If you’re currently assessing whether or not you need a digital gift card platform to power your loyalty, rewards or incentives programme then you might have a few questions. We’ve answered 8 top FAQs here to help you get to know the ins and outs of what a digital gift card platform does, and help you find the right gift card solution.
1. What does a digital gift card platform do?
A digital gift card platform enables you to purchase digital gift cards at scale, instantly. It enables you to connect with, and buy digital gift cards from, hundreds of brands through a single platform.
You can manage your relationships with brands (get approved to serve their content), manage the digital gift card delivery process from start to finish, and access reporting all in one place. The goal of digital gift card platforms is to make the whole process of rewarding with gift cards, a delight from start to finish - saving your business time and resource.
As you’ll integrate with a digital gift card platform on the back-end, your customers won’t be interacting directly with it - they’ll still be engaging with your platform and likely won’t even be aware that you’re using a digital gift card aggregator to process the gift card content.
Think of it like this: when you go shopping for strawberries, you get them in the supermarket packaging but they’ve come from a farm (or multiple farms) and been picked, delivered to a warehouse, sorted and packaged. In this analogy, Tillo is the strawberry picker, deliverer and sorter (and can even help you with your packaging).
2. Why digital gift cards?
There are a growing number of use cases for digital gift cards, from loyalty programmes, to employee benefits, rewards and incentives, and beyond! Many challenger brands are using loyalty in new and innovative ways to drive customer acquisition and retention.
For example, we helped Revolut add a digital gift card mall to their digital banking offering, making it easier for customers to treat themselves or their friends/families.
And digital gift cards are fast becoming the reward of choice. Did you know that 82% of millennials are interested in redeeming loyalty points for a gift card?
The gift card industry as a whole is growing - and digital gift cards are a particular area of opportunity due to the flexibility they offer (the digital gift card market is expected to reach $1101.03 billion globally by 2030); it’s becoming ever easier for customers to receive gift cards instantly, and then spend them in a few clicks or add them to their digital wallets.
3. Why do I need a gift card solution?
If your business has the need to reward customers, partners or employees at scale with digital gift cards then the chances are a digital gift card platform is the solution you’ve been looking for.
Here’s how a digital gift card aggregator can benefit your business:
The old way:
- Managing each brand relationship and the digital gift card purchasing process manually is nothing short of a hassle. It involves lengthy spreadsheets and emails back and forth to manage floats and stock - a slow process that means it could take days not seconds to get gift card codes.
The new way:
- A digital gift card solution saves your business resources and time as you can manage relationships with hundreds of brands, all in one place.
- With Tillo, you can instantly manage and deliver exciting rewards, and easily scale into new markets.
- You can also get exclusive brand discounts and unbeatable commercial terms at your fingertips - so you can choose to share some of this discount with your end user.
4. Do I need to integrate?
Usually you’ll need to connect your own loyalty, rewards or corporate platform with a gift card reseller’s API. If you want to be able to offer digital gift cards in seconds when customers request them (rather than days), keep an eye on floats, and scale your offering then integrating will enable you to automate the process.
You’ll also benefit from detailed reports on the volumes the platform is processing for you and avoid having to tie up budget in holding gift card stock.
There are some cases where you may not need an API integration - for example, if you want to purchase thousands of digital gift cards but they’re only for one brand then you might want to bulk buy instead.
However, if you’re offering gift cards as a reward to customers, then offering a broad range of brands is best as it enables you to cater to unique tastes and makes your loyalty points much more valuable.
5. What does the integration process look like?
The API integration will need to be completed by your technical team. Once up and running, the API enables multiple platforms to communicate simultaneously on the back-end.
To complete the process, you’ll need strong developer resources in house (or to work closely with a freelance resource that’s familiar with your platform) and they will work with the gift card aggregator’s engineering team.
The aggregator will also provide you with API documentation to guide your development team, and should be on hand if there are any hurdles that need to be overcome.
The integration itself can be fairly quick to complete once all the contracts etc. are in place. With Tillo, you should be able to get up and running within about a week as long as there are no mitigating circumstances.
*Shameless plug*
Tillo’s award-winning API is the most complete on the market.
As Tillo’s Michael Norris, VP of Engineering, highlights:
“Having been with Tillo from the beginning I’ve overseen our API evolve a lot over the years.
From a big rewrite when we introduced version 2 a few years ago; adding new functionality and performance improvements, to more recently where we’re really focussing on automation and moving what we can from the Hub over to the API.
I truly believe that the API is the core of our business and is what sets us apart from other providers.”
6. How many contracts do I need?
At Tillo we keep it super simple! You only need one contract, and one integration to be able to access hundreds of brands.
Of course, you’ll still need to get the brand’s approval to link up - however, our platform makes it very easy and quick to request access to and enable more brands, and you don’t need any extra contracts - giving your end users greater choice of the brands they love!
Without a digital gift card platform, you would need a separate contract with each brand you’re working with.
7. How can you find a provider?
The gift card industry is pretty small and there are just a few key players - just book a demo to find out how Tillo can help.
And yes, we might be a little biased but we think Tillo’s solution is the best on the market. We connect our partners with over 2000 brands that people love, across 34 countries and 16 currencies. And we’re still going - we regularly onboard new brands to give our partners a greater choice of rewards.
Our customers love our aesthetically pleasing self-service platform that’s super easy to use and our friendly and approachable team; we go the extra mile for our partners and brands.
8. What questions should I ask when choosing a platform?
To ensure the aggregator you use is well aligned with your business needs, here are a few key questions to get you started:
- Who are some of their partners and brands? Do they have any testimonials you can review?
- How many brands do they have on their network?
- Are they regularly onboarding new brands?
- Can the engineering team support you if there are unexpected hurdles with the integration?
- Are they focused on the user experience of their platform, with a strong road map?
- Do they also connect directly with banks so you can more easily manage the financials?
For tips on what to consider and what questions you should ask, take a look at our handy guide to choosing a digital gift card provider.
If you have any questions that weren’t answered in our FAQ, we’d love to hear from you. You can contact us here.
