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Retail Marketing Shopify & Lightspeed

Using Shopify With Lightspeed POS: A Comprehensive Guide For Retailers

In this article, we look at how Lightspeed and Shopify integrate and what merchants can do to get the most out of each solution, used together.

Alice Cresswell

Loyalty & Marketing Expert

When building your tech stack, it's only natural to want the best. This is especially true for retail businesses, which have many moving parts—including point of sale (POS), ecommerce, customer loyalty, payments, and more. You want these elements to work seamlessly together while at the same time ensuring that each component is robust and tailored to fit your specific needs.

And that's why many retailers use Lightspeed Commerce with Shopify. As two leading software vendors in the POS and ecommerce markets, they offer complementary strengths that can streamline operations and enhance customer experiences.

In this article, we look at how Lightspeed and Shopify integrate and what merchants can do to get the most out of each solution, used together.

Quick links

About Lightspeed
About Shopify
Pros of using Shopify and Lightspeed together
Cons of using Shopify and Lightspeed together
Solutions to address integration issues
Best apps when using Shopify and Lightspeed
Retailers who use Lightspeed and Shopify
Conclusion: Should you use Shopify and Lightspeed together?

About Lightspeed

Lightspeed is a POS and payment platform for retailers, restaurants, and golf courses. On the retail side specifically, Lightspeed offers an intuitive point of sale system and built-in payments that enable merchants to quickly ring up sales using a computer or mobile device.

Lightspeed also has robust inventory capabilities, enabling retailers to order and receive products, track and transfer stock between different locations, conduct full and partial inventory counts, and more.

In addition, Lightspeed has an ecommerce platform that allow merchants to set up an online shop and manage their digital presence. That being said, Lightspeed is built for brick and mortar retailers first, so merchants that require advanced and deep ecommerce capabilities may not get all the features they need from the platform — hence the need to integrate with other solutions.

About Shopify

Shopify is built for the ecommerce sector first and has everything you need to sell online. The platform offers a user-friendly interface for creating and customizing online stores with a wide range of themes and templates.

Shopify also has powerful shipping capabilities through Shopify Shipping and the Shopify Fulfillment Network, which lets you outsource fulfillment and returns.

Plus, Shopify supports various sales channels, including social media, marketplaces, and in-person sales. It also provides powerful marketing and customer engagement tools, including social media integrations, live chat, and email marketing.

Pros of using Shopify and Lightspeed together

Many merchants use Shopify and Lightspeed, and it’s easy to see why: if you want the best of both worlds (ecommerce and brick and mortar), it may make sense to integrate the two solutions.

Access to the best tools

Between the two platforms, Shopify and Lightspeed are typically the first to market with new tools and features in their respective focus areas. As such, you can always have access to the latest and greatest features for each sales channel, giving your business a competitive edge.

Avoid messy (and expensive) migrations

If you've started on your retail journey—i.e., you already have an existing Lightspeed or Shopify account—choosing the integration route vs. migration will likely be more cost-effective.

Migrating all your data from one platform to another can be tedious and time-consuming because you need to transfer extensive records, reconfigure settings, and ensure everything works perfectly. It can also lead to downtime when the migration process isn't implemented correctly.

Cons of using Shopify and Lightspeed together

As with many integrations, users can have pain points and disjointed experiences when connecting different solutions, and the Lightspeed + Shopify integration is no different.

Challenges with finding integrations that work with both solutions

When creating a tech stack, you need to ensure that each part "plays nice" with all other components. Naturally, this task becomes increasingly complex the more apps you have. This issue can be seen in Lightspeed and Shopify.

Lightspeed and Shopify each have their own marketplaces with different apps, so it can be challenging (but definitely not impossible) to find apps that work with both.

Breakage points between the two systems

When set up correctly, Lightspeed’s Shopify integration serves most retailers well. But no integration is perfect 100% of the time. The reality of connecting different solutions is that issues can arise. Sometimes, data won't sync. Or maybe one platform experiences an outage, leading to disruptions in your operations.

There have been some reports of inconsistencies and data mismatches between Shopify and Lightspeed merchants. Some retailers, for example, report that Shopify orders aren't syncing with Lightspeed or that not all data (e.g. images or product details) are imported seamlessly.

Usually, these issues only arise with more complicated use cases — for example, franchises, or set ups that use parent accounts. Anything that deviates from the standard Lightspeed and Shopify set up can be a bit trickier to get right.

Solutions to address integration issues

While there are real concerns about connecting different apps, successful software integrations are totally possible. If your business doesn’t use a standard set up, you just need to find the right solutions and systems. Consider the following.

Choose apps that work on both platforms

Our first tip? Choose your apps wisely. If you're using Shopify with Lightspeed and want to extend the capabilities of these platforms, set your sights on apps that can connect to both solutions. You can find them by browsing Lightspeed's and Shopify's respective marketplaces and ensuring they are listed as compatible with both systems.

An example of one such app is Marsello. All our loyalty and customer engagement tools work perfectly with Shopify and Lightspeed, so you don't have to worry about disconnected data or a disjointed customer experience. More on this in a bit.

Implement middleware

You can deploy middleware—i.e., software that acts as a bridge between different applications to facilitate communication and data flow. These apps are built specifically to help with the connection between Lightspeed and Shopify. Middleware can provide an adequate workaround, but keep in mind that they can be unreliable and setting them up is typically labor-intensive.

We would recommend only using middleware if you have a complex or unique store set up (for example, a parent-child store set up in Lightspeed, or if you're running a franchise model).

Custom development

If you have the dev resources, you can also go the custom development route by leveraging Lightspeed's and Shopify's open APIs to build a bespoke integration. This is ideal for merchants who need highly-customized integrations or extra-tight and robust connections.

Best apps when using Shopify and Lightspeed

Ready to connect your sales channels? Here are the apps we recommend for retailers using both Lightspeed and Shopify.

Marsello: Loyalty & Marketing

Marsello is customer loyalty and marketing software for omnichannel retailers. If you're looking to launch a rewards program that lets shoppers earn and redeem points across digital and physical channels, Marsello can help.

Key features of the software include customer rewards (including awarding points for non-purchase activities), email marketing, win-back campaigns, gift cards, and more.

Of course, Marsello integrates really well with Lightspeed and Shopify, so you can manage your loyalty and marketing efforts seamlessly across both platforms.

Marsello featured as a 'best practice' app at the Shopify conference

Above: Marsello was featured as a Best Practice app at Shopify’s 2024 conference, Editions.dev.

Lightspeed Advanced Marketing: Loyalty & Marketing

When it comes to describing Lightpeed's Advanced Marketing capabilities, TechnologyAdvice.com said it best:

"Lightspeed operates with store sales in mind, so it truly excels at multi-store and multi-location sales tracking. It also has an unrivaled omnichannel loyalty program that bridges in-store, online, SMS, and email and is highly customizable."

Simply put, Lightspeed Advanced Marketing has you covered on multiple fronts—from loyalty marketing to customer comms. Lightspeed Advanced Marketing is powered by Marsello, but runs natively in the Lightspeed environment.

Klaviyo: Email Marketing

Klaviyo is an email and SMS marketing platform designed to help businesses create personalized and automated marketing campaigns. It offers robust segmentation, detailed analytics, and easy-to-use templates to create engaging emails and messages that drive customer engagement and sales.

With integrations with Lightspeed, Shopify, and Marsello, Klaviyo is an excellent option for retailers who want to streamline their marketing efforts and enhance customer outreach across multiple channels.

Wrapped: Omnichannel Gift Cards

If gift cards are a big part of your business, you'll want to look into Wrapped. As a self-described "out-of-the-box gift card solution that integrates with POS, eCommerce, and mobile ordering platforms, all wrapped into one," this app makes managing gift cards simple and efficient.

With Wrapped, you can sell gift cards that customers can use wherever they shop—in-store, online, or both. Gift card data syncs between your POS (Lightspeed) and ecommerce software (Shopify), so balances are updated across both solutions.

Judge.me: Product Reviews

Judge.me enables you to add widgets to your online store to display reviews and Q&As. It's a nifty tool that makes it easy to share social proof and build trust with potential customers.

Judge.me also has some handy review management capabilities. Effortlessly generate reviews through automatic review requests. You can even A/B test different messaging to see which ones generate the most engagement. And when you need to manage your reviews, you can do so with Judge.me's built-in features for sending replies and following up with reviewers.

NetSuite: ERP & CRM

NetSuite is a comprehensive cloud-based business management software suite that covers ERP, CRM, and ecommerce functionalities. It provides you with tools for financial management, inventory, customer relationship management, and more.

NetSuite's real-time data and analytics help businesses make informed decisions and streamline operations. With its robust integration capabilities, NetSuite can seamlessly connect with both Lightspeed and Shopify, ensuring smooth data flow across your entire business ecosystem.

Retailers who use Lightspeed and Shopify

Now, let's take a look at merchants who have been using Lightspeed and Shopify successfully.

HobbyTech Toys

HobbyTech Toys is a sports and hobbies store in Australia known for its extensive product range. With a wide catalog that it sells across ecommerce and physical retail, HobbyTech Toys needs best-in-class solutions, which is why the owner, Jordan Hepburn, uses Lightspeed and Shopify.

Beyond having powerful selling tools, Jordan leverages a data-driven approach to marketing and operations. This is where Marsello and Klaviyo come in.

HobbyTech Toys utilizes Marsello for integrated loyalty programs, automation, and seamless omnichannel data management. Additionally, Jordan syncs all in-store transaction data with Klaviyo, enabling him to run effective email campaigns.

That data sync is critical, as it allows Jordan and his team to get a comprehensive view of customer behavior and preferences.

"It's good to be in that position where we've got so much access to data, and it helps us make informed decisions," he says.

Pace Athletic

More than just a sporting goods store, Pace Athletic is dedicated to breaking down barriers to running and fitness. Founded by Will and Stu, two fitness enthusiasts, the store aims to create an inclusive and welcoming environment for all.

Pace-Athletics-Omnichannel-Loyalty-Program

Pace Athletic uses Lightspeed, Shopify, and Marsello to create a seamless and engaging experience. Lightspeed's POS system enables efficient in-store transactions, and Shopify's ecommerce platform complements this by providing a user-friendly online shopping experience.

Marsello ties these components together with intuitive marketing and loyalty tools. Pace Athletic’s loyalty program, powered by Marsello, contributes to 28% of their revenue — which is a testament to the power of having an engaged community (and the benefits of tightly-integrated marketing tools).

Super Butcher

Super Butcher is a chain of butcher shops with a growing online presence. With the rapid expansion of both its physical stores and online shop, the team needs to integrate customer data across channels.

Super Butcher relies on Shopify, Lightspeed, Klaviyo, and Marsello to create a seamless shopping experience for its customers. Lightspeed and Shopify power the company's POS and ecommerce, while Klaviyo facilitates personalized email marketing.

Meanwhile, Marsello complements these components by powering Super Butcher's omnichannel loyalty program and bringing in-store sales data into Klaviyo for extensive customer insights.

Marsello's multi-site reporting shows customer behavior across physical and digital channels so that the team can make better marketing decisions.

"Marsello helped link everything together. Now we have a seamless loyalty program that's easy to use," says Jaden of Super Butcher.

TennisGear

Driven by his passion for tennis, Mark, an avid tennis enthusiast and accountant, decided to purchase a four-court tennis center with an attached retail store. This bold move set the foundation for TennisGear, a flourishing multi-channel retail and coaching business catering to tennis lovers across Australia.

Lightspeed POS provides a robust foundation for managing in-store transactions and inventory across multiple locations. By integrating with Shopify, TennisGear has a solid ecommerce presence, allowing customers to shop online effortlessly.

As for Marsello? Our platform provides marketing and loyalty tools so TennisGear can segment its customer base and create tailored campaigns.

This integrated approach has yielded significant results. TennisGear experienced a 2.5% increase in its customer database after implementing Lightspeed POS prompts, which remind staff to add customers to sales. Marsello's automation capabilities help recover abandoned carts and incentivize lost customers to return, which boosts engagement even more. With a centralized data hub, TennisGear can execute highly targeted marketing strategies and drive repeat business.

"I think Marsello is the only solution that we found that had a native integration between all the systems that we are using. Now we can really easily separate our in-store and our online customers. In terms of loyalty, campaigns, and everything, it's certainly the best solution that we found," remarks Declan, Project Manager at TennisGear.

Brandini Toffee

A specialty foods company based in Southern California, Brandini Toffee offers gourmet toffee products through both their brick-and-mortar stores and their ecommerce platform.

brandini-standing-brandini-toffee

With its retail stores powered by Lightspeed and ecommerce shop set up via Shopify, Branidni Toffee keeps all data flowing across both channels through the softwares' tight integration.

Marsello enhances these systems with comprehensive marketing and loyalty tools, enabling Brandini Toffee to drive customer engagement and retention across all channels. The integration helped Brandini triple its revenue from 2019 to 2023.

"The integration is super important for us between our brick and mortar stores and ecommerce," explains owner Brandon Weimer. "Having loyalty aspects is a key component to growing those channels."

Conclusion

Should you use Lightspeed with Shopify?

The reality is that most omnichannel retailers use both because each platform excels in different areas — Shopify for its robust ecommerce capabilities and Lightspeed for its powerful point-of-sale and inventory management features. This is especially true for retailers with complex inventory needs.

If you’re trying to decide whether or not to integrate, it helps to take a closer look at how you currently work and what tech you’re already using to make sure everything will fit together. Also, think about doing a cost analysis to see what kind of investment you'll be looking at and if it’s worth it.

And if you decide to go for it and need a loyalty program and marketing solution that works with both, Marsello is a great choice. It syncs perfectly with Shopify and Lightspeed, providing a unified customer engagement experience.

Request a demo to see our platform in action.

Need help? Get advice from an expert.

Most Popular

Loyalty Marketing

6 Tips for creating a point system for rewards

READ The ultimate goal with a loyalty points system is to leverage customer loyalty & grow your business. Learn how to create rewards your customers will love.

Quick links:

The ultimate goal with a reward points system is to motivate customer behavior that grows your business. However, it is also a good way to build brand loyalty and reward your most loyal customers.

The Pareto Principle (also known as the Law of the Vital Few) states that 80% of all sales come from just 20% of your customers and that 20% are usually loyal, returning customers.

Creating a rewards program lets you focus on that valuable 20%!

If you have ever wondered

What a reward points system is,
How to set up a simple rewards program for loyal customers, and
How you can increase your revenue with a loyalty program

Then you are in the right place.

Marsello-Rewards-Point-System

What is a reward points system?

According to Shopify, rewarding points is the most common type of customer loyalty program. A reward points system is an incentivization strategy that increases spending through earning in-store points or credits.

Customers earn points on their account when they purchase. They can then redeem points the next time they shop or use them for other freebies and perks. Some loyalty programs also let customers accumulate points and move from a “regular” member to a “VIP” member in a tiered program.

Evermore Toys is a great example of a simple points rewards system. Their mission is to create high-quality toys for their customers, and they implemented an elegant customer loyalty program that increased their revenue by 738.87%.

Customers earn 1 point for every $1 they spend; when they reach 100 points they get $10 off their next purchase. Evermore Toys saw a 95% per month increase in loyalty points over a one-year period, showing that you don’t need a complicated loyalty program to get results.

Evermore Toys Points Reward System explainer page from their website

6 tips for designing a points reward system for your business

To implement a reward points system for customers, there are a few key systems you need. Your business and your customers are unique. 44% of consumers aren’t happy with rewards programs because the bonuses feel “irrelevant”. So it’s worth a bit of creative strategy!

The most successful loyalty programs are specific to your brand community and are extremely customer-focused.

Related: 7 Steps To Building A Profitable Loyalty & Rewards Program

1. Identify the main goals of your customer loyalty program

Obviously, your loyalty points system benefits your revenue potential. However, you can do so much more with it! So the first step to a successful points system is to identify what you want to achieve with it.

Here are a few questions you can ask yourself:

- - Do you want to build brand loyalty by creating a unique community?
  - Do you want to reward your MOST loyal customers by creating a tiered reward system?
  - Do you want to delight customers with unexpected surprises?
  - Do you want to encourage more spending or points accumulation?
  - Do you want people to share your business on social media or get people to refer their friends?
  - Are you going to run “points promotions” to encourage higher spending in sales?

All loyalty programs motivate particular behaviors. When you are starting out it is best to choose just one or two goals so that you can track their progress and then build from there.

Download the free CLV Calculator
Most retailers use loyalty programs to increase the average lifespan and value of a customer. Use Marsello's free calculator to quickly estimate your average CLV.

2. Determine how customers will earn the rewards

Next, you will need to determine HOW customers actually get rewards.

You might want to keep it simple like the Evermore Toys example above. They spend a dollar, they earn a point. There’s nothing wrong with avoiding complications.

Loyalty programs also offer points for customer behavior such as

- - Sharing on social media
  - Earning freebies on your birthday
  - Giving product reviews
  - Referring a friend

Take Our Bralette Club as an example. Their loyalty program members can earn points when they make a purchase, for every friend they refer, for Tweeting about the brand, and even just for getting a year older on their birthday.

Our Bralette Clubs loyalty widget on a light pink banner

Other models include tiered rewards systems. This is where members can move from regular member to VIP status once they cross a spend threshold. VIP customers could have benefits such as Double Points (every dollar is 2 points) or other bonuses like automatic free shipping.

You will also need to consider online versus in-person shopping. Can customers earn and spend points no matter where they shop with you? Using a points reward software like Marsello makes loyalty programs completely seamless across eCommerce and POS.

3. Determine how these rewards will be awarded to the customers

Once customers have earned their points, it’s time to reward them! Do you have a system for how they can claim points?

Firstly it is important to have a login for members where they can easily see their points program total. Seamless integration with your eCommerce checkout and POS is critical for a successful loyalty program. Don’t make your customers work for it!

Next, identify the timeline. Can they redeem points as soon as they earn them? Will they receive a coupon or code for their next purchase? Will you send them something for free?

Lastly, consider what form their rewards will be in. It doesn’t just have to be points they can spend in-store.

Here are a few ways you could reward your customers in a points program:

- - Offer secret sales for people with a certain number of points
  - Collaborate with other businesses to do giveaways with similar products
  - Give away freebies when they buy multiple items
  - Do live in-person events for your most loyal customers
  - Offer other bonuses like free shipping or first access to new products
  - Set up an affiliate program where they can make actual money for referring new customers

Nigerian shoe brand bCODE has an outstanding loyalty program strategy. When they first launched their online rewards, they created a double-point promotion as well as a spend threshold.

The bCODE's points promotion email campaign

With their email marketing and social media campaign, they encouraged increased sales, loyalty program sign-ups, reward redemptions, and more! They also encouraged bCode customers to sign-up by sending an email campaign that detailed how shoppers could sign up to the newly expanded loyalty program and earn points in the lead-up to the weekend’s promotion.

With a 94% increase in loyalty points spent, you know they are rewarding loyalty right!

4. Identify the value of your rewards

If customers earn points-per-dollar, you will need to identify the value of your rewards. You can categorize rewards from low to high value based on how loyal customers are.

Will they get a discount voucher? Do their points add up to free shipping? Can they move up a membership level if they reach a spend threshold?

If you have a tiered loyalty program, the value of the rewards can go up with each level.

For example, a first-tier member could earn points that add up to a discount voucher. A second-tier member could earn double points. A third tier, VIP member could have free shipping, triple points, and access to exclusive events.

Remember, your most loyal customers bring in the most amount of revenue. It is worth going above and beyond to improve their experience with higher value rewards.

Look at outdoor apparel & footwear brand Merrell NZ. As soon as you sign up for their rewards program you can start moving up the tiers. Their silver and gold tier members enjoy generous discounts when they earn a certain number of points. Merrell NZ makes it simple for members to earn points with amazing rewards and a simple loyalty program widget.

Merrell NZ's VIP tiered loyalty program online widget

5. Associate a name/brand to your loyalty program

No matter how amazing your product is, you are facing a huge amount of competition. Your customers are probably being asked to join a huge number of other loyalty programs.

To make your customer reward system stand out, we recommend branding it.

How can you make your loyal customers feel like they are part of a special community? This is where customer experience comes into play for modern business. It’s not enough to simply sell to your customers. Associating a brand name with your loyalty program makes you memorable.

For example, Marsello user Our Bralette Club has a membership loyalty program called the Peach Party. Peach Party members enjoy generous discounts and free products, and most importantly the branded name makes them feel part of the club!

6. Promote your rewards point program

Finally, you need a system for promoting your points reward program. You can’t reward customers if they don’t know it exists! Don’t be afraid to promote it everywhere online and in stores.

This isn’t just for new customers or new business. When Evermore Toys rebranded, they used a clever email marketing campaign to encourage existing loyalty members to engage with the newly branded store and earn more rewards.

Evermore Toys' loyalty program announcement email on a bright yellow banner

We have a few tips for promoting your rewards system online:

- - Let people register for an account at the checkout and remind them to sign in
  - Have a banner on your website telling people about the benefits of becoming a member and earning points
  - Let customers know on your social media platforms
  - Use an omnichannel marketing platform that combines your reward system online with your POS
  - Automate your email marketing strategy to communicate effectively with new and existing members- you need to promote at the right times to ensure high engagement!

Your loyalty program is all about serving your customers even more. Shout its benefits from the rooftops!

FAQs

How do businesses track the cost-effectiveness of their points system to ensure it's generating a positive return on investment?

Businesses can track the cost-effectiveness of their points system by analyzing customer engagement metrics, such as increased purchase frequency, higher average order value, and the redemption rate of points. Comparing these metrics against the program's operational costs provides insights into its return on investment (ROI).

Can you provide examples of challenges businesses might face when integrating a new points system with their existing CRM or sales systems?

Integrating a new points system with existing CRM or sales systems can present challenges like data sync issues, software compatibility problems, and the need for employee training to manage the new system effectively.

What are some strategies for re-engaging customers who have accumulated points but have not redeemed them for a long time?

To re-engage customers with dormant points, businesses could implement targeted marketing strategies such as personalized email campaigns reminding them of their points balance and its value, limited-time offers to boost points redemption, or introducing new, attractive rewards. Add urgency by expiring points and tiers — let customers know they have limited time remaining to cash in and receive their rewards.

Final words

A reward points system is an effective way to increase your revenue. It rewards your most valuable customers and goes beyond a transactional relationship. By branding your loyalty club, designing an easy-to-follow system, and promoting it for every new and returning customer, you will see incredible ROI on your rewards program.

If you are looking for the easiest way to set up a loyalty program for your eCommerce or in-person store, you’ve already found it. Marsello makes it simple to set up, market and run a successful point system for rewards. Start rewarding your customers with Marsello!

Loyalty Marketing Retention Marketing

Rewards and Promotions: Treat Your Customers on Their Birthday [2024]

READ How do you know it’s worthwhile to reward customers for milestones like their birthday? Read on to learn more about marketing with rewards and promotions.

Updated 30 May 2024.

Here's a fun (and likely unsurprising) fact: the vast majority of people like celebrating their birthdays. Research cited by Benefits and Pensions Monitor shows that 89.4% of Americans enjoy celebrating birthdays, and 90.1% say birthday gifts help them feel more valued.

So, it is no surprise that birthday marketing — specifically, birthday email marketing campaigns — perform incredibly well. According to MarketingProfs, "open rates for birthday mailings were over three times higher than for mass-promotion mailings sent to the same clients: 56.2% vs. 16.8%."

These numbers tell us that birthday email campaigns can be a huge treat – for both customers and brands. So, it's worth investing the time and effort to make your birthday initiatives shine. Read on for ideas and tips on how to do just that.

Listen to this post:

What are the benefits of birthday rewards for your business?

The most significant benefit of birthday rewards programs is that they are a win-win strategy. They focus on the buyer experience, which benefits your best customers while simultaneously increasing revenue and loyalty.

There are several vital reasons why birthday rewards should be part of your overall loyalty program strategy:

Boost customer loyalty

Firstly, birthday rewards programs increase customer loyalty. 84% of customers opt to stay with a brand that surprises them and takes a customer-centric approach. Who doesn't like being spoiled on their birthday?

Improve customer retention

Loyalty programs (that include things like birthday surprises) are proven to improve customer retention rates. Even a slight increase of 5% in retention can boost profits by 25-95%.

Gain valuable customer data

Birthday reward campaigns enable you to collect data and insights into customer behavior. You can, for example, track birthday purchases and redemption rates, which can help you tailor future marketing efforts.

By adding birthday rewards to an existing loyalty program, you can personalize customer experiences, gather data on which campaigns resonate with which customers, and re-target loyal customers who redeem rewards.

Examples of birthday email campaigns and rewards

When you do it right, birthday campaigns and rewards can improve customer retention, loyalty, and engagement. Whether it's sending birthday emails, creating specialty coupons, giving out freebies, or something a little more creative, these examples hit the nail on the head.

Send a one-off special discount and build excitement

This is a low-hanging fruit of birthday rewards. When implemented correctly, special discounts are known to yield quick results and valuable data. If you're new to birthday campaigns, consider starting things off with a special discount that shoppers can use during the month of their birthday.

It's simple, straightforward, and easy to test. Just make sure to create unique promo codes for each celebrant so you can track who's redeeming your offers.

For example, Target's birthday email, which is sent to members of the Target Circle program, contains a coupon for 5% off the customer's entire purchase.

happy birthday gift from target circle

Offer free products on special occasions

Alternatively, you can give shoppers a freebie on their special day. Some examples of brands that offer birthday freebies include Starbucks and Sephora. Birthday freebies are growing increasingly common. Australian burger joint Hello Harry's openly offers its customers a free birthday burger… with a small caveat that protects the business—the birthday burgers are free up to the value of $12.

Freebies are a great option if you want to encourage your customers to try your products or if you have samples and surplus stock to give away.

Offer creative rewards to encourage engagement

Here's the not-so-great reality of loyalty or rewards programs: while many consumers sign up for them, not everyone participates in all the programs they join.

A 2018 survey found that almost "two-thirds of respondents actively engage with less than half the loyalty programs to which they are members." The survey found that only 18% actively engage with all their rewards programs.

If your loyalty or rewards program suffers from low engagement rates, consider incorporating birthday rewards to stir things up. When implemented correctly, this tactic can fuel engagement among your members and put your brand back on their radar.

Anna Beck, a Shopify Plus-powered jewelry store with multiple resellers and stores, has done a great job at subtly incorporating birthday rewards into its loyalty program to incentivize customers but not create so much buzz that they risk sign-ups for just that reason.

Members of the program automatically get 20 points on their birthday, but with 100 points for creating a profile and 25 for completing their profile information, it's easy to see how customers quickly earn enough points to reap the rewards.

Thanks to Marsello, Anna Beck has experienced a 728.33% increase in revenue, directly attributable to its loyalty program. Even better, the brand has developed a comprehensive understanding of its customer database and how to convert them into loyal customers. The team had this to say about developing their loyalty program with Marsello:

"Through the data, we've found that we have incredibly loyal customers. Once they make their second purchase, they are highly likely to be lifelong customers. Marsello allows us to easily reward those loyal customers for sticking around, it was a no-brainer. Anna Beck has only been an online retail brand for a handful of years, and a loyalty program was the natural next step."

Another great example comes from Smack Bang. The Wellington-based pet products specialist is one brand that's using a powerful loyalty program to its advantage. With a 100% engagement rate and 6x ROI, the addition of loyalty marketing to SmackBang's all-over marketing tech stack really helps the company capture customers' attention time and time again.

Smack-Bang-Earn-Options

Loyalty members earn points for actions such as creating a profile, referring a friend, reviewing products, making purchases, and engaging on social media. Benefits include % discounts and first looks at product releases.

The Smack Bang team keeps loyalty program members updated with emails regarding product releases, business updates, sales, events, and more! By maintaining regular contact with their customers, they set the expectation that the more loyal a customer is, the better deals they'll get. And we love that SB lives up to this expectation!

Create a sense of mystery and surprise your customers

Want to keep shoppers on their toes or still trying to figure out which reward type is the best option? Consider offering a range of rewards and surprises that your customers can enjoy during their birthday month.

That's what the lingerie retailer ThirdLove is doing. Members of their 'Hooked' loyalty program get an annual free birthday gift, which remains a surprise until the customer's special day. According to the company's website:

"We're not ones to spoil a surprise! While we won't tell exactly what they are, they'll change regularly and might be a freebie, a discount, or a little something special just for you."

Surprise freebies are a wonderful way to keep your customers excited, but our tip? Don't be tempted to fall into the trap of 'pawning off' your hard-to-sell stock on these customers. Make sure your birthday freebies are worth the hype and keep shoppers wanting more.

Celebrate your business’s birthday and say thanks to your customers

A nice twist to the concept of birthday rewards is to celebrate your brand’s birthday. This is a good way to mark an important milestone, and it gives you the opportunity to thank customers – both new and old.

Bare Wholefoods, a Sydney-based cafe, did just that when they celebrated their 4th birthday.

Bare-Wholefoods-Birthday-Email-Discount-Code

To mark the occasion, Bare Wholefoods sent a pre-birthday email to their customers, which included a $10 discount code along with a sincere message of appreciation. The result? The small but mighty campaign saw a 6.59% conversion rate!

By celebrating their own birthday, Rough & Bare was also able to show appreciation to the customers that keep them going – and this is such a powerful message in the wake of significant changes brought about by COVID-19.

Sign off with a personal touch

If you have multiple sales associates who treat customers as their clients, you might want to send birthday emails directly from each team member. This helps strengthen the personal connection between the customer and the salesperson.

Check out this example from LOEWE. The email is short, sweet, and signed by the customer's sales contact at the store.

birthday email from loewe

Bonus tip: consider combining this tactic with a discount or perk so the email feels personal AND rewarded.

Tips for implementing birthday rewards

We’ve talked about the different types of birthday rewards you can offer; now let’s discuss how you can take your campaigns to the next level. If you’re looking to start or further optimize your birthday rewards initiatives, follow these best practices to ensure that your efforts hit the mark:

Integrate birthday perks with your loyalty or rewards program

While it's certainly possible to offer birthday rewards to non-loyalty program members, your campaigns will perform far better when they're incorporated into your loyalty program.

Roping birthday rewards into your loyalty program enables you to build data-rich customer profiles. Having your shoppers' purchase histories, shopping activities, and birthdays in one place means that you have a clear view of each customer. This, in turn, can enable you to improve and personalize their shopping experiences even more.

LEGO Certified Stores has done this to great success!

Screen Shot 2022-02-16 at 11.07.43 AM

By awarding customers points on their birthdays and for purchases, LEGO creates a feeling of scarcity but customers also quickly rack up the points with each purchase. This means that when customers earn a reward, it feels all the sweeter!

Make it easy for people to enter their birthday

A successful birthday marketing campaign starts with data—in particular, your customers' dates of birth. Make sure you collect your customers' birthday details from the get-go to personalize your marketing efforts and improve customer experiences.

You can, for example, ask them to enter their date of birth when they sign up for your loyalty program or newsletter. That's what Merrell NZ does on its website. The brand has a popup that prompts visitors to leave their name, email, and birthday.

Merrell-Form-1

With a 25% sign-up rate, this form is clearly a core component of Merrell NZ's customer engagement efforts.

Automate your campaigns

Keeping track of everyone's birthdays and setting up individual messages isn't just tedious; it's impossible as your business grows. Campaign automation is not only a remarkable time-saver – automation as a whole (along with personalization) has been pinpointed as the future of marketing.

Thankfully, Marsello has done the hard work for you and already has several pre-made automated flows that are easy to review and enable. One of these automated flows includes a Birthday Flow, which automatically triggers an email sequence to engage customers on their birthday month. This pre-designed email series is populated with a small discount offer and is already tied to your customer database, so there's no need to manually configure the campaign.

Just take a look at this example from shoe retailer bCODE:

Marsello-Email-Automation-Happy-Birthday-Flow-The-BCode

Notice that they’ve given their customers a lovely surprise by automatically adding 5 points to their account to celebrate! We love that this campaign stands out, has a compelling subject line, and gives customers value right away.

Learn more: All of Marsello’s automated campaigns are designed to be easily enabled in just a few clicks.

Test your offers

While we can certainly recommend birthday rewards and ideas, ultimately, the performance of your birthday promotions will depend on your specific store and customer base. That's why you must test and analyze different birthday promotions to see what works best for your business.

As mentioned above, creating unique promo codes makes it easier to monitor the performance of your offers and the customers who are redeeming their rewards.

Take Merrell NZ, which is a pro at testing all of the company's marketing. The team had this to say when we spoke to them about their Marsello-powered marketing.

"Marsello offers automations, loyalty, rewards, email campaign segmentation, SMS. All the tools that we knew we wanted to test in stages as our eCommerce and business grows. Step 1 was swapping from [our old provider] to using Marcello’sMarsello's email marketing campaigns. Step 2, we're using marketing automation. Step 3, it's loyalty!"

It was essential to the team to find an all-in-one tool that they could use to build their marketing functionality while also testing each and every change. And that didn't stop when it came to building their loyalty program and testing their promotional offers!

One way you can use birthday rewards to understand your customer engagement patterns is to test which promo types (e.g., free shipping vs. 20% off vs. $5 off) your customer responds well to. Then, it's easy to apply similar logic to any other promotions and offers that you create in the future!

Integrate SMS marketing

While email is still the most popular channel for sending birthday promos and rewards, SMS is rapidly gaining steam and won't slow down anytime soon.

So, if you're thinking about using SMS marketing, customer birthdays present the perfect opportunity to touch base. Consumers will likely be checking their phones for birthday greetings, and having a timely text from your brand could serve as a pleasant surprise.

Just remember, SMS marketing comes with a few rules to keep in mind and not every merchant is eligible. To make sure you’re doing everything right, check out our help center on SMS compliance.

But wait!
What about people who put in fake birthdays?

When you plan your loyalty program, you're setting up incentive structures. And there are always shoppers who game them to get the maximum discounts and offers possible. Here are some ways to avoid birthday rewards abuse.

Apply a "cooling-off" period when people sign up for your loyalty program

Don't let people put in a birthday date within the first month ("What a coincidence, my birthday is TOMORROW!"). This will deter people who want "quick points" or instant freebies and then disappear. If you apply this, make quick mention of it to explain the policy. For example, "Sadly due to abuse of this offer, we won't send birthday offers within 1 month of signing up to our rewards program :(".

Set a spending threshold

When offering birthday discounts, establish a minimum spend for the promotion. That way, you encourage higher spending and ensure the promotion benefits both the customer and your business. Check out this example from the Harry Potter Shop. While the brand offers a generous $10 off, birthday celebrants must spend at least $50 to redeem the coupon.

Set a deadline for reward redemption

Having reward redemption deadlines can help prevent birthday reward abuse by ensuring customers use their rewards promptly instead of letting them pile up indefinitely. It also encourages immediate spending, which is great for cash flow.

Be mindful of giving away too many points

If you use a points system to reward your customers, make the value of birthday points lower than what they would receive for making an actual purchase. This ensures that the points remain an incentive without being overly generous.

Consider "surprise" freebies

For birthday programs where you give out a freebie, make it a surprise! Don't explicitly say what free item they will receive before they sign up. That way, people will be less likely to sign up for that one specific item, and you can still treat your loyal members.

Ultimately, people will always want to take advantage of free points. The benefits you get from creating positive customer experiences for your loyalty club members will almost always outweigh the potential for rewards abuse.

FAQs

This is one of our most popular topics, so we get a lot of questions! Here are ones our experts hear the most.

What is a 'birthday marketing strategy'?

A birthday marketing strategy involves using customers' birthdays as an opportunity to engage with them, show appreciation, and offer special promotions or rewards. Done right, birthday marketing initiatives enhance customer loyalty, increase sales, and create positive experiences that drive repeat business.

What is a birthday campaign?

A birthday campaign is a targeted marketing effort designed to celebrate a customer's birthday. It typically includes sending personalized birthday messages and offering exclusive discounts, gifts, or other incentives to make customers feel valued on their special day.

What is a birthday promotion?

A birthday promotion is a special offer or discount for customers on or around their birthday. This could include percentage-off discounts, free gifts, bonus points in loyalty programs, or other exclusive deals that incentivize customers to make a purchase.

How do you keep track of customers' birthdays?

You can keep track of customers' birthdays by collecting their birth date information when they sign up for your loyalty program, newsletter, or during the checkout process. From there, you can manage the data using your CRM software.

What should be included in a birthday rewards program?

The right birthday marketing campaign depends on your brand. That said, a birthday rewards program typically includes personalized messages, exclusive discounts or offers, gifts, bonus loyalty points, etc.

How do businesses track the effectiveness of birthday reward campaigns over time?

To track the effectiveness of birthday reward campaigns over time, you can use customer relationship management (CRM) tools to analyze customer engagement, purchase frequency, and changes in spending patterns around their birthdays. If you're using Marsello, you can track the revenue generated from birthday automations over time, allowing you to optimize and see the impact of your changes.

Can small businesses without a big budget implement impactful birthday rewards?

For small businesses with limited budgets, impactful birthday rewards can be implemented by offering personalized discounts, exclusive products, or simple gestures like birthday messages that make customers feel valued without incurring high costs.

How do businesses personalize birthday rewards for diverse customer segments?

Personalizing birthday rewards for diverse customer segments involves gathering data on customer preferences and purchasing history to tailor rewards that resonate with different demographics, enhancing the customer's experience and loyalty. Remember: Don't get too granular with your segments—the smaller the segment, the more time-consuming and cost-intensive personalization will be. For smaller businesses, we recommend one simple birthday reward, such as a voucher.

Final words

Birthdays can be a real treat not just for your customers but for your brand, as well. So, take the time to create campaigns that make your customers feel appreciated on their special day.

Need help doing just that? Check out Marsello's customer loyalty features and discover how you can engage each customer on their birthday and beyond.

Make sure to check out our comprehensive loyalty guide to ensure your loyalty marketing is up to date in all areas.

Loyalty Marketing

How Mecca Built One Of The World’s Best Loyalty Programs

READ Do you ever look at loyalty programs like Mecca's Beauty Loop and think: how could I do that for my business? The good news is... you can! Here's how.

Quick links:

Want to build a loyalty program like Mecca’s Beauty Loop, but don’t have the money or time for custom solutions?

Before building brand loyalty, you need to build a brand. And building a brand? That journey starts with the very first business plan, that spark, that idea on a napkin, that leads you to register a company and step into the wild, wicked, unruly world of retail.

So let’s forget loyalty points programs for the time being.

Look inward for a minute, and ask: Why did I start this business?

For a lot of retailers, their business started out of frustration. Frustration that you couldn’t find what you wanted at other stores, frustration about the lack of selection or curation, frustration about the customer service, concern that salespeople only wanted to sell you what they were getting the most commission for (rather than what suited your needs best).

Mecca Founder Jo Horgan shared why Mecca came to be back in 1997 in an interview for the Australian Financial Review.

“I loved cosmetics – I thought there was a real space for them that should be fun and entertaining. And yet when I went to a department store I found it exhausting, going from one counter to another,” Horgan says.

So she started to think: “Imagine the best product offer, a beautiful environment and my best beauty friend next to me taking me from zero to expert in one session…”

“That’s how I wanted to experience cosmetics myself,” she says.

The first time I went to Mecca, I admitted I used $3 foundation and substituted in cheap eyeshadow with a 10-year-old makeup brush for eyebrow pencil. The response? “Oh darling, sometimes that’s all you need to do the trick!”

He told me he often does the same… and still managed to sell me $150 worth of foundation and an eyebrow pencil. Now that’s some serious sales game.

I tried to unpack this later. The feeling I got was: He’s on my side. He knows where I’m coming from. And I can trust him.

Lesson 1: Hold on to that “why” and don’t lose sight of it. It’s your greatest brand asset.

It’s highly likely the reason you started your business is why your customer is here.

I was surprised to learn that Mecca founder Jo Horgan felt frustrated by the department store experience, just like I did. But in the same vein, it makes sense, based on how shopping at Mecca makes me feel.

Lesson 2: Points programs do not magically create brand loyalty.

A points program is one tool you can use to keep customers coming back. But the truth is, if you’re not doing anything else to support it—it’s not going to have the Mecca effect.

So, let’s take your “why” and I’m going to show you how you can build an extraordinary loyalty program with ordinary, off-the-shelf loyalty software.

How to Build An Extraordinary Loyalty Program With Ordinary, Off-The-Shelf Software

Everything here can be done using Marsello, when integrated with your eCommerce and POS software.

Step 1. Design your tiered loyalty program

Most loyalty software has the functionality to build a tiered loyalty program off the shelf. But before you jump the gun and turn it on, think about what the tiers should look like. Revisit your brand’s vision and mission, and come up with a strategy.

How many tiers are there?

Three is a good place to start. Mecca recently added a fourth tier to give those extra high spenders a more tailored experience, but we’d recommend only adding more than three tiers when you see a clear need for it.

How are the tiers structured?

Are the tiers based on spend, or number of loyalty points? And is it lifetime spend or annual spend? Generally, most retailers want their customers to maintain a minimum spend or number of points per year to keep their status. This requires the ability to expire tiers (you can do this in Marsello).

What are the rewards?

This Level 4 Beauty Looper (below) worked out that her free sample box had a retail value of $80. With 4 of these per year, plus an extra birthday box, that’s $400 for a year of free gifts. However, this person had to spend $3,500 to reach this tier. That’s an 11.4% discount, or about the same as giving away every 10th coffee for free.

The beauty (ha) of giving away free boxes, is that you mitigate price perception. Receiving a free box in the mail is a serious dopamine hit, and Mecca knows this. Customers perceive the value of the loyalty reward to be much higher than it really is. They will happily spend more to receive the reward than “risk” missing out on retaining their status by shopping somewhere else.

What will you call the tiers?

Don’t rush this part, take your time to really find the right fit for your brand. “Bronze, Silver, Gold” isn’t very creative. Mecca chooses names that really connect to its brand mission, product, and the relationship they have with its customers.

Mecca Beauty Loop

L1: Beauty Discoverer

$300-$599.99 spend per year

- 1 x Birthday gift
- 4 x Beauty Loop Boxes per year; a lovingly edited sample box for you to experience

L2: Beauty Devotee

$600-$1199.99 spend per year

- 1 x Birthday gift
- 3 x Beauty Loop Bonuses per year
- 4 x Beauty Loop Boxes per year; a lovingly edited sample box for you to experience
- Priority invitations to in-store international brand events

L3: Beauty Aficionado

$1200 - $3499.99 spend per year

- 1 x Birthday gift
- 3 x Beauty Loop Bonuses per year
- 1 x Complimentary MECCA Natural Makeup Application
- 4 x Beauty Loop Boxes per year; a lovingly edited sample box for you to experience
- Exclusive insider access to purchase new products and limited-edition collections prior to their release
- Complimentary events by invitation
- Priority invitations to in-store international brand events

L4: Beauty Connoisseur

$3500+ spend per year

- 1 x Birthday gift
- 5 x Beauty Loop Bonuses per year
- 1 x Complimentary MECCA Natural Makeup Application
- 4 x Deluxe Beauty Loop Boxes per year; a lovingly edited sample box for you to experience
- Exclusive insider access to purchase new products and limited-edition collections prior to their release
- Complimentary events by invitation
- Priority invitations to in-store international brand events

Step 2. Get everything ready on your website and in-store

Now that you’ve got your loyalty program designed, you need to make sure it’s all set up properly.

Do you have an online store and physical shops?

If so, make sure your loyalty software is integrated with your POS and eCommerce platforms. This will ensure that points can be earned and redeemed easily across all your sales channels. Marsello integrates with a range of POS and eCommerce apps off-the-shelf, no expensive customization required.

How will customers find out about it?

In-store: Train staff on your loyalty program, and make sure they’re asking customers to sign up point-of-sale. Focus on the benefit to the customer—if you’ve really taken the time to build a considered loyalty program, customers won’t be able to resist.

On your website: Make sure it’s impossible to miss! Set up a loyalty widget on your online store to show visitors how they can earn and redeem rewards, and show the available tiers. Best practice is to create a website page dedicated to your loyalty program that goes into even more detail. See Mecca’s Beauty Loop page:

mecca2

Step 3. Promote your program

How do I launch it?

Once you’ve designed your program, prepare a launch campaign. Whether it’s a ‘soft’ launch or a full-scale event—make sure your customers know about it. Marsello has all the marketing tools you need to communicate with your customers: email, SMS, automations, website pop-up forms, and more. Use these to craft your promotional campaigns.

Teaser campaign: Pre-launch, let people know something’s coming. Get people curious and excited for the launch date. For example, you could run contests or giveaways to generate hype.
Soft launch: It’s okay to do a soft launch to start off, just to test everything is working. But once you’re confident, prepare a launch campaign.
In-store promotion: Let your customers know about it in-store. Make sure staff are trained on your loyalty app and can answer basic questions about how to get set up, the tier structure, and what the benefits are for the customer.
Full marketing launch: add a pop-up to your website, send out email campaigns to your database, and promote the program on social media. You can even run a limited-time launch offer—for example, 200 extra points for signing up in the first week.

How do I keep customers engaged?

The promotion doesn’t stop after you launch the campaign! There are lots of light-touch, low-maintenance campaigns you can run to keep your loyalty program interesting. Plus, you can talk about all the cool campaigns you’re running to non-loyalty subscribers to get that FOMO going.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

Run points campaigns: For example, you could have a double points week. These are great to run in slower sales seasons, as they incentivize loyal customers to accelerate their points growth.
Hype the program on social media: Use social media to promote the loyalty program and engage with customers through interactive content and contests. See Mecca’s Beauty Loop hype in the Instagram post above!
Run limited-time offers: Offer special rewards for a short period of time to incentivize customers to participate in the loyalty program.
Build up a community: Foster a sense of community among loyalty program members through events, forums, or social media groups.
Collaborate with partners: Partner with other brands to offer joint rewards and increase the value of the loyalty program.
Build your mobile experience: Encourage customers to save your loyalty portal to their mobile home screen, so they can access their points balance and engage with your brand on the go.

Step 4. Set up important notifications as SMS messages

Your customers get so many emails, they’re missing important updates. An SMS will cut through the noise by going direct to their mobile. While you don’t want to overdo SMS marketing, automated texts triggered for important loyalty updates and reminders will be much appreciated.

Notify customers when they have a reward coming!

Whether it’s a discount in their inbox ready to redeem, or a gift coming to their physical address, let them know it’s on the way and when they can expect it.

Let customers know when their tier is about to expire

Like Mecca, you probably want customers to keep up a minimum annual spend. Expiring tiers is a fantastic way to keep customers spending to retain their status… but it won’t have much impact unless they know how they’re progressing! Send customers an automated text message to let them know they’ve got a bit more shopping to do to keep up their tier.

Let customers know when they hit a milestone

Your loyal customers will want to know when they’ve unlocked a new reward, or hit a big points milestone (for example, they’ve entered a new tier). Don’t leave them guessing, automatically deliver the good news right to their mobile.

Step 5. Keep optimizing!

The final step is that… there is no final step. Running a loyalty program is an ongoing, ever-evolving journey that you’re on with your customers. So it’s important to have fun and keep innovating as you go. Loyalty is a regular and ongoing business activity, just like marketing and sales. There will always be improvements and new ideas you can implement, so have a regular reminder set up to check in and evaluate how it’s going.

What are the top loyalty metrics I should be tracking?

Marsello’s dashboard keeps track of all your important loyalty metrics. Top things to track are repeat purchase rate and rewards redemption rate. These will show you that your loyalty program is moving the needle on sales and revenue, and getting good engagement from customers.

How do I know if my brand is doing better over time?

While Marsello doesn’t track brand impact, there are some incredible new tools you can use to measure your brand health. Take a look at Tracksuit, as one example.

Final Words

Building a successful loyalty program like Mecca's Beauty Loop starts with understanding your brand's "why." A loyalty program is just one tool to keep customers coming back, and it should be built with a clear strategy based on your brand's vision and mission.

Mecca's founder Jo Horgan was frustrated with the department store experience and wanted to create a fun and entertaining shopping experience, which is exactly what Mecca and the Beauty Loop experience provides.

Using ordinary, off-the-shelf loyalty software like Marsello, you can create a tiered loyalty program with rewards that offer value to customers and keep them engaged. However, it's important to remember that a loyalty program is only effective if you're doing other things to support it and build a strong brand relationship with your customers.

Recent Articles

Shopify Marketing Tips

11 Best Shopify Apps to Grow Your Store in 2024

READ

With thousands of apps in the Shopify App Store, it can be overwhelming to pick the one that's right for your business. Here are the 11 best Shopify apps...

The Shopify App Store holds the key to transforming your operations and unlocking revenue growth for your business. But, with thousands of apps to choose from, it can be overwhelming to choose which apps are the right fit for your store.

To help you get started, we’ve compiled a list of the 11 best Shopify apps to grow your business in 2024.

Keeper—Recover Abandoned Carts
Shopify Flow
Marsello: Loyalty, Email & SMS
Loop Returns & Exchanges
PageFly Landing Page Builder
Stamped Product Reviews & UGC
Booster: Page Speed Optimizer
Appstle Subscriptions
Peek! Better Replay & Survey
Easyship - All in one Shipping
Klaviyo: Email Marketing & SMS

11 Best Shopify Apps to Grow Your eCommerce Store in 2024.

1. Keeper—Recover Abandoned Carts

keeper-abandoned-carts-shopify-app

According to the Baymard Institute, the average abandoned cart rate in 2022 was 69.99%. That means that for every 100 people that visit your online store, almost 70 of them will never make it to checkout—that’s a lot of potential revenue you’re missing out on.

Keeper is a one-click install Shopify app designed to recover abandoned carts and increase your store’s revenue automatically in the background. When customers log in across multiple devices they will find their abandoned shopping cart waiting for them, ready to complete their order. This makes it easy for them to pick up where they left off, resulting in more sales for your Shopify store.

Key benefits:

Automatically prompt users to complete their orders.
Remember customers’ shopping carts across their devices.
Merge previously abandoned carts with current ones and drive more sales.
Reduce your abandoned cart rates and drive more sales.

Pricing: Free

Shopify Review | CHIC 414 Boutique

“SO helpful for regaining sales and reminding our clients that they have abandoned their shopping carts. We have definitely seen an increase in our sales.”

2. Shopify Flow

flow-shopify-app

Shopify Flow helps automate processes that solve unique challenges eCommerce store owners face. With Flow, you can easily build custom workflows to solve specific challenges and tasks that would otherwise burn precious time and resources.

Flow is a powerful but simple automation tool. You can quickly customize unique triggers and conditions to create advanced workflows that run on autopilot, all without needing prior developer knowledge.

Key Benefits:

Create custom workflows and automate processes to streamline your operations
Save time by turning repetitive, time-consuming tasks into automatic workflows
Simple to set up: Automate workflows in a few clicks and get back to business

Pricing: Free

Shopify Review | Landyachtz Skateboards

“In my opinion Flow is the single most valuable aspect of Shopify Plus! The biggest limitation of Flow is your imagination and the things I've been able to automate have been game-changers for our operations. One aspect I never expected was how effective Flow is in helping me build safety nets and redundancies for problems that would go unseen without it. Probably my favourite app.”

3. Marsello

Marsello is a seamless loyalty and marketing platform that helps Shopify brands drive repeat sales and engage customers, no matter how they shop. It offers a variety of marketing features, including loyalty programs, email and SMS campaigns, automations, social media management, and more.

One of Marsello's key strengths is its omnichannel loyalty solution, which allows Shopify brands to run a seamless loyalty program across their eCommerce and brick-and-mortar channels—simplifying your customer loyalty management and improving customer experience.

The platform's eCommerce and POS connection helps brands unify their customer data, making it easy to understand how your customers shop, and providing powerful data that can be used to run more effective marketing campaigns.

Key benefits:

Run a seamless loyalty program across your in-store and online channels.
Save money on subscription fees by consolidating all your apps into one.
Get a complete view of your customer, and harness that data for smarter campaigns.
Incentivize customers to come back more frequently, and spend more when they visit.

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start from $135/month

Customer Review | LEGO® Certified Stores

“Marsello made the most sense as it offers a single loyalty program that extends to customers online and in-store. We have many customers that shop with us in both channels and expect a seamless loyalty and marketing experience.”

Recommended app for Shopify stores
Drive repeat sales with a loyalty program that works in-store and online.

4. Loop Returns & Exchanges

loop-returns-shopify-app

Loop is a returns app that aims to simplify and automate returns, exchanges, and store credit processes for brands. With the global economy facing a potential recession in 2023, retaining customers and cutting costs are more important than ever.

With Loop, you can analyse your customer interactions from a cost-saving lens, helping you to identify opportunities for revenue retention, and nurturing your customers through their most fragile interactions with your store. Control how and when returns get approved, optimize costs, prevent losses of returned products and retain more revenue with ease.

Key benefits:

Retain customers through fragile interactions with your brand and optimize costs.
Save time and automatically control how and when returns and exchanges get approved.
Reduce refunds and negative reviews, and drive repeat purchases from happy customers.

Pricing: Paid plans start from $59/month.

Shopify Review | Mediclio

“Love that this app continues to keep customers and merchants comfort in mind. They continue to vamp up the features so that returns and exchanges process can run as smoothly as possible…”

5. PageFly Landing Page Builder

pagefly-shopify-app

Running a successful eCommerce store requires regularly creating and optimizing landing pages that help turn traffic into revenue. With PageFly, you can drag and drop your way to high-converting landing pages that engage shoppers and grow revenue for your business.

PageFly helps bring your website pages to life with intuitive page-building features and pre-made elements that help you design your storefront how you want it. With its user-friendly interface and pre-built elements, it offers a convenient solution for new Shopify store owners looking to improve their performance.

Key benefits:

Simple drag-and-drop landing page builders that help create pages that convert.
Build landing pages with or without code.
Suitable to build pages of any type and on any device.

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start from $24/month.

Shopify Review | The Sustainable Watch Company

“Really easy to use, similar to the Shopify page builder. Really knowledgeable, helpful support and after-sales service.”

6. Stamped Product Reviews & UGC

stamped-product-reviews-shopify-app

When a customer has a positive interaction with your brand they’re more likely to tell other people about you.

With Stamped, you can encourage customers to leave reviews after positive experiences with your brand, then use those reviews to improve your online reputation and stand out from the crowd.

Key benefits:

Collect and showcase product reviews to build trust and transparency.
Improve your website’s SEO and Google Shopping rankings.
Gain deeper insights into what your customers think about your service.
Use reviews to promote your business and drive more sales via your store.

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start from $25/month.

Shopify Customer Review, Seed Cycle Brand

“Stamped Product Reviews is a great app if you want a more minimalist and stylish review app. Their support and technology upgrades are great also!”

7. Booster: Page Speed Optimizer

booster-page-speed-optimizer-shopify-app

Page load speeds are everything when it comes to conversion. According to Hubspot, website conversion rates drop by an average of 4.42% which each additional second of load time.

Booster helps your eCommerce stores prevent lost sales by making your Shopify store pages feel like they load almost instantly. With Booster, you can pre-load landing pages and increase your website performance without needing any code.

Key benefits:

Improve your store’s load speeds on desktop and mobile.
Reduce bounce rates and improve your chances of conversion with faster loading times.
Pre-load landing pages in the background when a customer hovers over a website link.

Pricing: Free

Shopify Customer Review, Zael Findings

“Very friendly customer service quick to respond and if you are ever looking for a service to get a speed boost I highly recommend for you to check it out.”

8. Appstle Subscriptions

appstle-subscriptions-shopify-app

Subscription-based selling provides a consistent, predictable revenue stream from your best customers. If you're running a subscription-based business model, then Appstle Subscriptions is the perfect solution for managing orders and driving repeat purchases.

The app makes it easy to choose and manage subscriptions via the Shopify checkout page and encourages customers to spend more with personalized product offers, up-selling and product bundling. This helps increase customer engagement and provides reliable, recurring revenue.

Key benefits:

Provide subscription plans for customers during their checkout process in Shopify.
Allow customers to manage their subscriptions and skip, reschedule or edit deliveries.
Drive consistent revenue from customers and up-sell personalized offers and bundles.

Pricing: Free to install. Paid plans start from $10/month.

Shopify Customer Review, Friendly Soap

“This app works like a dream. It’s really popular with our customers and the support team are very responsive and helpful. Highly recommend.”

9. Peek! Better Replay & Survey

Ever wonder why customers aren't converting on your website? If you do, then Better Replay can help. With free session recording and playback options, Better Replay allows you to observe how visitors interact with your site.

Boasting a 4.7-star rating on the Shopify App Store, Better Replay eliminates the uncertainty of why your pages aren't converting, helping you enhance your user experience and increasing conversions.

Key benefits:

Learn how your visitors interact with your website with session recordings.
No more guesswork. See exactly why your landing pages aren’t converting to sales.
Gain insights into customer behavior and improve your website conversions.

Pricing: Free. Paid plans start from $29/month.

Shopify Customer Review, Smaller Living

“I recommend gaining knowledge of what leads to a bounce rate. You can review live sessions, and it shows where you are losing customers.”

10. Easyship - All in one Shipping

Online shoppers have extremely high expectations when it comes to shipping times and order management. According to a Retail Dive study, 62% of shoppers expect to receive their shipping orders to arrive in less than 3 days.

Easyship is an all-in-one shipping management platform that helps Shopify businesses manage their shipping operations and save time and money. The app helps customers easily compare costs and delivery times with dynamic rates during the checkout process. It helps you create a tailored shopping experience and requires little effort so you can focus on growing your business.

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start from $29/month.

Shopify Customer Review, Mokuyobi

“I use this app to help fulfill our orders efficiently. It has worked great in the 3+ months that I have been working where I currently am. So far I have not had any real issues with Easyship.”

11. Klaviyo

klaviyo-shopify-app-recommendation

In the world of eCommerce and retail, customer relationships are everything. Klaviyo is a unified customer marketing platform that revolutionizes the way you connect with your customers, helping you build profitable relationships with intuitive features like email marketing, SMS, automations, forms, and reviews.

Klaviyo's intelligent marketing automation features make it easy to earn more revenue without resorting to ineffective batching and blasting. The well-known Shopify app delivers unmatched speed and time-to-value, empowering you with best-practice marketing templates that are ready to go live from the start.

Key benefits:

Deliver tailored experiences to each customer, increasing the ROI of your email marketing.
Save time and effort with automated workflows that nurture leads and engage customers.
Leverage your customer data and analytics to make informed decisions that drive growth.

Did you know? You can integrate Klaviyo's advanced customer marketing features with Marsello's loyalty software to create advanced customer segments that can be leveraged to craft highly-personalized campaigns that engage customers and grow revenue.

Learn more about Klaviyo and Marsello's integration.

Pricing: Free to install. Paid plans start from $30/month.

Shopify Customer Review, Wingback

"Klaviyo provides vastly superior data on every customer, every automation, and every campaign, helping us make better decisions and drive greater ROI each month. The support guides are really comprehensive, their team is always quick to provide guidance and the platform is constantly improving."

So, which Shopify apps should I install?

Whether you're a new eCommerce entrepreneur or an established Shopify store owner, you'll want to take advantage of the many great apps the Shopify App Store has to offer. From all-in-one marketing solutions to shipping and customer service apps, Shopify has something for everyone.

But the truth is, there's no one-size-fits-all solution for Shopify stores. Each business is unique and faces its own set of challenges, but with the right app, you can overcome these challenges and achieve success.

Before you start your app store search, we suggest you take a moment to reflect on your business goals and needs. Ask yourself these simple questions:

What challenges am I facing as a Shopify business?
What specific tools do I need to address my problems?
What does my ideal state look like, and will this app help me get there?
Does this app have what I need, what is the cost, and am I willing to pay for it?

By answering these questions, you'll gain a clearer understanding of your business objectives, and it will become easy to choose the apps that align best with your goals.

Remember, with the right tools at your disposal, you'll be poised for success and ready to take your Shopify store to new heights. Best of luck with your app store search!

Next read: 7 Steps To A Profitable Loyalty & Rewards Program

Recommended marketing app for Shopify
Drive repeat sales with a loyalty program that works in-store and online. Marsello has everything you need to grow your store's revenue.

Loyalty Marketing Retail Marketing

7 Steps To A Profitable Loyalty & Rewards Program

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As a retailer, a loyalty program can be one of your most important marketing tools. Here's how to build a profitable loyalty and rewards program.

In an analysis of over 60 million purchases, Marsello found that 25% of orders come from the top 2% of customers (2022).

While it can be tempting to focus on getting new customers, marketing to your database can be much more profitable. We call this customer marketing or loyalty marketing because it focuses on bringing back customers who already know you.

💡 Did you know? According to the Pareto Principle, 80% of your profits come from the top 20% of your customer base.

Loyalty programs are one of the most popular customer marketing tactics for several reasons.

They only reward high-value customers. Unlike discounting, loyalty programs only offer discounts and rewards to your best customers.
They give you valuable data and insights. Loyalty programs build a profile of your customer’s shopping behavior, in-store and online. To earn points on a purchase, customers have to identify themselves. That means you can track each sale against their unique loyalty identifier. This then adds to their profile in your database and helps you engage them with marketing.

Done correctly, a loyalty program can be one of your most important marketing tools.

Build loyalty. Drive sales.
Marsello gives you all the loyalty functionality you need to keep customers coming back. Easily set up a loyalty program, capture important customer insights, and do smarter marketing.

7 steps to make your loyalty program profitable.

While most loyalty apps work out of the box (with some setup time), the reality is the best results come with a bit more effort.

To ensure you’re getting the most out of your loyalty program, follow these simple steps. Trust us, a small amount of planning and reporting each month or quarter will go a long way.

1. Know your customer.

Before setting up your loyalty program, look through the data and customer records you already have. What do you know about your customers? What resonates with them? Do they have any common preferences, qualities or identifiers?

Putting in a bit of work upfront to understand your customer will help you design and structure a loyalty program that resonates with them. After all, you want the program to be enticing and engaging, and ultimately, to incentivize repeat purchases.

Things you could consider:

What age bracket are your customers in? What are their interests?
Are they in-person shoppers, or more likely to buy online?
What emails worked best with your database? Did any particular imagery or copy work well?
What sales or offers generated the most sales? Can any of these past campaigns provide insights into what rewards might be most enticing?

2. Make it easy to use.

Make sure your loyalty program is user-friendly and easy to navigate so that customers will be motivated to participate. Barriers like long load times, delays in points balance updates, or a poor mobile experience will deter customers.

We know, as consumers ourselves, that if something isn’t easy, we won’t bother!

Before you invest in any particular software, do a bit of research. Read reviews, sign up for a few free trials, shop around. Make sure the app you go for has all the integrations you need as well (if you’re omnichannel, integrations with both your POS and eCommerce software is a must)!

3. Promote the program.

promote your loyalty program with a campaign

Once you’ve designed your program, prepare a launch campaign. Whether it’s a ‘soft’ launch or a full-scale event—make sure your customers know about it.

Teaser campaign: Pre-launch, let people know something’s coming. Get people curious and excited for the launch date. For example, you could run contests or giveaways to generate hype.
Soft launch: It’s okay to do a soft launch to start off, just to test everything is working. But once you’re confident, prepare a launch campaign.
In-store promotion: Let your customers know about it in-store. Make sure staff are trained on your loyalty app and can answer basic questions about how to get set up, the tier structure, and what the benefits are for the customer.
Full marketing launch: add a pop-up to your website, send out email campaigns to your database, and promote the program on social media. You can even run a limited-time launch offer—for example, 200 extra points for signing up in the first week.

Remember, promotion doesn’t end after launch week. Encourage new loyalty signups in-store and online on an ongoing basis (see Step 6 below).

Marsello. Smart loyalty and marketing.
Do all your loyalty and marketing in one place, and track the results in a single dashboard. See what drives sales, and do more of the marketing that counts.

4. Personalize the program.

<First name> merge fields in a blast email campaign are old news. Now we’re all about unique customer journeys—using triggers, automations, and even AI for targeted messaging.

To offer more tailored experiences and increase customer engagement, add some automated workflows to your loyalty program setup checklist. Birthdays, loyalty points updates, and sign-up anniversaries are all super simple to create and give a personal touch to the customer’s experience.

5. Offer exclusive rewards.

Provide exclusive rewards for higher-tier members to incentivize them to remain loyal and engage more frequently with your brand.

Be clear about your tiers and what they mean, and let people know how far away they are from advancing up the ranks.

You can also send surprise awards to delight your most loyal customers and make them feel valued.

6. Keep it fresh.

The promotion doesn’t stop after you launch the campaign! There are lots of light-touch, low-maintenance campaigns you can run to keep your loyalty program interesting.

Plus, you can talk about all the cool campaigns you’re running to non-loyalty subscribers to get that FOMO going.

The bCode launched this ‘double points’ campaign. This email had a 20% open rate and saw a 94% increase in customer’s average loyalty points spent.

Need inspiration? Here are some ideas to get you started:

Run points campaigns: For example, you could have a double points week. These are great to run in slower sales seasons, as they incentivize loyal customers to accelerate their points growth.
Hype the program on social media: Use social media to promote the loyalty program and engage with customers through interactive content and contests.
Run limited-time offers: Offer special rewards for a short period of time to incentivize customers to participate in the loyalty program.
Build up a community: Foster a sense of community among loyalty program members through events, forums, or social media groups.
Collaborate with partners: Partner with other brands to offer joint rewards and increase the value of the loyalty program.
Build your mobile experience: Encourage customers to save your loyalty portal to their mobile home screen, so they can access their points balance and engage with your brand on the go.

Build loyalty. Drive sales.
Marsello gives you all the loyalty functionality you need to keep customers coming back. Easily set up a tiered loyalty program, run points campaigns, and more.

7. Track success metrics.

Remember, the purpose of loyalty programs is to increase repeat sales, average basket size, and the average value of a customer to your business.

So, what should you be tracking? Here are a few metrics you can use to see how well your loyalty program is performing over time:

Order frequency
Repeat purchase rate
Average customer lifetime value

If you’re using a loyalty program app that integrates with your sales channels, you can also directly attribute sales to your loyalty program activities.

Marsello made the most sense as it offers a single loyalty program that extends to customers online and in-store.
- Hayley Greenstein, LEGO® certified stores

Marsello’s dashboard also allows you to see how your loyalty program is performing compared to all your other marketing efforts.

Don’t be afraid to make adjustments as needed, but make sure you test how these impact your results.

Are loyalty programs worth it?

Yes! Loyalty programs can boost important metrics in your business. For example, the average amount customers spend per order, the total amount they spend over time, and how often they make purchases.

But that's not all! When done right and in line with your brand, loyalty programs can also give your customers a better experience and make them feel valued.

To make sure the benefits of the program outweigh any costs, connect your loyalty program to both your physical and online stores. This way, you can see the direct impact your loyalty program has on revenue.

Marsello: All your marketing, in one place.

