Getting Started with Distributions

The Distribution Manager automates communication with your customers. You can publish and distribute promo codes and share promotion updates. Distributions respond to your customers' actions and predefined events.

Contents

1. Glossary
2. How does it work?
   1. Trigger and Audience
   2. Action
   3. Channels
   4. Message Editor
3. Distribution Setup
   
   1. Manual Distribution
   2. Automatic Distribution
4. Managing and Tracking Distributions

Glossary

Here are the key definitions you need to grasp to understand how distributions work.

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Audience

The audience defines message receivers. In some distributions, the audience is determined by the distribution trigger.

Automatic Distribution

A distribution in which messages are sent in response to a predefined action (trigger). For example, it can be code redemption, earning loyalty points, or a new customer entering a segment.

Custom event

Custom events are actions taken by your customers that you track in your application or website and pass to Voucherify using the Track Custom Event API endpoint.

Customer segment

Segments group customers by standard attributes (email, postal code, etc.) or custom attributes added as metadata. You can also use custom events and system attributes to create segment criteria. Segments define the campaign/distribution audience in validation rules and distributions.

Distribution

It defines the messaging workflow in the Distribution Manager. It includes message details such as audience, message trigger, action, and channel.

Distribution Manager

The manager sets up a distribution. To open the Manager, go to the Distributions tab in the Engagement section and click Create Distribution.

Manual Distribution

This is a one-time action distribution. A message is sent once you finish setting up the distribution in the Manager and confirm with Save & Send.

Message

The message means pushing data from Voucherify to the end customer or another application. The message limit in the pricing and Fair Use Policy refers to all distributions that use our API to call your application.

Publication

An action of assigning a unique code to a particular customer.

Segment syncing

When you create a new segment, you will see a syncing status next to its name. Syncing means checking if your existing customers meet the criteria of the new segment. When syncing is done, you can see a SYNCED status displayed next to the segment name. In a manual distribution, messages are sent 10 minutes after the syncing is completed.

Trial Messages Limit

Each trial account has a security limit on messages that can be sent. If you want to unlock the limit, send a request to the Voucherify Support Team. You will have to describe the purpose of using distributions and add your company's name and address in the Brand Details in Project Settings. You can learn more details about particular limits in the Fair Use Policy.

Trigger

Action that results in sending the message. You can choose from many triggers to define automatic communication workflows (e.g., customer entered or left segment, order status has changed, code was published, reward was redeemed, and more).

Webhook

Webhooks allow external services to be notified when certain events happen. You can use a webhook as a distribution channel and push a message to the given webhook every time a distribution is triggered. Learn more about timing and re-enabling paused webhooks.

How Does it Work?

Creating a distribution in the Distribution Manager is a 4-step process:

1. Choose a trigger to send messages automatically or manual mode to send a message right away.
2. Define the action of the distribution.
3. Choose a channel and design your template.
4. View the summary to check if the distribution meets your criteria.

You can save your distribution as a draft at any point by clicking the Save draft button in the upper left corner.

Trigger and Audience

Go to the Distributions tab and click Create Distribution to see all available distribution types. Use the Category and Search fields to narrow down the results.

Besides the Manual message distribution, you can choose between the following automatic distribution categories.

Custom Event

The audience covers customers who trigger a custom event triggered by a customer and sent to Voucherify via the API. You can additionally limit the audience with validation rules, which can also include customer segments. You can choose an existing validation rule or create a new one.

Loyalty tier related activity

The audience covers customers who perform actions related to tiers within a loyalty campaign or to a specific loyalty tier.

• Customer entered loyalty tier structure – a message is sent when a customer joins a loyalty tier structure.
• Customer left loyalty tier structure – a message is sent when a customer leaves a loyalty tier structure.
• Customer loyalty tier upgraded – a message is sent when a customer's loyalty tier is upgraded.
• Customer loyalty tier downgraded – a message is sent when a customer's loyalty tier is downgraded.
• Customer loyalty tier prolonged – a message is sent when a customer's loyalty tier validity is extended.
• Customer rewarded loyalty points – a message is sent when a customer is rewarded loyalty points.

Cart related activity

The audience covers customers whose order status changes. You can additionally limit the audience with validation rules, which can also include customer segments. For example, you can send messages to customers who paid for an order above $99 and belong to a new customer segment. You can choose an existing validation rule or create a new one.

• Order updated – a message is sent to each customer who updated their order.
• Order paid – a message is sent to each customer who created or updated their order status to 'paid'.
• Order created – a message is sent to each customer who created a new order.
• Order canceled – a message is sent to each customer who canceled their order.

Publishing codes

The audience covers customers who get a unique code published to their account in a selected campaign.

• Successfully published –a message is sent in response to each publication of codes from a selected campaign.

Referral related activity

The audience covers referred customers in a selected referral campaign.

• Customer was referred – a message is sent when a customer has been referred.

Customer rewards

The audience covers customers who redeemed a reward from a loyalty campaign.

• Reward redemption – the customer will receive a message once they redeem a reward from a selected campaign.

Segment related activity

The Audience covers customers who enter or leave a customer segment. You can choose the segment from the dropdown list or you can add a new segment by clicking the plus button. If a segment is created here, it is treated as draft until the distribution is saved. Click the funnel button to open the Advanced filtering window with a detailed list of segments.

• Customer entered segment – the customer will receive a message once they enter a selected segment.
• Customer left segment – the customer will receive a message once they leave a selected segment.

Voucher related activity

The audience covers customers who have a voucher from a selected campaign and a given activity is triggered.

• Gift credits added – the customer will receive a message once they get new credits on a gift card from a selected campaign.
• Loyalty points added – the customer will receive a message once they get new points on a loyalty card from a selected campaign.
• Loyalty card points expired – a message is sent when points expire on a loyalty card.
• Voucher redeemed – the customer will receive a message if they successfully redeem a code from a selected campaign.
• Voucher redemption rolledback – a message is sent in response to a redemption rollback of a code from a selected campaign.

Action

You can choose between the following distribution purposes:

• Notify customers about promotion – each customer receives details of the particular in-cart promotion (promotion tier).
• Send and publish unique codes from the campaign – each customer gets a unique code from the chosen campaign. The code is assigned (published) automatically to their profile.
• Send a plain message to customers – each customer receives a plain message without any voucher included.
• Customer will get a message with amount of received credits – each customer receives a message when their gift card receives new credits in a given gift card campaign.
• Customer will get a message with amount of received points – each customer receives a message when their loyalty card receives new credits in a given loyalty card campaign.
• Customer will get a message – each customer will get a configured message without any voucher included.
• Customer will get a message with reward details – each customer will get a message when they redeem a reward within a loyalty campaign.
• Customer will get a promotion code from [campaign] – each customer will get a message when a voucher has been successfully published to them.

Channels

Voucherify supports multi-channel delivery. You can choose the following integrations and built-in channels:

• ActiveCampaign
• Batch
• Braze
• Email using Voucherify as your email provider
• Email using external providers (SendGrid, Mandrill, Mailgun)
• Intercom
• Klaviyo
• Mailchimp
• Shopify
• SMS (Twilio, CM Telecom, Textlocal)
• Webhook

Note that not all channels entail sending messages to end customers. You can decide whether the Voucherify messages will be sent directly to the end customers or third-party applications. For example, if you choose Mailchimp or Braze as a channel, messages will not be sent to the end customers. Distribution transfers codes to customer profiles in the respective external application, and then you can forward them to your end users.

Multi-Channel Distribution

With the distribution manager, you can send codes via many channels simultaneously. In the Channels step, you can define a channel or channels that will deliver the message.

The list of channels shows only those channels that are available for a given trigger or action, or that have not been added to your distribution yet.

Message editor

Voucherify has a message editor for customizing emails and text messages. You can choose between a simple template or a configurable flier with a wider scope for personalization.

• Here are email customization options:
• A text editor (font effects, font size, links, text layout).
• Variables (e.g., customer name, QR code, loyalty score, referral reward, customer cockpit, reward value, and more).
• Images (image size, alt text, link, gif files, alignment).
• Buttons (CTA size, color, alignment, corners, and link).
• Dividers (width, color).
• Social media buttons (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube).
• Background (header with your logo, colors, content space, borders, and alignment).
• Footer (custom information, text, colors).

Enterprise clients havemore customization options, such as custom HTML email templates.

Distribution Setup

In the Engagement section in the Voucherify dashboard, click Distributions to open a filterable list of created distributions.

Click Create Distribution to open the Distribution Manager and create a manual or automatic distribution.

When configuring the distribution, you can save its draft at any time.

Manual Distribution

Manual distribution delivers messages once you confirm its settings with Save & send. Each manual distribution is sent with a 10-minute delay, so you can introduce edits or stop the message delivery within this time.

1. In Trigger, select Manual message.
2. Name your distribution.
3. Choose the audience:
   • A message to a single customer – choose the customer from a drop-down list or add a new customer with the plus button.
   • Bulk messages to customers from a segment – choose the segment from the drop-down list or add a new segment by clicking the plus button. If a segment is created here, it is treated as draft until the distribution is saved. Click the funnel button (Advanced filtering) to open a pop-up window with a detailed list of segments.
4. In Action, define what kind of distribution you want to create:
   • Notify customers about promotion – select the promotion tier in the search field
   • Send and publish unique codes from campaign – select the campaign in the search field
   • Send plain message to customers
5. In Channels, click Add channel to configure a distribution channel. You can add several channels within one distribution. The list of channels shows only those channels that are available for a selected action.
6. In Summary, you can check your configuration. Click Save & Send to confirm distribution.

Automatic Distribution

Automatic distributions send messages in response to a predefined trigger.

1. In Trigger, select a category or a specific trigger. Depending on the trigger, you can or you have to select:
   • Customer segment
   • Validation rule
   • Campaign
   • Custom event
   • Loyalty campaign tier
2. Name your distribution.
3. In Action, define what kind of distribution you want to create. The action depends on the selected trigger.
4. In Channels, click Add channel to configure a distribution channel. You can add several channels within one distribution. The available channels depend on the trigger.
5. In Summary, you can check your configuration. Click Save & Send to confirm distribution.

Distribution Tracking and Maintenance

The distributions list contains all your distributions, which you can filter by creation date and subject.

Go to a distribution to view more information about it:

• Details – view conditions, time frame, and channels
• Audience – who is the target of the distribution
• Analytics – charts with messages sent, failed, recovered, and redemptions
• Activity – details with events and logs related to the distribution

Analytics

Click on the distribution name to see its overview. Charts in the Analytics tab show you the number of already sent messages divided per channel and time range. If any message fails, you can see it in a chart. 

Some messages can be automatically re-sent after the failure. Their delivery will be visible in the Messages Recovered chart when it is successful. 

If you send unique codes, analytics also shows the number of codes published via the distribution and the number of already redeemed codes from the campaign used in the distribution. 

Activity

The activity tab lists distribution events in real-time. You can see the distribution status and updates, including who and when received the messages. Use filters to sort distribution events performed within a particular timeframe.

Campaign Dashboard

Selecting a campaign and choosing the distributions tab shows detailed distribution performance. You can see basic information like distribution state, the number of channels, redemption rate (ratio codes redeemed at least once), and detailed metrics like the number of published codes, delivered messages, and redeemed codes.

• Redemption rate – the ratio of published codes to redeemed codes.
• Code issued – codes published via the distribution.
• Message delivered – successfully delivered messages to customers.
• Codes redeemed – codes that were sent and already redeemed.

Maintenance

In the Distributions, you get an overview of all your distributions and their current performance.