4. Invite Your Customers
After completing the onboarding flow, your loyalty program is set up. The next step is inviting your customers to join.
Crowny offers multiple ways to invite your customers into your loyalty program. Each method is designed for a different situation, from fully automated onboarding after a purchase to manual invitations for specific audiences.
This article explains the available invitation methods, when to use them, and what to keep in mind when sharing invitations.
Important:
After completing onboarding, your loyalty program is paused by default. Use the switch at the top of the page to pause or enable your program. Once enabled, the program is live: customers can earn points through active earning rules, and invitations can be sent automatically or manually.
Automated invitation emails after purchases
When your loyalty program is active, Crowny’s email module becomes active automatically. From that moment on, customers who complete a purchase in your store will receive a post-purchase email, inviting them to join your loyalty program.
“You received points. Claim your points and browse what deals you can get.”
Through this email, customers can:
- Open the invitation
- Join your loyalty program
- Receive the points they earned for their purchase
This method requires no work from you. It is the easiest way to steadily grow a high-quality member base over time. It also ensures you only invite members who actually spend money in your store.
Inviting customers with Custom Actions
In addition to our automated emails, you can actively invite customers using Custom Actions in the Crowny Portal.
Custom Actions allow you to create QR-code invitations that you can share however you like. You can generate a QR code that lets customers join your loyalty program when they scan it.
These invitations are useful when you want to onboard:
- A specific email list
- Social media followers
- Customers at a physical location
- Attendees at an event or campaign
You control how and where these invitations are distributed.
Inviting and rewarding at the same time
Custom Actions are not limited to invitations only. You can also create a custom action that awards a fixed number of points when someone scans a QR code. This makes point-based QR codes a powerful tool for promotions, events, or campaigns. If the person scanning the QR code is not yet a member, Crowny will first invite them to join the program before applying the reward or tier.
Custom Actions can also be used to grant customers a specific loyalty tier. This is especially useful when you want to onboard long-time customers into a higher tier immediately, for example. This allows you to tailor the starting experience for different groups of customers. Discover our best practices on how to use manual tier invitations.
Sharing invitation links without issues
Each invitation QR code also has an underlying URL. In the Crowny Portal, you can copy this invitation link directly in addition to downloading or using the QR code itself.
When sharing the link through emails, messaging apps, social media, or other digital channels, be careful with how and where the link is shared. Some platforms open links in an in-app browser by default. In these cases, verification mechanics may not work as expected. Even on platforms without in-app browsers, the link may still be modified, shortened, or redirected automatically, which can prevent it from working correctly.
To avoid issues:
- Only share invitation links through channels where you can rely on the link opening in a native browser.
- Or clearly instruct recipients to copy and paste the link into their own browser instead of clicking it directly.
Always test whether the link works as expected on the platform where you plan to share it. If you’ve set a usage cap on the QR code or link, make sure to account for your test scan or click.
In the next article, we’ll explain how program visibility and activation work, and what happens once you enable your cashback rule.