Drive repeat sales with a loyalty and rewards program
Send email and SMS campaigns to customers
Create set-and-forget marketing automations
Track the direct impact of all your marketing on revenue
Build a customer database

Hospitality Retail Marketing

Top Trends For Hospitality & Retail Businesses in 2023

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Marketing to your most loyal customers, innovating with your products, and building your brand could be your most important investments in 2023.

It’s no secret that the retail and hospitality sectors are in for a challenging year. The EY Future Consumer Index (November 2022) found that:

62% of consumers don’t expect the economy to recover within the next 12 months
58% expect their living costs to increase over the next six months

So let’s tackle this head-on, rather than letting it become the elephant in the room. We talked to Victoria University Economics Lecturer Nathaniel Robson about economic trends, and where retail and hospitality merchants can focus their energy in order to keep business pumping.

We also want to take a look at how this might affect your marketing plan, and give you tips and resources you can use to inform your campaigns in coming months.

💡 Marketing to your most loyal customers, innovating with your products, and building your brand could be your most important investments in 2023.

What's Happening For Hospitality & Retail Businesses in 2023:

- - Pressure to offer more competitive wages will continue
  - Demand from lower-income consumers will drop
  - Prices will increase to pass on some costs to consumers
  - Customer loyalty and a strong brand will pay off
  - Innovative, flexible brands may see the most success

1. Pressure to offer more competitive wages will continue

Pressure on wages is driven by two main factors: a tight labor market and higher inflation expectations.

“Because the skills of the primary workforce in hospitality and retail are highly transferable, businesses in those sectors will be competing with a range of alternative potential employers,” says Robson.

“At the same time, higher costs of the materials used in hospitality and retail service provision will squeeze profit margins.”

Both of these factors will make it harder for hospitality and retail businesses to find and retain staff.

2. Demand from lower-income consumers will drop

Consumers are seeing cost-of-living going up. But this doesn’t affect everyone in the same way.

Robson explains that lower-income households will be hit the worst by inflation. Basic costs of living (rent, groceries, power, internet, etc) will use up an increasing portion of their weekly income unless minimum wages and benefits increase proportionately.

Brands that serve higher-income households (boutique hotels, for example) might not see a significant decline in business. However, many retail and hospitality businesses serve customers in a younger, lower-income market. These customers will start looking for cheaper alternatives (looking to retail giants for cost-effective, mass-produced products).

3. Prices will increase to pass on some costs to consumers

Inflation expectations are also driving up costs of ingredients and materials, meaning tighter profit margins and pressure to pass on extra costs to consumers (i.e. to increase prices).

Robson notes that this also presents an opportunity to innovate with your product line and attract higher-income, generally older, consumers.

“New products may attract a new market of early-30s customers as the early 20s market has drifted away due to living cost rises pushing them towards more mass-produced and cheaper alternatives.”

4. Customer loyalty and a strong brand will pay off

Businesses that have invested in customer loyalty initiatives and brand experiences over the pandemic may be rewarded. Through the pandemic, consumers’ purchasing habits changed, with loyalty decreasing as people worked and shopped from home.

Browsing stores and shopping on a lunch break in town was no longer a convenient option, and consumers opted to compare prices online and have goods delivered to their front door.

Brands that focused on customer loyalty and established a unique market position over this time will see these efforts pay off as consumer wallets tighten.

"The opportunity ... can be met by striving for a unique market position – having a strong brand and established customer loyalty."

Nathaniel Robson, Economics Lecturer

How a make-up retailer grew a loyal database & doubled sales with Marsello

scottys store image
For years, Scotty’s Makeup & Beauty customers had been asking about discounts for students or industry professionals. “With the Scotty’s Rewards Program, we now have a solution that suits a lot of our customers,” says Hollie, Sales Manager. “The fact that we can run the program both online and in-store is great for building our customer database and turning one-time customers into repeat customers.”

With the loyalty program, Scotty’s Makeup & Beauty has seen expansion beyond the industry it initially sought to serve. Now, they’re building a whole new audience of customers who come to them with all their dress-up and costume needs. Since unlocking these audiences with Marsello, they've seen EOFY sales double.

Turn first-time shoppers into repeat customers.
Create rewards that are designed to motivate your customers to shop, strengthen customer relationships and grow your business.

5. Innovative, flexible brands may see the most success

“Trying to hibernate until the crisis is over is not a safe strategy; it may actually involve less risk to try something bold.”

— Nathaniel Robson, Economics Lecturer

Learning from past recessions and economic downturns, a pattern emerges. Those brands and businesses that take a proactive approach to innovation can emerge stronger and more successful than before. We see this across every sector—just look at brands like Lego, Netflix, and Walmart, which all grew during the 2008 recession because of new products and investments.

Yes, there may be upfront costs, Robson says, but “there is some potential long-term benefit to come from the associated innovation.”

What does all this mean for your 2023 marketing plan?

When budgets are tight, it’s more important than ever to stick close to your strategy. That doesn’t mean stop innovating and go back to 1950s marketing tactics — quite the opposite.

What it does mean is being focused, considered, and clever about the way you reach your target audience, the key message, and the call to action. Planning your marketing campaigns shouldn’t be rocket science. If you stick to what’s important, it can be both simple and effective.

To keep your campaigns focused, try our 5-Minute Campaign Plan activity. In this template, you’ll strip everything down to the strategic essentials, and you can flesh out the details later.

Let’s run through an example, with all of the above in mind.

Free Download: The 5-Minute Campaign Plan
Strategy can be daunting, but it does not need to be rocket science! If you stick to what’s important, your campaign can be both simple and effective.

Question 1. What is the key insight?

Any good campaign strategy starts with the “why”. We find that business owners have marketing ideas in spades (which is great!), but this is the time to turn on the filter. Which ideas have a sound reason for action? What is the driving insight that makes this specific idea a good one?

Example: Consumers are tightening their budgets as inflationary pressures hit.

Question 2. What campaign idea works best with your insight?

Test your idea(s) against your “why”. Be ruthless. You might have an idea to design and launch a new luxury product, but realize that if you’re being honest with yourself, it doesn’t align with the insight at all.

Example: A loyalty campaign, like a double points week, that drives repeat orders.

Question 3. Who will be your campaign audience?

Now you have your “why” and “what”, it’s time to figure out the “who”. Think about who the insight impacts, and what they have in common.

Example: For your double points campaign, you might have a couple of audiences. First, you’ve got customers who are already in your loyalty program. They are aware of your brand, and actively engage with you. Second, you’ve got customers in your who aren’t in your loyalty program (and who may or may not be in your database).

Question 4: How will you reach your audience with your campaign?

Sketch out a rough plan of channels and activities. Think about where your campaign audiences are, and how you can engage with them.

Example:

Loyalty members – SMS, email

Non-members in database – SMS, email (use double points as an incentive to purchase & join the program)

Other shoppers – Ask to join in-store and include in welcome pop-up online (use double points as an incentive to join the program)

Social followers – Instagram, TikTok ads & posts

Free Download: The 5-Minute Campaign Plan
Strategy can be daunting, but it does not need to be rocket science! If you stick to what’s important, your campaign can be both simple and effective.

Manage your 2023 marketing campaigns with Marsello

All your marketing, in one place.

Turn one-time shoppers into loyal customers with loyalty and rewards
Send email and SMS campaigns to your customer database
Create, schedule and publish social posts across Instagram, TikTok and Facebook
Create set-and-forget marketing automations
Plan all your campaigns in one simple marketing calendar
Track the direct impact of all your marketing on revenue

Cyber Monday Black Friday

Why Patagonia & Other Retailers Are Canceling Black Friday in 2023

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While Black Friday works well for some retailers it's not right for everyone. Some risk cutting into margins, alienating customers or their diluting brand.

The most hyped sales day of the year is just around the corner. But not everyone embraces Black Friday.

While Black Friday undeniably works well for some retailers, others partake because they feel they have to. In these cases, they risk cutting into margins, alienating loyal customers or diluting brand equity.

Since 2011, retail brand Patagonia has been subverting traditional Black Friday messaging. Now many others are following suit, symptomatic of a major shift in consumer culture. Retailers the world over are finding new ways to break consumerist cycles: promoting recycled materials, fair trade and the repair and re-use of old goods.

Quick Links:

3 Reasons Retailers Are Opting Out Of Black Friday This Year

1. They can’t compete with big-box retail brands

Retail giants have the purchasing power to bulk buy loss-leaders and attract Black Friday shoppers by the masses. Smaller retail brands don’t have the deep pockets to compete, so many find that running Black Friday sales just cuts into margins.

2. Their audience is made up of conscious consumers

The kinds of people who shop at smaller retailers are both more loyal and more conscious consumers than those that flock to the likes of Amazon. They’re more suspicious of broad-stroke sales and promotions such as Black Friday, and could be turned off or confused by hyperconsumerist marketing.

3. Their brand values simply aren’t aligned

Running Black Friday sales just feel antithetical to their brand. Brands with strong social or environmental purpose and values don’t feel comfortable participating in a sales day that promotes unnecessary consumption and waste.

We’ve worked with an increasingly large number of brands who don’t want to participate in Black Friday. But you can take an anti-Black Friday position, or subvert the normal marketing messages, and still leverage the hype.

Our advice? Use that position to your advantage. Take the hype of Black Friday, participate in trending conversations, and build your brand and marketing strategy around it.

Take a position on Black Friday

You know your customer best. So take the time to think about what approach works best. By choosing the position that’s right for your brand, you’ll engage your customer base and build brand equity.

Remember: Whichever position you take, you can leverage the hype around the sales season. Even if you’re taking an avoidant or subversive position, you can leverage Black Friday keywords and trending social hashtags to get your message out to a wider audience.

Avoid it: If your target market is predominantly comprised of conscious consumers, are traditional Black Friday campaigns the right fit? Some brands opt out of Black Friday altogether. Some businesses even close their stores, asking their customers to just go outside and enjoy the day rather than spending their time chasing the sales.
Subvert it: Do Black Friday, but with a self-aware twist. Or leverage the hype around Black Friday to promote your purpose—for example, brands running Blue Friday campaigns to raise money for ocean clean up projects.
Lean into it: If Black Friday works for you, then that’s okay too. You can still go all in for Black Friday, and use creative, unique campaigns to stand out from all the noise.

Once you’re steadfast in your position, be consistent. Otherwise, the campaign will feel inauthentic and confused. Craft all your hooks around your core campaign message. You can use these across your social posts, email subject lines and ads.

All your Black Friday marketing. In one place.
Manage all your Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns in Marsello. Schedule social posts, emails, SMS campaigns and more. Then track the impact of your marketing on sales.

Position 1: Avoid It

Last year, the British Independent Retailers Association (BIRA) reported the highest number of smaller brands boycotting Black Friday they’d ever seen—a whopping 85%. This shows a growing movement against the likes of Amazon, who dominate the market and can offer huge discounts, bundles, deals and free shipping.

Here are some ways you can express your anti-Black Friday position:

Encourage your customers to reduce waste and think about what they really need on Black Friday.
Volunteer time or money to plant trees, or donate to offset some of the carbon emissions generated by Black Friday consumption.
You can even close your stores, like sustainable underwear brand Pantee.

True to their vision and values, Ecolateral never runs Black Friday sales or events promoting hyperconsumerism.

"We're about helping people to make genuine and sustainable changes in their life for the benefit of the planet. And if we're true to our vision, people respect that."

— Jamie Stott, Ecolateral

jamie-at-ecolateral Source: Ecolateral Instagram

Position 2: Subvert It

Patagonia’s “Don’t buy this jacket” campaign famously subverted traditional sales messaging around Black Friday.

The conscious retailer is known for its clever use of marketing around sales season to boost its brand profile, PR and social media engagement. In 2016, they used Black Friday promotions to raise money for charities with environmental purpose.

If your audience doesn’t resonate with hyper-consumerism, taking a subversive position can be an extremely clever approach.

You might not see the same revenue success as those leaning into Black Friday, but the objective (the bet) is to build brand awareness and customer loyalty that will last longer than one day in the retail calendar.

patagonia-dont-buy-this-jacket-1 Source: Patagonia

Here are some ways you can subvert traditional Black Friday messaging:

Use Black Friday to promote upcycling, repairing and reusing. Patagonia has an online store, Worn Wear, dedicated to resales of pre-loved clothing. Hoopla Kids does the same.
Take part in Blue Friday, an initiative pioneered by a group of small businesses as an alternative to Black Friday. All participating businesses pledge to donate a percentage of sales from Blue Friday to support ocean conservation projects.
Donate a percentage of sales made over Black Friday weekend to a good cause. Out of the Box Gifts donated 10% of all their 2021 Black Friday sales to a local food bank.

“It’s time for us as a company to address the issue of consumerism and do it head on. The most challenging, and important, element of [Worn Wear] is this: to lighten our environmental footprint, everyone needs to consume less. Businesses need to make fewer things but of higher quality. Customers need to think twice before they buy.”
—Patagonia

Position 3: Lean Into It

If you are leaning into Black Friday this year, here are some marketing tips to help you hit your revenue targets.

Tip #1. At peak sales season, the normal marketing guidelines don’t apply.

Don’t send emails on the weekend? Don’t schedule social posts after 8pm? Don’t send more than 3 emails for week? Forget it.

Consumers are receiving more emails, SMS messages and targeted ads than ever around this time. Don’t be afraid to dial up the frequency of your marketing messages. Be prepared to get some unsubscribes, but the resulting sales will more than outweigh that.

Tip #2. Get personal with segmentation.

This tactic has helped our retailers get more Black Friday sales, and higher average order value.

Slice up your database by type of products purchased. For example, if you’re a technology retailer, you could create segments for “Photographers”—people who most frequently buy photography equipment.

Send targeted Black Friday or Cyber Monday campaign emails and SMS messages to those segments, adding only products from their preferred category. Of course, you can add a “See All Deals” call-to-action below your product blocks to pull in more general interest to the broader sale categories.

For higher impact, start strong with a personalized subject line:

“Alice, get 60% off everything photography! 🤑📸”

Tip #3. Black Friday is about more than just revenue targets.

Did you know sales season is bigger than just hitting holiday revenue targets???

Collect customer details over these heavy traffic periods to build your list of re-marketable customers.

According to the Pareto principle, around 80% of a business’s profits come from just 20% of its customers. That means regular customers, who buy from you again and again, are worth A LOT to your business.

It’s more expensive to acquire new customers to retain them, so make the most of your campaign spend and continue selling to Black Friday participants long after November has been and gone.

How To Use Sales Season To Acquire Lifelong Customers

In the current economic climate, consumers are much more price-sensitive, so they’re more willing to switch brands on a whim. That’s especially true around peak sales season. Any new customers you’ve acquired over the holiday season have more than likely found you through a sale or promotion.

So how do you keep new customers in your orbit year-round?? With a value-packed and engaging loyalty program they won’t want to leave!

After the holiday rush, run double points days, VIP sales, personalized deals and creative in-store shopping experiences. Regularly deliver value to your loyal customers with birthday gifts, loyalty rewards and freebies—they’ll love you for it.

As a consumer, what are your favorite loyalty programs you’re part of? There are always a few standouts you can learn from!

Marsello: All your marketing, in one place.

Schedule social posts
Send email and SMS campaigns to customers
Create set-and-forget marketing automations
Track the direct impact of all your marketing on revenue
Build a customer database

Social Media Marketing Halloween

5 Social Media Tips For A Scary Good Halloween 2023 Campaign

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Halloween is the perfect opportunity for retailers to prime their audience for the upcoming sale season. Here are 5 social media tips for Halloween 2022.

For retailers, Halloween is the perfect opportunity to prime your audience for the upcoming sale and holiday season (Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas).

Here are 5 social media tips for Halloween 2023 that can help you get more conversions.

Quick Links:

1. Encourage User-Generated Content

User-generated content (or UGC) is one of the most powerful tools that marketers can use to drive engagement. Not only is it more authentic and relatable, but it’s also more efficient—it’s free and can generate more engagement than your own branded content.

You can encourage people to share their photos or videos, and tagging your brand. For example, competitions or challenges. Ask them open questions and play around with their answers. Feature the best or funniest answers.

Looking for an even simpler competition? Ask your followers to tag their friends and share your contest post on their Instagram or Facebook story.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by FabFinds Ltd (@shopatfabfinds)

Make the most out of your social media marketing; you can use marketing automation to schedule your content strategy ahead of time. Set posts across several platforms in a single calendar or even repost good user-generated content across different platforms.

2. Get creative with social media posts

Think about your brand and what kind of content and campaigns might work best. You could include Halloween-related images with your product, or it might just make sense to offer your audience a holiday discount without adding spooky flair to your brand creative.

Halloween is the perfect holiday for Scotty’s Makeup & Beauty—who supply makeup and beauty products to the TV, film, and theatre industries.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Scotty's Makeup & Beauty (@scottys_makeup)

Every year, they make the most of the promotional period with a carefully planned calendar of social posts, email campaigns, and automations. Their in-store artists are also available to guide and advise on Halloween costume make-up and products.

