.
Subscription Programs
Subscription programs are becoming more and more popular by the day due to the spread of services provided for the purchase of subscriptions. The reward of these programs is in the form of bonuses provided for the purchase of subscriptions. In other words, if a client buys a subscription to certain products, they receive certain bonuses for this, as opposed to a one-time purchase.
Suitable for: A loyalty subscription program is best suited for ecommerce businesses with a high purchase frequency rate, and as benefits will bring recurring revenue and reduced customer churn.
Paid Programs
Another example of a loyalty program is a paid program. Their essence lies in the fact that customers receive bonuses and special opportunities for purchasing a certain membership. This type reminds us a bit of a subscription program. This method allows you to get even closer to loyal customers and provide more opportunities for other customers.
Suitable for: It is most often used by companies that want to create more exclusivity in sales. It will also help to create a separate segment of customers who are more loyal, or in other words, more qualitative.
Coalition Programs
The name of this program speaks for itself, its essence is to create a coalition of several brands to create a joint mutually beneficial reward program. This means that the client will receive bonuses from more than one company, which will encourage him to visit the company that additionally participates in the program.
Suitable for: Among other benefits, this program will bring new customers to the company. It is suitable for companies that want to increase their customer base. It works like a mutual exchange of customers between companies.
Hybrid Programs
What could be better than a loyalty program? That’s right, two combined loyalty programs. By combining them, you can take the best of each and get twice as many benefits. As an example, in addition to offering points for purchases, you can also give points for reaching levels or purchasing subscriptions.
Suitable for: This program can be suitable for any business, depending on which programs you combine. However, managing multiple programs at the same time is much more difficult and requires a careful approach. You’ll need to be careful to avoid making the rules for rewards too complicated, so you don’t discourage or confuse customers.
Now that you know about these types of programs, you can choose the one that suits your target audience, industry, and goals to create the best experience for your customers.
Benefits Provided by Ecommerce Loyalty Programs
Before choosing the most suitable rewards program, you need to know why it is worth it. Increasing the customer’s lifetime value is of course the most important thing and the primary goal of an effective program. Here’s a quick fact about why it’s important:
Quick Fact: Loyal (returning) customers tend to spend on average 67% more than new customers, proved by Harward’s review.
If increasing the number of repeat customer purchases is not the most important thing for you, we provide you with all the benefits that can be obtained for cooperating with the best ecommerce loyalty programs.
- Increase customer retention rates.
This is the main benefit of ecommerce loyalty programs. They are aimed at helping you retain existing and new customers who buy only once and forget about you, and increase the number of loyal customers by getting them to buy more and more frequently, thereby increasing profitability, since you can save money on attracting customers.
- Raising your overall sales amount.
The longer your customers stay with you, the more purchases they make, maybe not big ones, but still. Loyalty platforms do this through certain reward campaigns for repeat purchases, and the more purchases customers make the better rewards they get, which is actually a very incentive strategy. The largest revenue share falls on the season events, and the loyalty program helps to cope with such customer behavior and also increases AOV (average order value).
- Profiling of customers.
With customized online rewards programs, you can collect more complete and various customer data for any purpose of your marketing. This way you can achieve options such as content personalization, better advertising targeting, creating future sales plans, and improved segmentation. This way, you will gather a separate segment of the loyal audience who prefer the brand because of its uniqueness and superiority, not just because of discounts.
- Enhance the customer journey.
Setting up engaging gamifications like these will not only attract customers to make new purchases but also make their overall experience with you more enjoyable by making new purchases more convenient and your marketing more thoughtful.
- Creating loyal communities.
Your rewards program will create customer clubs of interest around your brand. Customers will join your programs, which in turn will create a commune with a common interest in your products, making customers advocates for your brand.
- Increase brand recognition and awareness.
Having received good rewards, your customers will begin to recommend your business to their friends, not to mention that some reward programs offer bonuses for bringing customers’ friends to buy.
6 Best Ecommerce Loyalty Programs
To give you a better understanding of how loyalty programs look and work and to give you a general idea, we’ve selected 6 best examples of loyalty programs. Focusing on them, you can see what really works and take the best time-tested strategies from them.
MoxieLash Insider
A good example of a value-based loyalty program. The MoxieLash Insider program is a great example of a retail brand using a rewards program. They understand the value of a community of supporters and place a strong emphasis on social media, which is best suited to selling a visual product. Thus, they offer ways to earn points not only for purchases but also for social media activity and app downloads.
