Best Practices for Boosting Digital Gift Card Sales

As part of the Benchmark Report: 2024 Digital Gift Card Leaders, U.S. Edition, a comprehensive report produced by NAPCO Research in conjunction with Blackhawk Network, 100 U.S. merchants’ e-commerce gift card programs were evaluated, including the purchaser and recipient experience for both digital and physical cards of the brands’ own gift card, based upon 135 unique criteria. In addition to the benchmark data this assessment yielded, the report featured best practices designed to help readers improve the performance of their gift card programs. Here's a sampling of those best practices, segmented by purchaser and recipient experience.

Purchaser Experience

• Create a website page specifically for gift cards and make it aesthetically pleasing as well as easy to read and understand.
• Provide gift card shoppers with choices including type of card (digital, physical); denomination; payment options; delivery methods; and personalization options.
• Incorporate search engine optimization (SEO) tactics to boost your brand’s organic search ranking. For example:
  • Leverage primary keywords (e.g., gift cards, gifts, e-gifts, etc.).
  • Add internal links from top-ranking pages (e.g., a gift card landing page) on your site to pages that need a boost.
  • Align your content with search intent.
• Promote digital gift cards to last-minute shoppers when shipping windows have been missed. This is particularly effective right before gifting holidays (e.g., Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother's/Father's Day).
• Streamline the checkout process, collecting only the data necessary to approve and execute the
  transaction. For example, ask the purchaser if they are buying the gift card for self-use; if so, they don’t
  need to be presented with fields for recipient information. Also, if the customer has opted to purchase
  a digital gift card, bypass collecting shipping address.
• Test adding complementary brands’ gift cards to your merchandise mix (e.g., a gift card mall).
• Harness the power of gift card promotions. Develop a marketing and promotional strategy aimed at targeting key occasions for your brand. Test various types of programs to figure out what drives your customers to convert (e.g., buy a $100 gift card, get $10 free or extra loyalty points).

Recipient Experience

• Introduce ways for buyers to personalize the gift card recipient experience, including adding photos to physical cards, photos and videos to digital cards, and personal messages for each channel. This can help to increase engagement with your program and boost sales.
• Add an option for gift card recipients to easily add e-gift cards to a mobile wallet or payment app. This will make it easier for recipients to store and redeem gift cards, both online and in-store.
• Offer the ability to reload funds onto a card or re-gift a card, both through your brand’s website. These tactics can help drive drive incremental spending above the value of the gift card.

These are just some of the valuable tips that are included in the full report. Download the Benchmark Report: 2024 Digital Gift Card Leaders, U.S. Edition today to get all of the best practices as well as insights into digital gift card program trends that can be incorporated within your own retail business.