"Halloween is a huge selling month for us. Since using Marsello, our online sales over this period have increased dramatically as have our in-store sales – a lot of these purchases are from an average customer, not a student or pro makeup artist as well."
—Hollie, Scotty’s Makeup & Beauty

If your brand is not so closely Halloween-related, you can still run photo contests on your Facebook page and encourage users to upload images. Encourage your followers to share pictures of themselves dressed up, or their kids’ trick-or-treat costumes. In exchange for their contribution, you can share their content on your page, reward them with a discount, and ask them to share the contest on their blogs.

All your Halloween marketing. In one place.
Manage all your Halloween campaigns in Marsello. Drive repeat sales with loyalty, send email & SMS campaigns, set up automations, and more. Then track the impact of your marketing on sales.

3. Give discounts or promo codes

A Halloween sale or discount code can be a great way to draw in new customers ahead of Black Friday / Cyber Monday. You can host a Halloween sale on your website and promote it across your email campaigns, social accounts and even SMS.

Remember: You don’t have to alter your brand to fit with Halloween theme! You can simply run promotions and add emojis in your captions for holiday flair.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ilovelens.com (@ilovelens_official)

4. Use UTMs to track sales and run retargeting

Track sales made across your Halloween social media posts and campaigns. The sales data you gather through UTM codes can also be used for retargeting.

Insert UTM parameters on your sale URLs and include them in your social media bios or link in bio pages. This allows you to create custom audiences for your retargeting efforts.

Using ads, you can retarget your website and visitors on social media. You can also see whether they make a purchase or not. In this case, the focus should be on communicating the right message to your audience and experimenting with different approaches. For example, you can vary your copy and imagery.

5. Use TikToks and Reels

Video marketing (for example, on Instagram Reels or TikTok) is a powerful social media marketing medium. It’s a great way to attract attention and engage with your target audience.

Videos can also be an excellent medium to authentically and genuinely connect with your audience. Break down your brand’s key messages, describe individual products, add value by creating how-to content and reviews.

Your Halloween-themed videos don’t have to be complex. For example, create a how-to video that shares a fun technique for Halloween decorating. You can present your audience with several possibilities for decorating their homes or offices.

Remember: UGC content works best, so if you’re creating TikToks or Reels, keep this in mind. Create videos and ads that look like they’re made by a user, not by a brand.

Final words

Halloween is a time that allows business owners to promote products and services. You can use user-generated content, discounts, and promo codes to generate engagement. You can also generate sales from social media by using UTM codes and retargeting.

Have you tried any of these tactics? Let us know!

Marsello: All your marketing, in one place.

Schedule social posts
Send email and SMS campaigns to customers
Create set-and-forget marketing automations
Track the direct impact of your marketing on revenue
Build a customer database

Cyber Monday Social Media Marketing Black Friday

5 TikTok Trends Retailers Should Be Using This Black Friday

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Need inspiration for your Black Friday TikTok posts? We have put together a list of 5 tried-and-tested TikTok formats that we see working over and over...

The opportunity for sales through TikTok is colossal. 67% of TikTok users say they feel an impulse to shop while scrolling through their feed. 20.6% of consumers who have bought products through social media say they frequently purchase on TikTok.

In addition, TikTokers use the platform as a search engine; TikTok crawls comments, tags, and captions for keywords to provide highly relevant search results.

This illustrates a rapidly growing preference for organic, user-generated content over keyword-stuffed blog posts in traditional search engine results.

black-friday-tiktok-search-trends

As Black Friday approaches, users jump on the app to find deals and see what their favorite TikTokers are buying. It’s no wonder TikTok is the place every retailer wants to be this Black Friday…

Quick Links:

Why User-Generated Content Works Best

TikTok is all about authenticity.

TikTokers are more discerning than any other social media user. They’re social natives, raised by influencer culture and reality TV, so they know when someone’s there to sell them something.

On the other end of the authenticity spectrum… you’ve got traditional, big-box, branded Black Friday campaigns.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t harness the power and influence of the For You page to stand out from the crowd this sale season.

The key? User-generated content, or UGC. That’s right, you want to make content that looks like it was made by one of your customers, NOT by your marketing team.

Let’s dive in!

Top 5 TikTok Trends To Use This Black Friday

These are not new or fleeting trends. (Nope, we’re not going to make you edit corn into your next collection promo video).

TikTok moves fast, so trying to plan out content ahead of time can be a headache. You don’t want to awkwardly miss the beat on a trend, it’ll be very obvious. For quick, hot-and-fast trends, you want to jump on them right away.

Once you’ve spent a bit of time on the platform, you will get a pretty clear idea about what kinds of trends will last a few days or weeks, and what will stand the test of time.

If you aren’t super au fait with TikTok just yet, never fear. We have put together some tried-and-tested successful formulae that we see working over and over again. With these trends, it’s all about creating a hook that entices the user and gets them to stop scrolling.

1. Black Friday Hauls

Create a video of someone shopping online or in your physical stores, then cut to them showing all their new products. Walk the viewer through the discounts, bundles, and deals.

Example of a Black Friday haul:

@emmylizabethhauls WHAT I GOT MYSELF ON BLACK FRIDAY #blackfridaydeals #blackfriday #haul #christmashaul #haulaccount #shoppinghaul #abercombie #lulu #kendrascott #hm ♬ original sound - emily's hauls!

Some hashtags to add:

#blackfridaydeals #blackfriday #haul #christmashaul #shoppinghaul

2. Deals You Need To Know About

Create a video showcasing your brand’s deals. To level up the authenticity, promote some complementary deals from brands you collaborate with too. It’s all about community!

Example of a deal finder:

@laurenwolfe All links in my bio! My fav cyber Monday deals #cybermonday2020 #blackfriday2020 #blackfridaydeals #christmasgiftideas #giftguide2020 #founditonamazon ♬ All I Want for Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey

Some hashtags to add:

#cybermonday2022 #blackfriday2022 #blackfridaydeals #christmasgiftideas #giftguide2022

3. Unboxing Experiences

These work particularly well if they’re ‘oddly satisfying’ or ASMR inspired. You can add a mention that the product was on sale on a Black Friday deal.

Example of an unboxing:

@dermalogica Our limited-edition holiday kits just hit the site and they won't last long. 💙 #dermalogica #skintok #unboxing ♬ The Lost Stray Dog - Official Sound Studio

Some hashtags to add:

#unboxing #blackfriday #ASMR (if applicable)

All your Black Friday marketing, in one place.
Manage all your Black Friday/Cyber Monday campaigns in Marsello. Drive repeat sales with loyalty, send email & SMS campaigns, set up automations, and more. Then track the impact of your marketing on sales.

4. Get Ready With Me (GRWM)

Make this trend Black Friday relevant with a “GRWM: Black Friday edition” showcasing all your Black Friday deals. Mix and match with non-sale items, or do a full ‘on sale’ promotion. This works for clothes, make-up, beauty, accessories… get creative!

Example of a GRWM:

@merrell Take yourself out on a cute lil park date with your hydro mocs like @The Halliday Twins #hydromoc #merrell ♬ original sound - merrell

Some hashtags to add:

#outfit #winter (or any applicable season) #grwm

5. Come shopping with me

If you have a bricks and mortar store, bring the viewer "shopping" with you. Take a timelapse of walking into your store from the street, looking around, then slow down to pick up products and deals. Show the viewer you’re adding it to your basket, all while showcasing your in-store experience candidly.

Example of a shop with me:

@zoouuzaaa Lets go shopping!! 🛍💳 #comeshopwithme #mallshopping #claires #ardene #hottopichaul #forever21 #shoppingaddict #girlythings #thatgirl #y2k ♬ When I Grow Up - The Pussycat Dolls

Some hashtags to add:

#comeshopwithme #mallshopping #shoppingaddict

Dos and Don’ts for Black Friday TikTok success

Don’t brand your videos.

Use TikTok’s native fonts, instead of your own branded fonts. This will give your content a much more organic feel, and won’t stick out as “marketing” content on TikTok’s For You page.

TikTok’s native fonts include Proxima Nova Semi Bold, Kaufmann Bold Script and Georgia Bold. You can mix and match fonts and styles.

Do make sure your videos are well lit.

Good lighting is essential for creating high-quality content. Every successful TikToker has this down. If you can, film in good natural light (but not direct sunlight). Golden hour (when the sun is setting) will give your content a warm, radiant glow.

As a second-best alternative, invest in quality artificial lighting, such as a ring light.

Do get creative with transitions.

If you’re feeling confident, try some creative transitions between shots. TikTokers are known for using manual camera tricks to enhance the overall feel of their videos.

@ed.it.son How to transform into a bunch of masks! #videography #videoedits #cameratricks #transitions #behindthescenes #transformation #videoeditor ♬ listen to me now - Remix - kidolitx

Do get familiar with editing apps.

If you’re creating content in advance, TikTok’s native editor is not ideal. Use an editing tool like CapCut to get a cleaner final result. You can download it for your phone, tablet or desktop.

Don’t try and tell your whole brand story.

While it can be tempting to start talking about how great all your products are and listing all the benefits, stick to the short, hook-based formats above.

Don’t use muffled audio.

If you’re doing voice-over style videos, it’s important to get crisp, clear sound. Invest in a small microphone you can clip to your clothing, like a lapel mic, that plugs into your recording device (i.e., your phone). These are affordable and easy to find online.

Most TikTokers find it’s simple and effective to record straight into Voice Memos or similar. Your phone’s inbuilt voice recording app serves the purpose just fine.

Don’t spend thousands on equipment.

I can’t iterate this enough. Even the best quality user-generated content doesn’t need anything more than good lighting, good audio, your smartphone (as long as it has a decent camera), and a tripod.

Do have fun with it!

Express your personality, and have fun—otherwise, it will become just another marketing chore, and that won’t produce good content. Making TikToks is a creative process, so enjoy it!

Marsello: All your Black Friday marketing, in one place.

Send email and SMS campaigns to customers
Create set-and-forget marketing automations
Schedule social posts
Track the direct impact of your marketing on revenue
Build a customer database

Marketing Tips

Top Marketing Statistics For Retail & Hospitality 2022

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We've compiled this handy reference list of retail and hospitality marketing statistics. This list will be updated on a regular basis.

Top marketing statistics for retail and hospitality businesses 👇

We've compiled this handy reference list of retail and hospitality marketing statistics. This list will be updated on a regular basis.

Quick Links:

Sales & shopping habits

Here are some of the top trends and insights into consumer behavior in 2022.

The average shopping cart abandonment rate is 69.23% (Baymard Institute, 2022).
In an analysis of over 60 million consumer purchases, Marsello found that 25% of all orders come from the top 2% of customers (Marsello, forthcoming).
According to research by BIA/Kelsey and Manta, regular customers spend 67% more per order than one-off or infrequent customers (BIA/Kelsey & Manta)

Social media statistics

Customers report spending 20%–40% more money on brands that have interacted with them on social media (OptinMonster, 2022).
Industry data shows that 55% of social media users ages 18 to 24 have purchased something through a social channel (Influencer Marketing Hub, 2022).
There were 4.26 billion active social media users across the globe in 2021. This is forecast to increase to 5.85 billion by 2027 (Statista, 2022).
77% of Millennials report making a purchase either online or in-store after seeing a product on Facebook (OptinMonster, 2022).

Loyalty statistics

Loyalty marketing is a marketing strategy that retailers of all sizes use to increase the lifetime value of their customers through incentivizing and rewarding repeat purchasing.

Watch: Loyalty Marketing Masterclass

According to Marketing Metrics (2011), the probability of selling to an existing customer is up to 14 times higher than the probability of selling to a new customer.
When your customers feel rewarded for their purchases, they can spend more, more frequently, and even purchase products at a slightly higher price than they might be at a competitor (KPMG, 2019).
60% of consumers will buy from a store with slightly higher prices if they will earn a loyalty program reward (KPMG, 2017).
More than 65% of customers admitted making special trip to redeem a free gift from a loyalty program (KPMG, 2017).
75% of consumers would give “rave reviews” to a loyalty program they’re involved in (KPMG, 2017).
Existing customers are 50% more likely to try new products and spend 31% more, on average, compared to new customers (Crazyegg/Neil Patel, 2018).
Retailers can also send more frequent messages to those who are loyal brand followers (although you’ll see your best engagement if you don’t send more than five emails per week) (GetResponse, 2021).
According to the 2018 Bond Brand Loyalty Report:

77% of consumers say they are likely to stay with a brand that has a loyalty program.
70% of consumers are more likely to recommend a brand with a good loyalty program.
63% of consumers say they're prepared to modify their spending habits in order to maximize the benefits of a loyalty program.

All your marketing, in one place.
Manage all your marketing campaigns in Marsello. Drive repeat sales with loyalty, send email & SMS campaigns, set up automations, and more. Then track the impact of your marketing on sales.

Segmentation statistics

Customer segmentation is the process of dividing customers into groups, allowing retailers to do more targeted and effective marketing. Segmentation is an antidote to low database engagement and declining email open rates.

78% of marketers reported segmentation as their most effective email marketing strategy (Hubspot, 2022).
In retail, automated emails see a 326.1% higher click rate than manually-sent emails, indicating 4x higher engagement and purchase intent (Epsilon, 2019).

SMS marketing statistics

When used in the right context, SMS remains one of the most powerful marketing tactics on the block.

75% of consumers want to receive text messages with special offers (Adestra via Dexatel, 2017)
90% of SMS messages opened within three minutes of being received (Tatango, 2020)

example-of-a-black-friday-sms-campaign

Pro-tip: Get even more personalized and use merge tags in your SMS campaigns—include loyalty points balance, first name and more.

Marketing automation statistics

With marketing automation, you can reach the right customers, with the right message at the right time.

Automated emails, triggered by a customer action, get 8 times more opens than manual, bulk emails (Experian)

Customer experience statistics

Send exclusive Black Friday deals and offers to your existing customers. Rubber Monkey sent customers an extra $10 voucher to use over and above their Black Friday purchases.

Bad customer service can cause 4 out of 5 consumers to switch brands (Qualtrics & ServiceNow, 2021).

Referral & word-of-mouth statistics

Referral programs reward existing customers for introducing friends, family or colleagues to your brand. They work by offering incentives such as points, discounts, or other rewards in return.

People are as much as 4x more likely to buy when referred by a friend.

Marsello: All your marketing, in one place.

Send email and SMS campaigns
Create set-and-forget marketing automations
Schedule social posts
Track the impact of your campaigns on revenue
Build and grow your customer database

Social Media Marketing Sales Tracking

5 Tips for Tracking Social Media Sales

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In this post, we’ll shed light on the key steps and best practices you must take to effectively track and measure sales you’ve generated via social media.

Fact: social media is a major part of the lives of today’s consumers. No matter what type of business you run or who your target market is, chances are you have customers using various social apps and platforms.

Social networks are so embedded in our daily lives that people are increasingly using apps like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok to discover — and ultimately purchase — products. This is particularly true among younger consumers. Industry data shows that 55% of social media users ages 18 to 24 have purchased something through a social channel.

Social media is clearly a solid vehicle for sales, and if you’re active on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, then you’re likely attracting customers and sales through these channels.

The question is, how many of your sales are actually coming from social media?

If you find yourself shrugging your shoulders to that question, keep reading. In this post, we’ll shed light on the key steps and best practices you must take to effectively track and measure sales you’ve generated via social media.

By the end of this post, you’ll have a better understanding of the different ways to track sales on social, and you’ll walk away with tips and tools to do it right.

Let’s dive in.

Quick Links:

Why should you implement sales tracking on social media?

As the saying goes, you can’t improve what you don’t measure. Actively implementing sales tracking on social media enables you to improve in the following ways.

You can allocate resources more effectively

Running social media accounts can take a significant amount of resources. Even if you aren’t actively spending money on ads, you and your team likely devote quite a bit of time and energy planning your posts, creating content, and publishing said content on social platforms.

Tracking your sales enables you to hone in on activities that are driving a positive ROI, so you can focus on doing more of what works.

That way, you can ensure you’re spending more time (and money) on sales-generating activities.

It helps you refine your strategy

In addition to enabling you budget resources more effectively, tracking your sales on social media helps improve your overall marketing strategy.

Let’s say you post a mix of Reels, Stories, and static photos on Instagram and notice that certain types of posts are better than others at generating sales. You can use that insight to create more content that resonates with your audience.

Measuring your social media sales can also tell you which channels are effective at generating revenue. If you find that you’re getting better results on Instagram versus TikTok, for example, then you can start prioritizing Instagram in your sales campaigns.

You’ll grow your social media presence

All of the above benefits lead to a stronger social media presence overall. When you’re able to focus your efforts on the platforms and tactics that matter, you’ll naturally connect better with your audience and gain more fans and followers.

5 tips for tracking sales on social media

Now that we’ve covered the why behind social media sales tracking, let’s look at how you can go about it. Here are a handful of tips to ensure your sales tracking efforts are successful.

