Introducing Custom CSS for Enhanced Campaign Styling

We're thrilled to announce the new custom styling feature for your referral and lead-gen campaigns.

We understand the importance brand identity when it comes to UI. That's why we're introducing custom CSS capabilities in the Sidebar Editor. This feature will allow you to tailor the look and feel of your embedded sidebar or inline forms, to better suit your website.

This feature allows styling of the card contents of the Gather sidebar.

The Gather sidebar is a customisable webpage overlay that appears on the side of a webpage, providing a space for referral and lead generation forms.

It's designed to seamlessly integrate with your site while capturing First-Party and Zero-Party data. This custom CSS feature is intended for developer use and requires experience in CSS to effectively implement.

Card styles such as padding, button sizing and letter spacing can be adjusted with CSS to ensure the sidebar feels like a natural extension of your website.

For both referral campaigns and lead-gen campaigns, you can find the CSS section in the campaign editor.

Embed your Gather Opt-in Form Inline on your Website.

Introducing Gather's latest functionality: Embed your opt-in form inline in your website.

Now you can collect leads from anywhere on your website by embedding a Gather opt-in form directly into your pages and blog posts. This is a great way to increase your conversion rate and grow your email list.

Here are some of the benefits of using Gather's inline opt-in form embed feature:

• Increased conversion rates: Embedding your opt-in form inline makes it easier for visitors to subscribe to your email list, which can lead to higher conversion rates.

• More targeted leads: You can target your opt-in forms to specific pages or blog posts, so you're only collecting leads from people who are interested in what you have to offer.

• More control over the design: With Gather's inline opt-in form embed feature, you can customize the look and feel of your form to match your website styling.

Here are some tips for using Gather's inline opt-in form embed feature effectively:

• Place the form in a prominent location on your website, such as above the fold.

• Make sure the form is easy to see and fill out.

• Use clear and concise language in the form fields.

• Consider offering an incentive to encourage visitors to submit the form, such as a free ebook or discount code.

Want more details on how to embed your opt-in campaign? Check out our detailed ‘How to’ article.

A 1-Click Button to Increase Opt-in Conversions

Reward codes are a great way to incentivize leads to join your mailing list, but they create friction and make it hard to redeem. With a Gather Opt-in campaign and Shopify cart, you can now apply a newly signed up lead’s reward code directly to their Shopify cart with a 1-click call to action button.

This feature makes it easy for new leads to use their reward and enjoy your products, which can lead to an increase in conversions. It also enhances the customer experience by providing a seamless shopping experience and eliminating any potential roadblocks in the purchasing process.

To use this feature, simply apply a call to action button to your successful pop-up opt-in confirmation screen.

Using the 1-click button to apply reward codes is a great way to increase conversions, enhance the customer experience, and maximize customer satisfaction.

For more information on how to enable this in your Gather campaign, check out the following article.

Extend your Referral Program Reach with Gather - New Feature

This new feature from Gather unlocks a new way to extend the reach of a Lead-Gen Referral Program.

A typical journey for a referral program, designed to increase leads or opt-ins (lead-gen referral program), may look like the following:

Customer enrols as an advocate -> customer invites friends -> a friend accepts an invitation by opting in -> both friend and advocate are sent their rewards.

Where this study shows that referred friends tend to be more loyal, there is an opportunity to incentivise referred friends to enrol as advocates themselves and go-on to refer their network.

This extends the reach of a Lead-Gen Referral Program, and with Gather this can be done with 1 click.

As soon as a friend accepts the invitation, they are presented with an option to enrol on the referral program with 1 click where they can begin to refer their friends.

This journey is suitable for the following types of referral programs:

• A launch referral program. This is if you are launching a new product or brand and are building a launch list (or a waitlist).

• A competition or a giveaway where the more friends an entrant refers, the more entries they get.

• A simple newsletter referral program. For example, when a friend is invited to subscribe, they may land on a page featuring the latest issue of the newsletter (so they get a feel for the newsletter content). This is where they can be served a form to opt-in. When they confirm their opt-in, they can be presented with a button to invite subscribers.

Why is this Feature A Good Fit for a Lead-Gen Referral Program?

Gather offers two types of referral programs:

• A Lead-Gen Referral Program. This is where referral success is determined on an opt-in (for example a newsletter referral program).

• A Conversion Referral Program. This is where a successful referral is determined by a sale conversion. An example of this is a referral program for an e-commerce or DTC brand.

Unlike a Lead-Gen referral program, when a referred friend accepts an invitation as part of a Conversion Referral Program and receives their incentives, they would need to go on to complete a purchase for the referral to be marked as successful.

The opportunity for asking a referred friend to enrol as an advocate comes after they make a purchase decision (i.e. they become a customer first). In the case of a Conversion Referral Program, a post-purchase call to action is used to convert new customers into advocates.

