Discover 9 eCommerce loyalty program ideas to boost customer retention. Learn strategies to engage and reward your customers effectively
eCommerce is becoming an increasingly central part of our lives. As the future of retail continues to shift online, eCommerce businesses need innovative strategies to stand out, retain customers, and build greater customer lifetime value.
Enter loyalty programs: powerful tools that can turn one-time buyers into brand advocates. One study found that, within 90 days, on average, brands that implement a loyalty program see an 8.5x ROI.
Moreover, 84% of consumers claim they’re more likely to stick with a brand that offers a loyalty program.
As eCommerce grows in popularity, loyalty programs will become even more important. The internet is full of distractions, not limited to other eCommerce sites. Customer loyalty can be fleeting, but loyalty programs can offer a structured way to incentivize repeat business and encourage customers to stick with your brand over competitors.
In this guide, we'll explore nine loyalty program ideas, along with real-world examples, to help you skyrocket your customer retention and ensure your eCommerce business thrives.
An eCommerce loyalty program is a marketing strategy designed to encourage repeat purchases and build customer loyalty within an online store.
It rewards customers for engaging with the brand, usually through a point system or tiered structure. eCommerce loyalty programs offer incentives like discounts, free products, or exclusive perks in exchange for making purchases, leaving reviews, sharing on social media, or referring friends. By incentivizing specific customer behavior, eCommerce businesses can achieve several goals.
Customer loyalty programs can help your eCommerce brand meet several business goals, such as:
eCommerce is extremely competitive. Any customer retention program, whether points or perks-based, can help your brand gain an edge over the competition.
Depending on your goals, there are different ways to structure your eCommerce rewards. The four types outlined below are the structures that generally excel at driving customer retention.
Tiered loyalty programs give customers points or rewards that unlock exclusive benefits as they move up levels. The more the customer participates in the program’s activities, the more interesting, valuable, and exclusive the incentives get. This encourages repeat behavior (like more frequent purchases) to reach and maintain a higher-tiered position. It also makes customers on higher tiers feel special, creating an emotional connection to the brand.
Read more: Learn how to design an effective tiered loyalty program
This type of loyalty program for eCommerce companies rewards customers for non-transactional actions such as leaving a review, following social media accounts, or referring friends. Engagement-based loyalty programs can help bring in new customers at a lower cost, as well as boost brand awareness and engagement.
Points or value-based programs reward customers with points for taking specific actions. Customers then redeem those points for rewards. This flexible structure can be designed to reward customers based on the total value of their purchases, rather than just the number of their transactions (for instance, $1 = 10 points). This encourages customers to spend more to maximize their rewards.
Finally, hybrid programs combine elements of other designs into a version tailored to your needs. Points are common across all loyalty programs, for instance. You can choose to use those points to determine loyalty tiers, attract new customers, or encourage larger transactions.
Keeping customers coming back for more in a crowded eCommerce market requires an innovative approach. Each of the program ideas outlined below can deliver the following benefits:
These loyalty program ideas are a good starting point for building long-lasting customer relationships.
A tiered rewards program with gamification combines the classic structure of tiered levels with engaging game mechanics to incentivize customer loyalty.
[Discover how to Incentivize Loyalty & Engagement with Exclusive Rewards]
Influence.io offers a tiered loyalty program that rewards customers with increasing benefits as they ascend through the tiers. Higher tiers provide more exclusive rewards, encouraging customers to remain engaged and loyal over time. This system can be customized, and existing tier levels from other programs can be imported into Influence.io
New Forest Clothing’s loyalty program is a great example of this. It offers three different tiers: Fawn, Deer, and Stag. Each tier status requires a minimum number of points to be acquired. Each tier can access benefits; ranging from discounts to exclusive perks.
A personalized rewards loyalty program leverages customer data to go beyond the one-size-fits-all approach.
Tailored rewards specific to an individual's preferences and purchase history to create a more relevant and engaging experience that fosters stronger customer loyalty. This could include tailored discounts, product recommendations, or special offers on their favorite items.
An experiential rewards loyalty program offers memorable experiences instead of traditional discounts or products as loyalty incentives. Think about what you could offer that’s unique: early access to new products, exclusive event invitations, virtual meet-and-greet sessions, or tickets to relevant events in your industry.
For example, Nike offers exclusive workout sessions and events for members of its NikePlus program, enhancing the brand experience beyond purchases. Loyalty members can also get priority tickets for sports events.
Rewarding customers for engaging with your brand on social media is an easy way to skyrocket customer retention. Offer points to loyalty program members who share posts, tag their friends, or use a specific hashtag. This not only drives customer engagement but also increases brand visibility.
Starbucks is a prime example of a brand that uses social media as a key facet of its loyalty program. Starbucks Rewards members can earn “stars” (points) by participating in social media campaigns during Star Days, ordering coffee through the loyalty app, and sharing free coffee with friends on social media.