1. Start with a plan

It can be tempting to just start posting straight away and seeing if any sales come through, but a haphazard approach to social media tracking could lead to missed opportunities, inaccurate data, and wasted time.

If you want to get the most out of your efforts, you need to lay the groundwork and plan accordingly.

Here are some of the details you need to iron out before launching your social media campaigns.

Time period. Map out the dates and times you’ll be running your campaign. This will make it easier to attribute sales that come through via social media.

Products and assets involved in the sale. What items will you be promoting? Do you have photos and videos of those products? Make sure you have the necessary assets ready beforehand so you can launch you campaign without a hitch.

Type of activities. Identify the specific activities or campaigns you’ll be running. Will you be working with influencers? Are you running an exclusive sale? Is it a “new arrival” type of campaign? The right method for tracking your sales will depend on the type of initiative that you’re running.

Social networks involved. Get clear on the social network (or networks) that you’ll be using. If you’re leveraging multiple platforms, you’ll need to tailor your efforts accordingly.

Resources spent. It also helps to track the time and money you’ve spent on your campaigns. Doing so will enable you to measure your social media ROI and determine whether or not the campaign is worth the effort and resources spent.

All your marketing, in one place.
Manage all your marketing campaigns in Marsello. Drive repeat sales with loyalty, send email & SMS campaigns, schedule social posts, set up automations, and more. Then track the impact of your marketing on sales.

2.Track social media sales using a special promo code

A good way to measure social media sales is to use a dedicated promo code. This tactic is best used when you’re running a sale or partnering with an influencer to promote your products.

To implement this tactic, come up with a promo code that’s unique to a particular campaign or influencer and make sure the code isn’t used on other channels. These codes should be fairly easy to generate and track if you have the right ecommerce platform or marketing solution.

Once you launch your campaign, start looking out for transactions that contain the promo codes you created and use that data to track your sales.

We can see this in action in Lakanto Monkfruit Sweetener, a company that makes sugar-free sweets. Lakanto teams up with influencers like Nicole Cogan (@nobread on Instagram) to promote its products.

To attribute sales generated through this partnership, a specific promo code (i.e., “NOBREAD”) is used, and Nicole’s followers will get a discount when they enter the code at checkout. Meanwhile, Lakanto can track sales that resulted from the campaign by taking note of how many people entered the promo code on its website.

no bread instagram post

Promo codes are simple and easy to use (both for customers and the merchant). Just bear in mind that these codes also have some shortcomings.

For starters, promo codes may not always paint an accurate picture of sales.

If someone sees your product on social media but doesn’t use the code at checkout, then your system won’t be able to properly attribute that transaction.

In addition, if one of your brand partners decides to share their promo code outside of social media (e.g., their blog or during an in-person interaction) then this may distort the data around social media attribution.

Also, you can only use promo codes as a tracking tool if you’re running a sales or promotion. Customers typically expect discounts when entering a code at checkout, so if you aren’t running a sale, then you can’t really use promo codes as a tracking tool.

💡 Pro-tip: Add promo codes to your social media posts in Marsello as one way to track sales and measure the dollar impact of your posts.

3.Use special links and UTMs

If you’re using Google Analytics to measure your web traffic, then UTMs (Urchin Traffic Monitor) can help you see which sources or campaigns are driving traffic to your site.

UTMs make use of parameters like website source, medium, and campaign to pinpoint where your visitors are coming from. These UTMs come in the form of special tracking codes that you attach at the end of a URL.

They look something like this:

https://www.example.com?utm_source=social-media&utm_medium=instagram&utm_campaign=holiday-products

In the example above, the source of traffic is social media, the medium is Instagram, and the campaign is holiday products.

When you log into Google Analytics, you’ll be able to drill down on how many visitors are attributed to these parameters.

You can generate a UTM by heading to Google’s Campaign URL Builder. Just fill out the required fields and the tool will generate the link for you. You can then use that special URL in your corresponding campaigns and then start tracking.

utms for sales tracking in social media

If you aren’t using Google Analytics, you can opt for personalized social links instead.

Marsello enables you to create a custom “link in bio” page that you can include in your social media profiles. You can then track the number of people who clicked on the link to determine how many followers visited your site.

link in bio marsello

Links and UTMs allow you to measure page visits without the use of a promo code, so they can be helpful tracking tools when you’re not running a promotion.

However, one limitation of UTMs and links is they only track page visits, not sales or conversions. They can tell you how many people landed on a page and where they came from, but they won’t show you how many users completed a purchase — unless you’re using a tool like Marsello to track the entire buying journey.

4. Ask your customers

You can glean social media sales intel simply by asking your customers. At the checkout page, add a form field asking shoppers where they heard about you, and then have them select from a range of options.

From there, tally up the number of people who selected social media (or a specific social network — i.e., Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, etc.) and use that information to track your sales.

This tactic is easy to implement, but it also has some downsides. For one thing, having an extra form field on the checkout page adds friction to the buying experience and may turn off some customers.

Additionally, some shoppers may opt to skip the question, so won’t be able to capture all the data you need.

5. Use sales tracking tools

While you can certainly track sales manually — i.e., by counting promo codes or tallying survey results by hand — these processes are cumbersome and can lead to human error and inaccurate data.

You’re far better off measuring social media sales with tools that can automate the process. Marsello, for example, streamlines social media sales tracking by connecting your POS and ecommerce sales data with your social media accounts.

From there, Marsello attributes a percentage of your revenue to a social media post containing a tagged product, UTM, or promo code.

sales tracking marsello

Here’s how it works:

Connect your social media accounts to your POS or ecommerce platform.
Create posts across Instagram, Facebook and TikTok then tag your products.
Use Marsello track and measure sales for a given time period.

💡 Pro-tip: Measure revenue, orders, and average spend in Marsello to give you a clear picture of what social activities are actually contributing to your bottom line. This, in turn, helps you make smarter decisions that lead to more sales, profit, and followers.

Bringing it all together

You and your team likely spend a great deal of time and energy on social media, so you must ensure your efforts are put to good use. The best way to do that is to actively track your social media sales, so you can refine your efforts accordingly.

Need help doing just that? Marsello Social provides you with tools to easily publish social media content and track sales.

Marsello: All your marketing, in one place.

Send email and SMS campaigns to customers
Create set-and-forget marketing automations
Schedule social posts
Track the impact of your marketing on revenue
Build a customer database

Social Media Marketing Sales Tracking

How To Turn Social Media Engagement Into Sales

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Here are three strategies you can use to take that engagement and convert followers into paying customers.

Does your engagement convert? Learn how to find out 👇

Social media engagement is a great metric for measuring the buzz around your brand. The average Instagram engagement rate across all businesses is around 1-2% per post (depending on where you look).

So, if you’ve got 5,000 followers, the average business could expect around 50-100 likes on any given post. Video content generally sees a much higher engagement rate—that same business could be seeing around 300 likes on a video post. Carousels also receive higher engagement, as Instagram’s algorithm will show the same post more than once to the same follower.

But engagement is not revenue, and it doesn’t necessarily even convert to revenue in the long run. If your posts don’t drive action, generate exclusivity, or create urgency, your audience may engage with you without ever making a purchase.

So your next question should be: how do I turn engagement into dollars and cents?

Quick Links:

How do I turn engagement into revenue?

When I talk to merchants, there's one thing I hear a lot: "My posts get lots of comments, good reach, and heaps of likes, but I just don't know if I'm seeing sales from them." It's a common concern—you're putting all this time and effort into creating content, but it's really hard to make that content sell.

Here are three strategies you can use to take that engagement and convert followers into paying customers.

1. Use Product Tagging to drive social sales

To convert followers into customers, you want to take away every possible barrier to purchase. Don’t make your followers Google your website, then manually type a product into the search bar. Every time there’s an extra step, a percentage of followers will drop off the buying journey.

Product Tagging is perfect for this. It doesn’t have to be on a “product launch” type post either, you can tag products on lifestyle imagery, competition posts, and more. You can even use “product” stickers to tag products in your Instagram stories too.

Take advantage of every opportunity to tag a product.

💡 Pro-tip: Using Product Tagging means you can measure the direct impact of your social posts on sales. To see it in action, connect your social accounts, POS and/or eCommerce platforms to Marsello and instantly see how your last 100 posts have contributed to sales.

2. Create a custom link in bio landing page

When you only get one link, make it count. Drive followers to your store with a branded link and customizable landing page for Instagram and TikTok.

Having a centralized landing page means you can drive all your traffic to one page with multiple products, promotions and calls-to-action. There are lots of tools out there, from free, basic products to tools with advanced features and customization. The most sophisticated tools have the ability for merchants to add forms, buttons, media and more to a fully branded page.

link in bio marsello

Premium link in bio features.
Marsello’s very own link in bio feature brings all the advanced customization you’re looking for to keep brand experience seamless.

3. Plan campaigns and posts ahead of time

Sometimes, even the best post with the most amazing offer and relevant call-to-action just won’t work.

Imagine this. You’re a retailer selling mountain bikes. You’ve also got a workshop and you sell replacement parts and accessories. It’s the middle of winter and things are quiet, but you know come spring all your customers will be wanting to replace their knackered bearings to hit the trails as soon as possible.

You make a post offering half price bearings in-store hoping to see some service bookings off the back of it (thinking that you’ll be able to upsell when people are in the right frame of mind). But you don’t see any uptake so you assume you were wrong, and that the idea was a flop.

Here’s how you could do it differently:

You want to target existing customers, but also other riders in your local community. You know the large portion of your social followers are local mountain bike riders. So plan and schedule a series of posts each with different creative, and do a candid video post on your stories too.

You could build the hype by sending out an email or two as well to your local database.

Create a discount code people need to use in-store so you can track the impact of the campaign (I’ll get to that shortly). It might even make sense to send an SMS out as well, driving people to one of your social media posts for more info.

All this planning can be on the back of an envelope:

Insight: There’s always a spring rush for parts and servicing because people leave it til the last minute, and the workshop is really busy
Objective: Sell bearings, drive foot traffic, and get people thinking about booking in a service early
Offer: 50% off all bearings (put a time limit on this for urgency-for example, “This month only”)
Target audience: Customers and other local riders
Channels: Social media, email and SMS
Success measure(s): In-store bearing sales, foot traffic increase, service bookings

Once you’ve got your basic campaign plan, spend a couple of hours getting everything set up.

Create a discount code and/or UTM to track bookings from your campaign.

Use a social media scheduling tool to schedule campaign posts over your campaign time period.

Schedule an email blast to customers, and maybe a reminder email or two.

Schedule an SMS to reach people directly to their mobile (around 98% of SMS messages are opened, so it’s a great channel for a short, snappy and time-sensitive campaign).

Taking a step back to plan means you can get your channels working together to increase the impact of your social media posts, and drive more sales.

How do I know what posts generate sales?

To understand how your engagement converts, you need a way to track sales that come from your social posts. This can be a bit tricky, so I've pulled together a handy list of ways to measure your results.

Get a social media analytics tool to track sales

The easiest and most effective way to track sales made from organic social media is to use analytics software that connects your POS, eCommerce, and social media data (you can do this all in Marsello).

This doesn’t just track when someone clicks on a tagged product, it also tracks if someone likes, comments on or shares a post with a product tagged in it, and buys it later. This is called organic social media sales tracking.

sales tracking marsello

Using a tool like this, you can see:

What posts have generated the most revenue
Which creative type (images, videos, etc) leads to more sales
How many orders you get from social media over a certain period of time
Which social media platform works best for your business
What percentage of revenue comes from organic social media

By tracking sales and revenue, and seeing what kinds of social posts and which channels work best, you can improve the performance of your accounts over time.

Convert social followers into customers.
Schedule, tag, post, sell. Start a free trial today and see it in action—Marsello automatically syncs your last 100 posts. Simply tag products in your posts, and see how many sales came directly from social.

Include discount codes in social posts

Discount codes are one of the simplest ways to see where traffic and sales are coming from. These have become popular for tracking sales from organic social media posts and campaigns, as merchants struggled to see the impact of their efforts in Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc.

Simply create a unique discount or offer code for each channel, and you’ll be able to track how many sales you generated from those posts.

Use UTMs to track links back to your online store

What is a UTM? UTMs (Urchin Tracking Modules) are short bits of code you can use to track how effective a campaign is. UTMs can track up to five parameters (aspects): campaign, source, medium, content and term.

That might sound complex, but UTMs are actually incredibly easy to use. And unless you’re drilling into deep testing and measuring, you really only the first three parameters.

The easiest way to show you how to build a UTM is by using an example.

Say we are running a campaign that goes to http://marsello.com. We are using Facebook ads, and the campaign is to get sign ups for our social media scheduler.

Let’s put that in simple terms:

Campaign: Social Media
Source: Facebook
Medium: Paid Ads

When you build your link, make sure you don’t use spaces. Instead, replace your space with a dash symbol (-). Aside from that, use only plain text for labeling (avoid hashtags, ampersands, percentage symbols or anything else that could break the link).

Campaign: Social-Media-Sign-Ups
Source: Facebook
Medium: Paid-Ads

Now, we want to add these to the link in UTM format.

First, add a question mark (?). This indicates that the body of the link is complete, and Google Analytics, or your tracking tool, should read the following part as tracking information.
Add “utm_campaign=” then your campaign name.
Add an ampersand symbol (&). This tells your tracking tool that your campaign name is complete.
Add “utm_source=” then your source.
Add another ampersand symbol (&).
Finally, add “utm_medium=” then your medium.

It’s that easy! Here’s how ours would look:

http://marsello.com?utm_campaign=Social-Media-Sign-Ups&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Paid-Ads

For each different source or medium you want to differentiate, change the UTM parameters. For example, you might differentiate visitors coming from a Facebook source by medium. You could state “utm_medium=organic-post” or “utm_medium=story-video” to separate traffic coming from different parts of the platform.

The more specific you go, the more you know what particular channel, content and post type works best. But it’s always good to have broader parameters too, for example, you will still want to be able to compare all Facebook traffic from all Instagram traffic.

Final words

If you're putting a lot of resource into social media, but aren't sure if all the likes and comments are actually growing your business, you're not alone.

Start making your social media work harder by taking away barriers to purchase (product tagging, using a link in bio, etc) and track the results directly using UTMs, promo codes and sales tracking.

It's also important to have a clear plan, while leaving some wiggle room in your calendar for jumping on trends as they come up.

Looking for an all-in-one social planning, scheduling and sales tracking tool? Marsello provides you with tools to easily create, schedule and publish social media content.

Marsello: All your marketing, in one place.

Send email and SMS campaigns to customers
Create set-and-forget marketing automations
Schedule social posts and track the impact on sales
Track the direct impact of all your marketing on revenue
Build a customer database

Cyber Monday Social Media Marketing Black Friday

Social Media Planning for BFCM: 7 Best Practices to Implement

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We’ve put together a list of the top social media planning practices your brand should follow to attract and retain customers in the 2022 holiday season.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) weekend is coming up fast (just where did 2022 go?) It’s high time for brands to begin planning for this massive, revenue-generating shopping event.

179.8 million unique shoppers shopped in-store and online during the BFCM holiday weekend in 2021, despite the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

With 2022 seeing record rates of inflation and more cautious consumer spending, brands will need to pull out all the stops to wow customers this holiday season.

Although still associated with shoppers streaming into store locations, BFCM weekend is becoming increasingly digital and mobile-first. According to Nosto, mobile outperformed desktop at 69% versus 31% when it came to product discovery and browsing, where social media emerges as a key channel. In fact, 54% of Gen Z shoppers and 58% of Millennials say that social platforms are better than online search for finding products and brands.

In sum, a robust social media strategy is now essential for a profitable BFCM weekend.

We’ve put together a list of the top social media planning practices your brand should follow to attract and retain customers this holiday season — and how Marsello’s brand-new social media toolkit can help.

Quick Links:

1. Use data to inform your BFCM initiatives and planning

Not sure where to begin with your social media planning? A good place to start is to look into what strategies worked for your brand last year — and what didn’t.

Social media metrics such as engagement, impressions, click-through rate, website traffic, and conversion rate will help you to gauge the performance of previous initiatives and where you can build on this success. Likewise, learning from past mistakes, such as posting at the wrong time of day for your audience, is one of the best ways to set yourself up for a profitable BFCM period.

Using Marsello, look back on what kinds of posts generated the most sales over past campaigns.

In addition to using your own data, don’t ignore the power of industry trends. Knowing what’s hot with social media users is a great way to stay innovative and serve up the content consumers want to see.

For example, short-form video is gaining traction across all social platforms in 2022, with 26% of social media marketers investing more in short-form video than any other content format. If your target customer belongs to the Gen Z demographic, this should definitely be in your BFCM toolkit.

2. Iron out the BFCM promotions you’ll be running

Running seasonal promotions is an essential part of BFCM, and your followers will expect you offer some compelling deals and discounts throughout the weekend. To maximize engagement with your social content, make sure you’ve planned out all the core details of your promotions, such as:

The type of content. Are you using a single image, carousel, or video to publicize your promotion?