Click here for detailed instructions on how to implement this new feature in your lead-gen referral program.

If you run a Conversion Referral Program, This article runs through how you can leverage this new CTA button as a part of a conversion referral program.

Make Reward Code Redemption Easy for Referred Friends - New Feature!

We’re thrilled to announce a new feature for referral programs on Gather, that helps make it easier for referred friends to redeem their reward codes, on the Shopify platform.

A call-to-action button can now be served to your customer’s friends when they opt-in to accept an invitation.

In addition to providing referred friends with their reward code, referred friends can now be directed to a URL of your choice, with a click of a button.

If your ecommerce store is on Shopify, you can automatically apply the friend’s reward code to the checkout, by including the reward code as a variable in the CTA URL.

Shopify provides the ability to auto-apply a reward code to checkout, by adding it to the store homepage URL. In the example below, the friend’s unique code itself is added as follows:

https://gather-demo.myshopify.com/discount/{{reward_code}}

This new call-to-action button simplifies the discount redemption process, which helps drive more successful referrals.

With 1-click, referred customers can effortlessly redeem their rewards, enhancing their overall shopping experience.

Click here for detailed instructions on how to implement this new feature in your conversion referral program.

New Layout Design

Hey there!

We are pleased to announce: Gather has an updated layout to help improve the admin experience.

The following images will assist you in finding your various account sections:

Campaign Navigation

Navigate between the various sections of your campaigns using the annotated items in the sidebar.  This allows more room for the editors (including the recently added drag-and-drop email editor).

Campaign Selection

Switch between your campaigns and add new campaigns from the drop down menu in the top bar.

Account Settings

Access your account settings, help, notifications and other account links from the right hand side of the top bar.

Campaign Editor

In the Editor section under either: 'Your Website' (for referral campaigns) or 'Website Sidebar' (for Opt-in campaigns), the various subsections (like 'Design' and 'Preferences') can be selected from a navigation menu on the left hand side.

With that, if you have any queries, please reach out at: hello at gathercustomers.com, we're happy to help!

Gather Team

Brand Loyalty NFT's for your Shopify Store, and how they can Take Loyalty Programs to the Next Level

Image by Milad Fakurian

Recently we have been paying attention to the evolving landscape of web3, and how web3 in the context of loyalty programs and customer referral programs.

With a growing number of household brands, like Singapore Airlines, exploring blockchain based loyalty points as part of their marketing strategy, this emerging technology is increasingly becoming ripe for mass adoption.

Quick Primer on Web3

Web3 is a term given to a set of new capabilities on the web that make it possible for customers to buy and own digital assets. This is only possible with blockchain technology, or decentralised ledger technology.

A function of blockchain is to verify that a customer owns a certain asset. This is done with consensus, or agreement, between many parties in a decentralised way. It is a decentralised ledger of ownership that is verified by the community, in a reliable way, where incentives are aligned.

This is revolutionary because it means that digital value on the internet can be owned and exchanged.

The following are examples of what digital value could provide:

• Digital art

• Access rights to certain online functionality (i.e. software)

• Access to exclusive products

• Access to discounted pricing

• Access rights to a professional community

NFT’s and Loyalty Programs

An example of how NFT’s could be used with customer referrals on your Shopify Store, is as follows:

• Customers are given an NFT, which doubles up as essentially their loyalty account with you.

• When a customer performs loyalty actions, like referring their friends, they are rewarded with points that are attached to that NFT.

• They can choose to redeem those points, save them; or they could gift those points to their friends where their friends can redeem them at your Shopify store. The ability to do so requires rather advanced smart contract capabilities behind the scenes. There is ongoing research in this area to verify that this can currently be done, and whether it preserve a good user experience.

• You can incorporate reward tiers and you can delight your customers with surprise rewards, drops, birthday gifts and so on.

How is this any different from any loyalty program?

The key difference here, is an NFT facilitates a medium of exchange.

As the technology advances your customers can easily gift or sell their NFT’s, or some of the contents of their NFT’s, to others.

As with loyalty points, the contents of the NFT’s are only redeemable for products at your store (or a network of complementary stores).

This means, that with your customers having the ability to sell or gift the contents of their Brand Loyalty NFT, they can bring you new customers (who can redeem NFT contents in your store), hence expanding the reach of your brand.

This is especially beneficial for customers who hold a substantial amount of loyalty points where they have no immediate plans to redeem them. Instead of sitting on them, they have the ability to make these rewards redeemable for other customers who may have more of an immediate need for your products (i.e. the loyalty points would facilitate a new acquisition channel).

This has the potential to make your advertising budget go further, and can provide an attractive customer acquisition ROI.

Over to you: Are Brand Loyalty NFT’s something you have considered for your Shopify store?