Subscription loyalty programs offer a discounted price to customers who sign up for periodic and repeat purchases. Instead of earning rewards through purchases, customers pay a subscription fee upfront to gain access to a set of exclusive benefits. This can be a great way for e-commerce businesses to build stronger relationships with their most loyal customers and generate recurring revenue.
Subscription-based loyalty programs have grown steadily since they offer a range of benefits to both customers and businesses. The subscription fee ensures your business has a steady revenue stream and higher customer commitment. Recently, subscriptions in the “Consumer Goods” sector have increased by as much as 145%.
If you decide to use a paid subscription program, offer premium benefits: free shipping, exclusive discounts, and early access to sales. Programs like Amazon Prime and Walmart+ successfully use this model to enhance customer loyalty and retention.
In this iteration, customers can use their earned points or rewards to support a charitable cause they care about.
This approach adds a social impact element to the program, fostering a sense of purpose and potentially attracting customers who are passionate about giving back. As an added bonus, it also helps your brand’s reputation.
Here’s an example of a charity-based rewards program from The Body Shop.
Referral loyalty programs give customers the chance to earn points by sharing a unique referral code with friends and family. When a new customer makes a purchase using a referral code, both the referrer and the new customer receive a reward.
This option incentivizes existing customers to recommend your brand to their network. It’s easy to set up with Influence.io’s referrals tool, which generates personalized referral links for email.
Looking for inspiration? Dropbox incentivizes referrals to grow its user base exponentially. This infamous program grew Drobox’s user base by 3900% in 15 months.
These loyalty programs offer additional points for members on their birthdays, loyalty enrollment date, or after achieving specific goals within the program, such as a certain number of purchases, spending a certain amount of money, or reaching a higher tier. Rewards can be bonus points, special offers, or exclusive gifts to make these moments feel extra special.
On a practical level, milestone rewards are a simple, effective way to keep engagement high. These rewards can easily be automated to make the user experience personal with little effort. For instance, Starbucks offers a free drink on each customer’s birthday.
Simply asking for a user’s birthday during the sign-up process is all it takes to activate this type of perk. A CRM such as Klayvio can easily automate milestone offers to surprise and delight members of your loyalty program.
Encourage customers to leave reviews, complete surveys, or provide direct feedback in exchange for loyalty points. This feedback is invaluable: it can help develop new products or services, improve your pricing, boost your customer satisfaction, and help find new marketing messages.
REVIEWS.io integrates seamlessly with Influence.io to bring this incentive structure to life. It can be integrated into your loyalty program to reward customers for their input. Popov Leather leverages this integration to enhance their customer experience strategy by incentivizing customers to leave reviews and share photos through loyalty rewards. This integration not only increases engagement but also enhances the authenticity of customer feedback, helping Popov Leather build trust and loyalty among its customer base.
Dive deeper: How Popov Leather Enhances Customer Experience With REVIEWS.io, Influence.io and Klaviyo
There are a few key metrics that illustrate whether or not your loyalty program is working.
To effectively track these metrics and gain deeper insights into your customer loyalty, implementing a robust loyalty solution like Influence.io can be immensely beneficial.
Influence.io offers a comprehensive suite of tools designed to enhance your loyalty program's performance and provide actionable data.
Influence.io's real-time analytics dashboard allows you to monitor your key metrics effortlessly. By visualizing data trends, you can quickly identify what’s working and what needs adjustment in your loyalty strategy.
For programs utilizing discounts and referrals, Influence.io’s automated tracking of redemption rates ensures you can see the immediate impact of your campaigns. High redemption rates can signal effective loyalty incentives, and with Influence.io, these insights are just a click away.
We’ve covered the many mechanics you can choose from when designing an eCommerce loyalty program. It may seem overwhelming — but you can actually start your program in three easy steps.
The best way to get started is to find a tool that integrates with your eCommerce platform and makes running a program straight from your online storefront easy. Tools like Influence.io integrate Shopify, BigCommerce and WooCommerce to make it easy to set up and manage your loyalty program in just a few steps.
As you research different tools, here are a few things to consider:
Influence.io is a strong option for most businesses, with a suite of features designed to scale and support businesses at every stage of growth. Influence.io’s features like referrals, tiers, and points for certain actions make it easy to tailor your loyalty program in just a few clicks. Reward participants for writing reviews, sharing or liking on social media, purchasing your product, creating user-generated content, and more.
Influence.io also gives customers the freedom to select a reward aligned with their wants and needs — making your program even more engaging.
Influence.io is your partner in loyalty: we’re here to provide support for all your questions and concerns. Customers on G2 rave about our customer service. “The guys at Influence are also really easy to work with. They will happily jump on a call when you need support with integrations or set up,” said one reviewer.
Building a successful eCommerce loyalty program goes beyond just offering rewards. It's about fostering customer relationships built on trust, satisfaction, and advocacy. You can turn one-time buyers into loyal fans by implementing these ideas and personalizing your program to your unique brand and audience. Remember, loyalty is a two-way street – invest in your customers, and they'll invest in you.
Influence.io is here to help. Learn more about our features by booking a demo today!