The type of promotion. The size of the discount/offer, what products are included/excluded, etc.

Length/timing of the promotion. How long the promotion is valid and whether you might extend it to increase conversions

However, be careful not to make your social media feeds too promotion-heavy. Constantly pushing discounts over BFCM weekend can become boring and repetitive for your followers. Consider mixing up your feed with other types of content and putting aside some time to plan out your content streams. This includes promotional offers, gift inspo, and user-generated content.

Starbucks is a great example of a brand that posts a careful mix of content during and in the lead-up to BFCM. In addition to posting about their seasonal drinks range and limited-edition holiday cup promotions, its social media feeds also include user-generated content and question prompts designed to encourage engagement.

All your Black Friday marketing. In one place.
Add Marsello to your store now, and kickstart your Black Friday Cyber Monday campaigns with email campaigns, SMS, automations and more. Track the impact of all your marketing on sales, and measure your return on investment.

3. Create compelling images

Consumers’ newsfeeds and inboxes are being inundated by promotions and discounts during BFCM weekend, trying to persuade them to drop everything and shop right now. But don’t join the race to the bottom by choosing the steepest discount possible; focus on creating eye-catching visuals that entice consumers to stop scrolling and check out your offer.

To tap into those short attention spans, your images need to have a “wow factor” that’s pleasing to look at and primes people to explore what you have to offer.

anthropologie example of a beautiful holiday post

Known for its stunning social media feeds, Anthropologie does a great job at putting its followers in the mindset of holiday shopping ahead of BFCM. This fun visual swipe post allows Anthropologie fans to “turn on” the Christmas lights at one of their flagship stores — a clear sign of more holiday-themed content to come.

💡 Pro-tip: You can crop and edit images right inside Marsello to create compelling, attractive content for your social media campaigns.

4. Use a calendar to track and schedule your BFCM content

It can be tempting to post all your social media content on the fly. But while there’s room for spontaneity in your content (for example, jumping on a trend while it’s still viral) you don’t want to leave your BFCM content to chance.

Peak season is a busy time for brands, and it’s time-consuming and stressful to plan and post content as you go. More importantly, a scattergun approach also runs the risk of missing key promotional opportunities during Thanksgiving weekend.

Using a calendar tool is a great way to maintain control over your BCFM social media planning. Marsello allows you to add individual social posts to your calendar and add relevant information such as launch dates, copy, or associated promotions, ensuring that your team always knows what’s in the pipeline.

5. Keep your marketing collateral organized

BFCM is one of the biggest revenue-producing periods of the year for retailers, so your business is likely to be using more social media collateral in the form of graphics, videos, and product photography during this period to increase engagement.

With so much revenue on the line, it’s vital to make sure your marketing team has a system to store and organize these assets. After all, nobody wants to lose a vital photo or video right before posting!

The Marsello media library is an excellent way to keep all of your BFCM collateral in one place where it’s easily accessible to your team. The media library connects seamlessly with all major storage systems, including Google Drive and Dropbox, so you can retrieve your assets as you need them for emails, social media, and other campaigns being run by Marsello.

6. Keep your BFCM initiatives consistent across all platforms

If you’re planning on running a big promotion (or several) over BFCM weekend, it makes little sense to only publicize your offer on a single platform. To drive as much traffic as possible to your website and storefronts, all of your marketing channels — including social media, email, and even your store signage — need to be working together in harmony.

It’s easy to say that the more channels you use, the stronger your promotional strategy will be. But it’s not quite that simple; more channels also means more time spent making sure that your messaging stays consistent.

Here is a great example from Sephora, which successfully reinforced last year’s Cyber Monday sale across email and social media by using the same graphic and messaging:

sephora cyber monday sale post

sephora cyber monday sale campaign

Marsello’s campaign calendar makes it easy to achieve coordinated campaigns like Sephora’s. Social media, SMS, and email can be planned within a single dashboard to streamline your social planning and ensure consistency across channels.

7. Optimize your BFCM social media accounts for sales by leveraging built-in social selling features

Social media is no longer simply a marketing channel designed to direct shoppers to where the action takes place. Thanks to the birth of social commerce, many platforms now boast a range of tools that enable users to purchase products directly within the app.

Social commerce has a range of benefits for both shoppers and brands during BFCM. If prospective customers see a great holiday gift option, they’re going to want to move fast. By shopping directly within an app, consumers only have to tap the product tag to be taken directly to the product page and checkout. Redirecting shoppers to your ecommerce website, where they’ll need to find the product themselves and place it in their cart, takes extra time and effort and may result in them abandoning the purchase.

In addition to speeding up the checkout process, social selling makes your product catalog easy and seamless to navigate. For example, Walmart has created a range of collections in its Instagram store to address different shopper needs:.

walmart instagram store collections

Collections have a ton of applications for BFCM weekend. Consider catalogs such as “‘Top holiday picks for under $30”’ or “‘red-hot Black Friday deals” to optimize your sales strategy and drive consumers toward high-value merchandise.

💡 Pro-tip: Tag products and collections in your social posts in Marsello to see potential generated sales.

Final words

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are among one the most important holiday shopping weekends on the calendar, and brands need to begin their social media planning early to maximize the promotional opportunities available. By following the social media planning tips above and utilizing Marsello’s social media tools, you’ll be well-placed to make your BFCM 2022 the best yet.

Marsello: All your Black Friday marketing, in one place.

Send email and SMS campaigns to customers
Create set-and-forget marketing automations
Schedule social posts
Track the direct impact of all your marketing on revenue
Build a customer database

Marketing Tips Cyber Monday Black Friday

Top 8 Marketing Hacks For Black Friday/Cyber Monday Campaigns

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Here are the Top 8 Black Friday & Cyber Monday marketing strategies that big-box retailers use — and don’t want you to know.

BFCM marketing hacks big-box retailers don’t want you to know 👇

Black Friday is creeping up fast. But while we’re still a decent way out, here are 8 of the best marketing tips you should be considering in your campaign planning.

These strategies are used by some of the world’s biggest and most successful retailers; however, they’re all actually incredibly simple. Some of these tactics can even wait until the last minute (if you’re “deadline driven” like I am!) and they’ll still be high impact.

Quick Links:

Run pre-Black Friday sales

Black Friday is BIG. It has global awareness, with merchants participating in countries in and outside of Canada and the US (even those that don’t recognize Thanksgiving). Needless to say, it’s on everyone’s minds for months in the lead up.

So—why not run sales before the actual day? Savvy retailers are using this strategy to capitalize on the hype without shouting in the crowd at peak time.

For example, Rubber Monkey, a technology retailer, runs a VIP Black Friday “Countdown Campaign” with several pre-Black Friday sales ahead of the big date.

Blog-Graphics-BCFM-Rubber-Monkey-3-waves

Rubber Monkey’s lead-up campaign emails included dates for not one, not two but THREE separate Black Friday sale dates.

Alternatively, in lieu of running a multi-stage sale, simply send Black Friday / Cyber Monday previews. Tease your database, give them a sneak peek of what’s around the corner, and build hype.

You can also include a Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar invite, so your subscribers have your sale top of mind and receive automated reminders directly from their calendar app.

Segment your database for personalized deals

A blast to all customers is not always an effective marketing strategy. Instead, segment your database by type of products purchased. For example, if you’re a technology retailer, you could create segments for “Photographers”—people who most frequently buy photography equipment.

For higher impact, start strong with a personalized subject line:
“Alice, get 60% off everything photography! 🤑📸”

I love how this Cyber Monday email jumps straight into product collections from the category I’m most interested in: photography.

Add urgency with a countdown timer

Ah, the old FOMO trick. Let your subscribers know when your sales start, so they don’t miss a deal. Using a dynamic, live countdown timer in your emails will capture visual interest, and drive urgent action.

black-friday-email-countdown

Drag-and-drop the countdown timer into your campaigns with Marsello’s email builder. You can customize your timer to match your brand and campaign specs. I also love how this email uses a ‘Wishlist’ call-to-action—getting subscribers engaged with the sale in advance.

Leverage the 98% deliverability of SMS

Did you know…

75% of consumers want to receive text messages with special offers
90% of SMS messages opened within three minutes of being received

Scott Home Delivery uses SMS for their Black Friday campaigns, with incredible results. Some of their campaigns see up to a 26% click rate—much higher than the average email click rate (around 3%).

example-of-a-black-friday-sms-campaign

When used in the right context, SMS remains one of the most powerful marketing tactics on the block. The key? It’s really not rocket science: it all comes down to following the tried-and-true recipe for success:

There’s one clear offer (50% off)
Urgency (Only a few days left!)
A CTA and link to drive conversions
And there are instructions for how to opt out (a necessary inclusion)

Pro-tip: Get even more personalized and use merge tags in your SMS campaigns—include loyalty points balance, first name and more.

Send product recommendations with a discount code

You don’t have to discount specific products, but you could offer a discount code. That way, you can send an email with product recommendations to your customer database, and offer a discount code so they can go and spend it on the products you know they’ll love.

Marsello’s product recommendation algorithm uses the same model as Amazon. We use customer purchase data to determine which products they’re most likely to be interested in buying next.

You can drag-and-drop this pre-built block into any of your Black Friday campaign emails. Beyond that, we recommend using this feature in all kinds of email campaigns!

drag_drop_recommend_products

Here, we show how you can drop the block into an automated Happy Birthday email using Marsello’s super easy email campaign builder.

Run VIP offers to your existing customers

Send exclusive Black Friday deals and offers to your existing customers. Rubber Monkey sent customers an extra $10 voucher to use over and above their Black Friday purchases.

Black-Friday-Cyber-Monday-Rubber-Monkey-VIP-voucher

Rubber Monkey’s additional VIP Black Friday offer to their email subscribers.

Set up automated Abandoned Cart reminders

Don’t let those Black Friday deals sit idly in customer carts. Use marketing automation to set up automatic abandoned cart reminders. Use triggers to set up a delay—around one hour is usually about right for a one-day sale, but you can test what works best with your customer database.

automated-abandoned-cart-reminders-black-friday-cyber-monday

Take a look at Ozzie Collectables’ Abandoned Cart campaign, for example. This series of three emails has an overall conversion rate of 28%. In fact, automated email flows alone are generating 38% of their total revenue.

Ozzie-Collectables-Recover-My-Cart-Email-Automation-Flow-1

Marsello has a collection of pre-built email templates you can add to your Abandoned Cart flows. You can even tweak your flows in the days around Black Friday / Cyber Monday to include more relevant, urgent messages.

Last but not least, build your customer database!

Think bigger than Black Friday. Collect customer details over these heavy traffic periods to build your list of re-marketable customers.

The other 80% of your customers only make up the remaining 20% of your profits. These customers include your one-time shoppers, infrequent visitors, and any other more casual consumers.

It’s more expensive to acquire new customers to retain them, so make the most of your campaign spend and continue selling to Black Friday participants long after November has been and gone.

Marsello: All your Black Friday marketing, in one place.

Send email and SMS campaigns to customers
Create set-and-forget marketing automations
Schedule social posts and track sales
Track the direct impact of all your marketing on revenue
Build a customer database

Marketing Automation SMS Campaigns

SMS Product Update: 50% Reduced Rates, Automations, Merge Tags, and Emojis

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We've introduced new features to make SMS marketing smarter and improve ROI, including SMS automation templates, automation library, merge tags and emojis

“I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one” - Mark Twain

Apparently, Mark Twain hadn’t heard of pre-built SMS templates, something we’ve just added to Marsello alongside the automations template library, emojis, merge tags for SMS, and to make your SMS marketing go even further cut SMS rates by up to 50% on some pricing plans.

Here's what's new in SMS:

We’ve cut SMS rates by 50%*, doubling SMS credits across some plans

We’ve cut SMS rates by up to 50%* on some pricing plans, starting from our base $25/month plan. That means some plans will receive more than double the SMS credits per dollar.

Previous pricing		New Pricing
Cost	Credits	Cost	Credits
$25.00	700	$25.00	1,500
$50.00	1,500	$50.00	3,500
$100.00	3,100	$100.00	8,500
$200.00	6,500	$200.00	18,000
$300.00	10,000	$300.00	30,000
$400.00	13,700	$400.00	41,000
$500.00	17,500	$500.00	52,000
$600.00	21,000	$600.00	63,000
$800.00	29,500	$800.00	84,000
$1,000.00	38,000	$1,000.00	105,000
$1,250.00	49,000	$1,250.00	132,000
$1,500.00	60,000	$1,500.00	158,500
$1,750.00	71,500	$1,750.00	185,500
$2,000.00	83,000	$2,000.00	212,000

SMS credits can be added to your Marsello Pro Plan from your account and will be added to your monthly subscription from the date you select your monthly SMS plan.

New SMS plans are available now, and existing plans will be updated as your monthly plan rolls over.

Pre-built SMS automation templates

Sometimes you need to get a message to your customers that is short, sharp, and to the point. That’s where SMS comes in, the perfect communication tactic to drive action quickly. But saying less isn't always that easy, so we’ve introduced over 20 new pre-built SMS templates, including loyalty program messages, refer friend requests, Google Review requests, and more.

Automation Template Library

You can now access all your email and SMS templates in the Automation Template Library. You can search the Template Library by communication channel, campaign type, industry and more. As you build out your SMS automation templates, and we add more, you’ll be able to deploy any SMS automation in just a few clicks.

SMS Automations

Oh, and by the way, we’ve already added 10+ SMS automation templates to the library which you can access now.

Loyalty Notifications now in Automations Library

We’ve added automated loyalty points notifications for SMS, and migrated all loyalty points notification templates to Marsello’s Automations Library. This allows you to track all sends, opens, and clicks.

Plus, enjoy the new emojis and merge tags!

Even short messages should be personalized, so we’ve introduced merge tags in SMS automations and campaigns. Merge tags enable you to include the recipient's own details in the messages you send them, including first name, last name, loyalty points balance and VIP tier. We’ve also added emojis, so you can set the tone of your message without saying a word.

Want to get started with SMS, but not sure how? Take a look at the Marsello help center for practical step-by-step guides for setting up automations and campaigns.

*Note: 50% discounted rate is based on a regional send to the United States and priced in USD.

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The Marsello Blog

About Lightspeed

About Shopify

Pros of using Shopify and Lightspeed together

Access to the best tools

Avoid messy (and expensive) migrations

Cons of using Shopify and Lightspeed together

Challenges with finding integrations that work with both solutions

Breakage points between the two systems

Solutions to address integration issues

Choose apps that work on both platforms

Implement middleware

Custom development

Best apps when using Shopify and Lightspeed

Retailers who use Lightspeed and Shopify

Conclusion

Need help? Get advice from an expert.

Most Popular

Quick links:

What is a reward points system?

6 tips for designing a points reward system for your business

1. Identify the main goals of your customer loyalty program

2. Determine how customers will earn the rewards

3. Determine how these rewards will be awarded to the customers

4. Identify the value of your rewards

5. Associate a name/brand to your loyalty program

6. Promote your rewards point program

FAQs

Final words

What are the benefits of birthday rewards for your business?

Boost customer loyalty

Improve customer retention

Gain valuable customer data

Examples of birthday email campaigns and rewards

Send a one-off special discount and build excitement

Offer free products on special occasions

Offer creative rewards to encourage engagement

Create a sense of mystery and surprise your customers

Celebrate your business’s birthday and say thanks to your customers

Sign off with a personal touch

Tips for implementing birthday rewards

Integrate birthday perks with your loyalty or rewards program

Make it easy for people to enter their birthday

Automate your campaigns

Test your offers

Integrate SMS marketing

But wait!What about people who put in fake birthdays?

Apply a "cooling-off" period when people sign up for your loyalty program

Set a spending threshold

Set a deadline for reward redemption

Be mindful of giving away too many points

Consider "surprise" freebies

FAQs

What is a 'birthday marketing strategy'?

What is a birthday campaign?

What is a birthday promotion?

How do you keep track of customers' birthdays?

What should be included in a birthday rewards program?

How do businesses track the effectiveness of birthday reward campaigns over time?

Can small businesses without a big budget implement impactful birthday rewards?

How do businesses personalize birthday rewards for diverse customer segments?

Final words

Quick links:

How to Build An Extraordinary Loyalty Program With Ordinary, Off-The-Shelf Software

Step 1. Design your tiered loyalty program

How many tiers are there?

How are the tiers structured?

What are the rewards?

What will you call the tiers?

Mecca Beauty Loop

Step 2. Get everything ready on your website and in-store

Do you have an online store and physical shops?

How will customers find out about it?

Step 3. Promote your program

How do I launch it?

How do I keep customers engaged?

Step 4. Set up important notifications as SMS messages

Notify customers when they have a reward coming!

Let customers know when their tier is about to expire

Let customers know when they hit a milestone

But wait!
What about people who put in fake birthdays?