“Beauty Insider” by Sephora
Sephora’s Beauty Insider program is one of the most well-known and best loyalty programs that uses points for rewards. The rewards for accumulated points are trial versions of some products, which in our opinion are not very attractive, but they also offer services that bring a unique experience.
The practice that sets them apart from others and makes them one of the best is the constant transformation and customization of rewards, such flexibility allows them to adjust to the changing moods of customers. However, in fact, they are not just a points program, but a hybrid program. Their program is also complemented by a system of levels, including “Insider”, “ VIP” and “Rouge”. Their program has become so popular that people create entire discussions about the best ways to use their points.
Lego Insiders
Lego is known for its community, which is why customers are so fond of it. Their Lego Insiders program rewards customers not only for purchases but also for participating in the customer community. This type of loyalty has brought them many benefits and is incredibly valuable to the brand at the moment. Just like Sephora, LEGO Insiders also has a lot of Reddit discussion around it.
Lively
The Lively brand values its loyal customers very much and has done everything it can to make them feel like special VIPs. To do this, they collect some simple information, such as customers’ birthdays, to make personalized gifts on these days. They also give rewards in the form of points for referring friends and being active on their social networks.
Instructions on how their program works are posted on the program’s website to make everything clear and comfortable for users. Registration also comes with an attractive discount of approximately $10.
According to the metrics used to measure the success of the program, their performance increased by almost one-third.
Pulse Boutique
Active users and a large number of reviews are important to Pulse Boutique. That’s why they created a loyalty program aimed at this called Pulse Perks. Reviews, customer engagement, and the content they create are very important for retailers. That’s why they create loyalty programs not only to reward customers but also to increase engagement and social media sharing.
Such programs work well for fashion companies because fashion is mostly visual content, which is easy to share so that you can increase your presence in the media.
REI “Co-op Membership”
A good strategy for REI’s Co-op Membership program is to provide cashback based on the company’s profit. Among the benefits they provide are classic discounts and free shipping.
It is easier for such companies to establish a connection with customers because based on the purchase, they can learn a lot of information about the customer, which will allow them to get closer to them in the future. This is precisely because this company sells products that are very important to customers because they are used for hobbies.
6 Platforms for the Best Ecommerce Loyalty Programs
There are probably dozens of different applications for both small businesses and large enterprises. We’re going to talk about just 6 that are most commonly used by our clients and in the ecommerce industry in general. Our goal in this article is to give you an honest opinion about each tool, as well as their pros and cons.
Here’s a list of the most popular loyalty program platforms for brands that sell directly to consumers. If you need help choosing the right software for your business, schedule a free consultation and our team will gladly advise you on the best software for you.
The first thing you need to check is whether the loyalty app integrates with your ecommerce platform. If it doesn’t, you can immediately eliminate this tool. You shouldn’t do a custom integration, which is expensive, takes more time, and may not work correctly. Further, we will also list the integrations with which these programs interact, and no less important information, the pricing policy of these providers.
Pro tip: Since some tools offer multiple products and bulk discounts, if you use Yotpo, for example, not only for loyalty but also for reviews and emails, they will give you a better price.
Now we will move on to a more detailed, extensive review of each ecommerce loyalty rewards program tool separately, for you to learn all their features from a broader perspective.
Loyalty Lion
Founded: 2012
LoyaltyLion is known for its easy setup, making it simple for businesses to integrate and manage loyalty programs. The platform offers extensive customization, allowing businesses to tailor ecommerce loyalty to their brand and customers. However, its many features might feel overwhelming for those new to loyalty tools. LoyaltyLion builds an integrated, customized, and on-brand loyalty program fast.
Provide review app: ❌
Support
All plans receive basic live and email chat support, and onboarding support from either a Manager or Senior Manager, depending on your plan. They will also provide initial strategy and setup advice for all plans. Brands on the Advanced and Plus plans receive pre-launch support and access to a Customer Success Manager (CSM). On the Advanced plan, you’ll receive an Account Manager at renewal and access to business reviews bi-annually.
Revenue Attribution
Repeat purchases of a member are attributed to LoyaltyLion because the customer’s purchasing behavior was directly influenced by his ability to earn and redeem points in the program, as evidenced by his continued participation and engagement in the program.
Key Features
- The first loyalty platform to integrate with Shopify and is 100% focused on loyalty.
- Rated #1 on G2Advanced analytics.
- Reward on-site and off-site actions with points and incentives, and flexible VIP tiers with exclusive perks.
