How to Create a Loyalty Program for Your WooCommerce Site (In 6 Steps)

Rewarding customers with points to use on future purchases is a powerful way to help grow your eCommerce business. This is why it makes sense to create a loyalty program for your WooCommerce site. However, figuring out how to go about it can be tricky.

Fortunately, as a WordPress user, you have the advantage of using a plugin. The right extension can make it easy to not only create a loyalty program but organize, manage, and maintain it as well.

In this post, we’ll discuss the benefits of starting a loyalty program for your online store. Then we’ll walk you through how to do so in six simple steps, including helpful plugins to use. Let’s get started!

The Benefits of Starting a Loyalty Program

A loyalty program is an effective way to not only reward your customers but encourage sales as well. Earning points for each purchase can motivate members to return to your store more frequently than they otherwise might.

Another reason to create a loyalty program is that it can serve as a low-cost incentive and promotion strategy. You can use it to boost revenue and customer loyalty without over-discounting your WooCommerce products and services.

You can use your loyalty program to encourage other actions other than purchasing products. For example, you can also award points for completing tasks such as leaving a product review or blog comment.

Put simply, there is incredible value in creating a loyalty program, especially when you consider how easy it is to set up. With the right plugin, you can create and manage a robust loyalty program within minutes.

How to Create a Loyalty Program for Your WooCommerce Site (In 6 Steps)

If you’re interested in starting a loyalty program for your customers, you can do so in a few simple steps. However, before you get started, you’ll want to pick out the loyalty program plugin you’re going to use.

There are a few different options out there. For this tutorial, we’ll be using Advanced Coupons:

This freemium extension adds advanced functionality to your WooCommerce plugin. While it’s most known for its plethora of coupon features, you can also use it to create a loyalty program for your WooCommerce store.

Another plugin worth considering is YITH WooCommerce Points and Rewards:

The YITH Commerce Points and Rewards plugin.

This is a premium plugin that, while effective, is a bit on the pricier side. The steps for creating a plugin may vary slightly depending on which plugin you’re using, but the principles will be largely the same.

Once you spend some time researching the options out there and deciding which is right for you, you’re ready to get started. Let’s take a look at how to create a loyalty program for your WooCommerce site in six simple steps.

Step 1: Download the Advanced Coupons Plugin

Before you can use the Advanced Coupons plugin, you need to create an account. You can do this by going to the Advanced Coupons plugin website, then selecting Get Advanced Coupons:

Once you pick a plan, select Get Started and follow the prompts to complete the signup process. To install the Advanced Coupons plugin, navigate to Plugins > Add New from your WordPress dashboard, and searching for ‘Advanced Coupons’:

Click on the Install Now button, followed by Activate. You can then put in the license key that you received when creating your account.

Step 2: Enable the Loyalty Program Feature

Even after you activate the Advanced Coupons plugin, you still need to turn on the ‘Loyalty Program’ feature. By default, it’s turned off. Note: The loyalty program feature is only available with the premium plugin.

To enable it, navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced Coupons:

Under the Advanced Coupons tab, at the bottom, there will be an option for ‘Loyalty Program’:

Check the box next to it, then select the Save changes button. The loyalty program feature is now enabled.

Step 3: Set the Point Values and Thresholds

When you first create a loyalty program, one of the most important tasks is to determine how your point system will work and set the value of a point. Two critical values to pay attention to are the ‘price to points earned ratio’ and ‘points to price redeemed ratio’.

The ‘price to points earned ratio’ refers to the ratio of points that a shopper earns for each dollar that they spend. This means if you set the value at one, the customer will earn one point for every dollar they spend on your WooCommerce store.

The ‘points to price redeemed ratio’, on the other hand, defines how much each point is worth in dollars. For example, setting it to one would mean one point is equal to one dollar.

You can locate and adjust these values by going to WooCommerce > Settings > Loyalty Program:

If you scroll down, there are also sections where you can set the minimum thresholds for earning and redeeming points:

If you want your customers to earn a certain number of points before they’re able to redeem them, you can change the value from zero to, say, 50. This is particularly useful if you’re looking to use your loyalty program to increase the total amount spent.

There are a lot of different settings and conditions you can use the Advanced Coupons plugin to configure for your loyalty program. Most are self-explanatory. However, if you need further guidance, we recommend referring to the plugin documentation.

Step 4: Decide What Customers Can Earn Points For

As we mentioned earlier, making purchases is not the only thing you can reward your customers for. You can also give points for actions such as leaving a comment on a blog post, leaving a product review or signing up for an account with your WooCommerce store or loyalty program.

If these are actions you want to award points for, you’ll need to enable them in your WooCommerce loyalty program settings. Again, navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Loyalty Program, then scroll down to the ‘Actions for earning points’ section:

Select the actions you want your customers to be able to earn points for. When you’re done, click on the Save changes button.

Step 5: Customize Your Loyalty Program Messages

Once you have the point values, thresholds, and actions ironed out, you can focus on customizing the messages of your loyalty program. By default, the plugin will automatically generate standard messages to display, which you can find on the same settings page we’ve worked on in the previous steps:

You can use these sections to customize the messages that your customers see. Additionally, there’s an option to override the default ‘points’ name for your loyalty program points. For example, Starbucks refers to points as ‘stars’ and Sephora calls its loyalty program the Beauty Insider.

If you want to change this to something more unique to your branding, you can do so under WooCommerce > Settings > Loyalty Program. Then enter the name in the text field next to ‘Points name’:

Leaving this field empty will leave the name set as the default ‘Points’. If you’re happy with this, save your changes.

Step 6: Configure WooCommerce to Automatically Create Customer Accounts

In order for your customers to save, accumulate, and redeem points, they’ll need an account with your WooCommerce site. The most efficient approach is to configure your WooCommerce so customer accounts are automatically created when they first make a purchase on your site.

To do this, navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Accounts & Privacy:

The 'Accounts & Privacy' settings page in WooCommerce.

Under ‘Guest checkout’ and ‘Account creation’ there are a handful of options to select or de-select. For example, allowing customers to place an order without an account is optional.

However, we recommend making sure the options for automatically generating an account username and password are selected. When you’re done, click on the Save changes button. That’s it! You have successfully created a loyalty program for your WooCommerce site.

Conclusion

If you want to create a loyalty program for your WooCommerce site, you can’t do it with WordPress and WooCommerce alone. Starting a robust rewards and points program requires a plugin. Fortunately, there are a handful of powerful options to choose from that will make the process significantly easier.

In this post, we discussed six steps you can take to create a loyalty program for your WooCommerce site: