Store Credit Campaigns: A Strategic Approach to Boosting Customer Retention and Sales

2024-07-25

5 minute read

This guide explores the process of setting up personalized store credit campaigns, from understanding customer segments to measuring campaign success. Discover how this cost-effective marketing strategy can help reduce Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) while maximizing engagement and maintaining healthy profit margins.

Using Shopify Store Credit in targeted store credit campaigns can be an effective way to maximize repeat purchases and customer engagement while reducing lost revenue through the usehigh discount code. By leveraging customer segments and the memberr Store Credit Campaign feature, merchants can create personalized, timely, and effective incentives that drive sales and build long-term loyalty while keeping margins high.

Benefits of Targeted Store Credit Campaigns

  • Increased Repeat Purchases: By targeting specific customer segments, store credit campaigns effectively drive repeat purchases and customer retention.
  • Personalized Incentives: Tailoring the amount and conditions of store credit to different customer segments enhances the perceived value and relevance of the offer.
  • Timely Engagement: Setting expiration dates creates urgency, encouraging customers to make purchases sooner rather than later.
  • Cost-Effective Marketing: Store credit is a cost-effective way to incentivize purchases compared to traditional discounting methods.

Using Shopify's customer segmentation capabilities, merchants can create highly personalized campaigns that deliver store credit to specific customer groups based on various attributes, maximizing engagement, sales and profits. Here's how to effectively use store credit campaigns.

Understanding Customer Segments

Shopify allows merchants to create customer segments based on a wide array of attributes, such as purchase history, browsing behavior, geographic location, and more. These segments can be used to identify specific groups of customers who are likely to respond positively to targeted Store Credit incentives.

Examples Segments:

  • High-Spending Customers: Customers who have spent above a certain amount.
  • Inactive Customers: Customers who haven't made a purchase in a while.
  • Lost Customers: Customers who have abandoned their shopping cart.
  • Product-Specific Segments: Customers who have purchased or shown interest in specific product categories -> Upsell.

Creating a new Customer Segment

Creating a Store Credit Campaign

With the memberr Store Credit Campaign feature, merchants can easily set up store credit campaigns targeted at these or other customer segments. The process of creating such a campaign is straightforward and can be done in a few steps.

1. Create/select customer segment

First, determine which segment of your customers you want to credit with store credit. You can create customer segments in your Shopify Store under “Customers -> Segments”.

2. Set campaign details

After you have selected the customer segment, you nedd specify the details of the campaign.

The campaign is credited in the form of store credit and determines how much credit each individual customer receives within the selected customer segment. Depending on wether you have setup automatic notifications through email or WhatsApp customers are directly notified once the campaign credits have been issued. If these notifcations are not set up, tools like Klaviyo or Mailchimp can be used to send the notification manually.

Steps to create a campaign:

  • Select Customer Segment: Choose the specific customer segment you want to target, such as high-spending customers or those who have been inactive for a certain period.
  • Specify Store Credit Amount: Determine the amount of store credit to be issued to the selected segment. For instance, offering $15 in store credit to customers who haven't purchased in the last six months.
  • Set Expiry Date: To encourage prompt use of the credits and drive immediate sales, set an expiration date for the newly issued store credit. For example, credits could expire 30 days after issuance.

3. Expiry and validity period

The Expiry and Validity settings determine whether the credited credit expires after a certain period of time or not. Expiry begins immediately after the credit has been credited eg. when the campaign has been carried out. The expiry time only refers to the credit credited via the campaign and not to existing store credit or other store credit issuance mechanisms like for example Cashback.

4. Issuing Store Credit

Once the campaign parameters are set, the specified amount of store credit is sent instantly to the customers who are part of the selected customer segment. Shopify's platform ensures that the credits are added to the customers' accounts seamlessly.

Next Steps

1. Communicating the Campaign

Effective communication is crucial for the success of store credit campaigns. Notify the targeted customers about the store credit via email or SMS, highlighting the benefits and urgency due to the expiry date. The message should include:

  • Announcement of Store Credit: Inform customers about the amount of store credit they have received.
  • Usage Instructions: Explain how and where they can use the credits in your store. Best with a link to the customers store credit balance page.
  • Expiration Reminder: Emphasize the expiration date to create a sense of urgency and encourage prompt action.

2. Tracking and Measuring Success

Shopify's analytics tools make it easy to track the performance of a store credit campaign. Monitor key metrics such as redemption rates, increase in repeat purchases, and overall sales growth. This data helps refine future campaigns and optimize the effectiveness of your store credit strategy.

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