- Offers a fully embedded loyalty experience rather than relying on a pop-up widget, making it feel like a natural part of your store.
- Platform segments customers into groups like Loyal, At Risk, and Win Back, allowing you to personalize communications.
- Lets your customers earn and redeem rewards online and in person.
Yotpo
Founded: 2011
Yotpo’s advanced modules allow to create highly customizable rewards pages without any technical expertise required. Merchants can easily make changes to fonts, colors, copy, images, layouts, and more—entirely out-of-the-box.
For Yotpo merchants on their annual plan, they offer a dedicated Implementation Manager to ensure a seamless onboarding experience. Your Implementation Manager will own and manage the project, and ensure nothing falls through the cracks. For those on self-service plans, our 24/7 customer support team is always available to assist with any questions or guidance needed.
Provide review app: ✅
Pro tip: Yotpo is a bigger company than the others and they have the whole suite of products they can offer. If you plan to use Yotpo for other services, their prices would be compatible.
Support
In the Pro plan customers get access to Live chat, helpdesk integration, and community board and on the Premium plan, Yotpo provides Customer Onboarding Manager and Customer Success Manager. Unlike competitors with limited resources and a broad, impersonal approach to client interaction, Yotpo’s Customer Success team is made up of over 100 dedicated professionals. Their team provides strategic, hands-on support, engaging with clients to understand their goals and ensure sustained success.
Revenue Attribution
Yotpo provides a conservative approach to revenue attribution, focusing on revenue generated only from customers who redeem points, in other words, active loyalty members engaging with the program in a way that’s driving incremental revenue. This ensures the most accurate view of program performance and aligns with best practices in the industry.
Key Features
- 20+ out-of-the-box earning rules, plus endless possibilities with custom campaigns
- Advanced segmentation that can be applied to specific earning rules directly in the UX
- Various points expiration options to protect your brand, as well as drive RPR
- Shopify new customer accounts support
- Advanced Klaviyo integration
- Onsite Modules
Smile.io
Founded: 2010
Smile has a guided, no-code-required walkthrough to help merchants configure and launch a rewards program using loyalty best practices. From there they can add additional customizations and make use of all their plan’s features. Of course, if they have any questions, the chat widget (and fast access to help articles) are just a click away.
Merchants on Shopify who are on Smile’s Growth or Plus plan have access to the Loyalty Landing Page feature. With it, they can create a search engine-optimized landing page in the Shopify theme editor, with drag-and-drop page elements they can use to explain and showcase their program to customers.
Provide review app: ❌
Support
Smile has 24/7 live chat support, so merchants of all sizes, anywhere in the world, can get help with any questions they have. They also have an incredibly detailed help center (help.smile.io) with over 200 articles to help walk merchants through commonly asked questions at their own pace.
Revenue Attribution
In the Analytics section of the Smile admin, they show “Orders Influenced” and “Sales Influenced.” These attribution numbers are only claiming influence on orders that use a Smile-generated discount code on the order. That could come from points that are redeemed for a code or from referral orders, but Smile doesn’t claim attribution on any orders unless one of our discount codes is attached to it.
Key Features
- On-site rewards content (Inject dynamic loyalty info on landing pages, PDPs, account page, and more)
- Over 25 specialized loyalty reports and benchmarks
- Automated bonus points campaigns
- Quick to launch and effortless to manage: launch a no-code loyalty program in literally minutes
- Built for Shopify and Shopify Plus Certified — Shopify certified for speed, security, and usability for the fastest-growing brands
Stamped
Founded: 2016
Stamped merchants who are on the Pro plan or higher will receive a Customer Success Manager to help advise merchants on their overall strategy and best practices to get the most out of the platform. The technical support manager will assist with implementing your program.
The steps include officially purchasing your Stamped Loyalty Program and setting up a call to kick off onboarding at their convenience. For lower plans, they support planning, implementation, onboarding, and optimization with technical support available via email 24/7.
With Stamped you can take complete control of your loyalty landing page with custom CSS. Incorporate your logos, fonts, colors, and graphics to create a perfectly personalized program that matches your brand’s look and feel.
Provide review app: ✅
Support
With Stamped.io’s customer service, you can reach their customer support team through both live chat and email 24/7. Hands-on support is only available on Enterprise plans.
Revenue Attribution
Stamped Analytics Dashboard provides information on the total revenue earned and the revenue sources. It allows to keep track of which widgets/features help the store generate additional revenue.
Key Features
- Expanded points and earning rules.
- Custom icons to keep brand storefront experience on-brand.
