The Birthday Offers feature will allow restaurant brands to set up birthday offers that will automatically be distributed to customers on their birthday. This feature adds a new option under the Activity Names field and Targeting Rules field called: “Birthday”
Important Note: With this feature, we removed the birth year field to alleviate any PII compliance concerns. This means that we also removed the "Age" targeting rule
This article will include the following sections:
Feature Overview & Need to Knows
Birthday Offers allow restaurant brands to create offers that are distributed to customers based on their birthday. When using the Birthday Targeting rule, we will automatically blackout the redistribution of this offer by 364 days. This was done to prevent customers changing their birthdays and continuing to get a new birthday offer.
Birthday Offers operate in two ways under one offer. To create this type of offer, you will need to make sure it is added as an activity and as a targeting rule. This means that a customer's birthday is an event (activity), and the targeting rule will run a nightly batch job to check which customers have a birthday on the present day.
If you want to leverage the functionality that comes with this feature where we allow customers that sign up on their birthday to receive the birthday offer - then you will need someone from Incentivio’s Customer Success or Technical Support team to enable the Web App Config field: SignUp dateOfBirth field. This requires an app update.
How to Setup a Birthday Offer
Offer Setup Steps
In order to get the Birthday Targeting Rule to show up, you must select the Birthday option under Activity Names. We added Birthday under both Activity Names and Targeting Rules because:
- Birthday is an event which means this is something happening + there is a lot of requests to partner this with the Signup activity
- The Targeting Rule allows a daily batch job to run each morning to check which customers have a birthday on the present date. The system then sends an offer to those customers
We want these offers to act as set and forget type of offers - so we will need to make sure to use the never expire options under distribution & redemption settings. Below are the following steps you need to take to create a Birthday Offer:
- In the Dashboard > under Communications > in Offers > select +Create Offer
- Fill out the Basics and the Discounts Settings pages
- On the Target Audience page, turn on the Activity Based toggle
- Then, add the "Birthday" Targeting Rule
- Add the appropriate redemption rules under the Redemption section. Most people will choose "Everyone" to allow users to redeem their birthday offer right away.
- Under Availability we suggest using One Active Offer at a Time so the users can receive this offer for each of their birthdays over the years. Choose your Distribution and Redemption Dates.
- Since Birthday offers are ongoing, usually these are set to Never expire for Distribution.
- Sometimes Redemption may be limited to a number of Days. It's up to you!
- Add your display content on the Look page and then you should be good to go!
What if my customer signs up on their birthday?
If you want to create an offer that is sent to customers that sign up for a loyalty account on their birthday (this will also send to customers that have a birthday that have already had a loyalty account), then we just need to tweak one setting mentioned above:
- Under the Activity Names field, make sure to select both: Sign Up and Birthday
This will make sure that customers that sign up for an account on their birthday will be awarded a birthday offer.
Distribution Blackout
When you first save a Birthday Offer, the Distribution Blackout will default to 364 days. This is a security measure designed to prevent users from exploiting the system by changing their birthday and receiving multiple offers within the same year.
However, there may be legitimate cases where a user needs their birthday edited or is manually sent a birthday offer after their actual birthday. In these situations, the blackout period could unintentionally prevent them from receiving the offer the following year.
If your customers' behavior suggests this rule might be too strict, you can adjust the blackout period by editing the offer. Just keep in mind that lowering the blackout increases the risk of users attempting to game the system.
Combining Targeting Rules
If you are only targeting birthday offers to specific sections of customers (Regulars/Loyalists, high spenders, VIPs, specific customer tags, etc.), you will have to create separate offers for each group you want to target.
For example, to target only customers with either a HIGHSPENDERS or VIP tag, create one offer with the Targeting Rules HIGHSPENDERS = true AND Birthday. Then, create another offer using the Targeting Rules VIP = true AND Birthday.