- Advanced customer profiles and data sync.
- Advanced analytics (you can see retention trends, LTV metrics, and granular retention campaign performance).
Influence.io
Founded: 2022
Influence has a fast, intuitive, and streamlined onboarding process through a user-friendly interface. Personalized setup assistance, including step-by-step guides and expert best practices. They also provide seamless migration from another platform with advanced technical support.
With Influence.io you can create customizable, mobile-optimized loyalty landing pages tailored to your brand. Ensure SEO-friendly pages that integrate effortlessly with your ecommerce platform.
Provide review app: ✅
Support
Influence.io has 24/7 support via email and live chat. They also have a robust knowledge base and detailed documentation to guide their customers’ journey.
Enterprise-level clients benefit from dedicated account managers for personalized assistance.
Revenue Attribution
Influence.io’s comprehensive analytics allows you to measure the ROI of your loyalty program. Customers can track revenue from loyalty campaigns and attribute specific customer actions to program initiatives like referrals and repeat purchases.
Key Features
- Affiliate & Influencer Management. Centralized platform to manage partnerships, campaigns, and payouts for influencers and affiliates.
- Promo Code & Link Tracking. Generate unique discount codes and affiliate links for easy attribution. Boost conversion rates with influencer-specific codes that are trackable within Shopify.
- Real-Time Analytics.
- Automated Payouts. Streamlined payout processes with multiple payment options, reducing administrative burden.
- Influencer Discovery Tool. AI-driven tool to find influencers that align with your brand and audience.
- Campaign Customization. Create tailored affiliate campaigns, including tiered commission structures for VIP partners or high-performing affiliates.
- Multi-Channel Support. Track affiliate and influencer impact across platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, while syncing results to Shopify.
- White-Label Portal.
Bubblehouse
Founded: 2019
Bubblehouse offers white-glove onboarding services with dedicated onboarding managers for all their merchants. From custom-designed landing pages and strategic consulting to program configuration and more, these services are all handled by Bubblehouse in collaboration with the merchants’ teams.
A dedicated solution & launch engineering team can be assigned to each merchant as well to support custom feature or design requests. Bubblehouse merchants have the option to join their in-house UI/UX team to custom design their loyalty landing page, or Bubblehouse can also handle the process entirely.
Provide review app: ❌
Support
Bubblehouse’s customer support team is highly responsive, with response time within 3 hours on weekdays and 6 hours on weekends. Post-launch strategy & optimization with custom analytics reporting are also available at the merchants’ preferred cadence (typically on a quarterly basis).
Revenue Attribution
Bubblehouse’s advanced analytics dashboard provides merchants with in-depth insights into how their customers interact with loyalty programs, segmented by customer cohorts, shop level, and reward levels. Additionally, Bubblehouse offers custom analytics reports on attribution and program performance, tailored to each merchant’s preferred cadence—typically quarterly—to ensure they maximize the value of their loyalty programs.
Key Features
- 30+ out-of-the-box points campaigns.
- 4 points redemption methods.
- 5 criteria for upgrading the VIP tier. Rewards VIP customers with exclusive perks to encourage ongoing spending.
- 180+ achievements campaign combinations.
- Gamification of loyalty experience. Brands can create unique and personalized loyalty challenges to incentivize specific actions.
- Voting and Quizeez. These features enhance the shopping experience, help gather valuable insights for brand customers, and provide future marketing opportunities.
- Subscription Rewards. Unique rewards on subscription purchases.
How To Choose a Loyalty Program for Ecommerce
Choosing the right option among all these ecommerce rewards programs is a painstaking process. Your success depends on how well you choose the right program for you, including how much your retention rate, sales, and customer lifetime value will increase. The following key factors should be considered when comparing these programs:
- The size of your business
You need to choose a program that will match the scale of your business. Loyalty programs for ecommerce should be able to fully handle the volume of a large business and be able to unlock the full potential of a small business. Small businesses will be able to benefit from simple, reliable, and effective programs. Large businesses, on the other hand, will need revolutionary solutions to keep up with their growing customer base.
- Estimated budget
Calculate how much you are willing to spend on a particular rewards program to enable all the features and metrics you need. Choose the one that meets your revenue expectations among all the options.
- Seamless integration
You need to choose the right program that integrates seamlessly into your technology system and brings you and your customers enough convenience. Pay attention to whether the ecommerce loyalty program can integrate with your existing POS and CRM. Properly integrated loyalty will help you conveniently track customer behavior, and set up personalization and segmentation.
- Adapting functions
Some programs offer a whole range of functions, some only limited but no less effective, think about what functions you need to customize such integration to the needs and requirements of your business and its customers.
Planning Reward Structure for Ecommerce Loyalty Programs
To create a loyalty program, you need to have a clear plan for the reward structure. You need to decide how you will create tangible benefits for customers to make the program successful. Here are the steps you can follow to create an effective plan.
- Clearly define the goals you want to achieve with your rewards program. Choose what you need: to increase sales, increase the customer base, or both.
- When creating a program, be guided by information from your customer base. Data analysis will help you have a better idea of what should be in your program. If there is a lack of data, implement additional surveys among customers to understand them better.
- If you choose a points program, determine in advance the monetary value of these points and how they will be transformed into rewards. First of all, it is important to maintain a balance between attractive rewards that will definitely be of interest to your customers and maintaining the profitability of your company.
- Choose rewards for customers. To do this, use the points mentioned earlier. Based on data and research, find out which reward will be the most attractive, and based on the evaluation of the point system and the analysis of incentives and profitability, choose which reward will be suitable and commercially viable.
- Finally, choose the best way for your customers to earn points or bonuses. The best way will be the way that will primarily fit the first point, that is, your goals. Thoughtful goals will tell you what action or behavior you need from your customers to achieve them.
Requirements of Successful Ecommerce Loyalty Programs
Before building your own ecommerce loyalty program, you should analyze and learn the basic requirements of every successful and effective rewards program. If your program prototype includes all the features we have listed below, it will definitely be successful and bring you many benefits and profits.
- Clear game rules
People can be stressed and anxious when shopping online and in general, avoid raising their stress levels with complicated rewards rules that are hard to understand. Keep the rewards process short and simple, with a few steps to keep things easy for customers and provide them with an enjoyable journey that motivates them to make more purchases. To do this, you can create a special membership page.
- Integrated appearance and functions
It is important that the rewards program does not stand out and does not differ from your online store. Everything should be similar, from the appearance, visuals, and descriptions to the interaction buttons and more. This is necessary to avoid confusing users and to ensure that they continue their journey with you.
- Mobile adaptation
Ecommerce is constantly changing, adapting, and increasing purchase rates on mobile devices. Ensure your rewards program is tailored to mobile users by understanding their behavior. Don’t forget that they are more likely to choose a mobile app over a website.
- A place of comfort
Make your rewards program more like a community of shared interests. Make it more than just a place to compete for rewards, but also a place to have fun with entertaining stories and experiences related to your brand.
- Valuable rewards
It’s clear that the value of the reward shouldn’t be at your expense, but at the same time, it should be attractive enough for customers to be willing to spend their precious time, which is so important to you, to learn the rules and the concept of your loyalty program. Once they are interested in it, the reward should be enough to make them participate.
- Personalization
The loyalty program should feel personal enough for the customer. Collect additional customer data, and do whatever it takes to make the program feel as personalized as possible.
- Flexibility
The approach to customers should be flexible and give them many ways. Not all customers will want to fulfill certain requirements that you demand for rewards. Introduce different ways to achieve rewards to attract more customers to your loyalty program.
How to Measure the Success of the Ecommerce Loyalty
Of course, once you’ve implemented a loyalty program, you’ll want to measure how successful it is and in what areas it is most successful. Knowing these indicators, you will know how to develop it further, where to push it, and what is not working. We provide you with key metrics that will show you how your program has worked.
- Customer retention rate
If your customers are coming back for more and more purchases, then your program is really working. This is the main indicator by which you can judge the success of the program. It’s easy to measure if you have an organized customer base.
- AOV (average order value)
Most types of loyalty programs increase not only the frequency of purchases but also their average value. Keep an eye on this metric to see if your program is encouraging customers to climb the rewards ladder and increase their participation in the program.
- CLV (customer lifetime value)
CLV helps you understand how much a customer is worth over the entire time they shop with you. Members of your loyalty program should have a higher CLV than non-members.
- Engagement beyond transactions
Loyalty increases not only your profitability but also customer engagement. Keep an eye on customer engagement outside of the program, such as reviews or social media.
Final Thoughts
Now you know how useful and entertaining ecommerce rewards programs can be. Among their advantages are many ecommerce benefits, and metrics that are actually not that easy to increase. Among these indicators are, first of all, an increase in customer lifetime value, repeat purchases that lead to increased revenue, and much more. This is why you shouldn’t hesitate and doubt the need to work with a loyalty program.
