The gift card experience doesn’t have to be the same old, where you simply promote a gift card to all your customers. Rather, personalizing the gift card purchase can be a smart way to encourage more transactions and also add another customer to the database.

When someone is receiving a gift card as a present from your store, you now have a happy customer who will hopefully continue shopping at the store.  Surveys have revealed that 3 out of 5 consumers plan to spend more than their gift card value. And more than half of that group (52%) tend to spend as much as $30 more.

After all, this kind of present continues to be more popular, across all demographics. Data cited by Govalo found that 60% of baby boomers indicated that they’d prefer to receive gift cards as gifts, and 72% of millennials said they’ve used digital gift cards recently.

But when you implement a gift card program onto your online store, you should make it personal. We all like personalized gifts, and the same goes for these cards. Perhaps you can employ gift-card apps and tools to tailor your brand visuals on the card, or ensure the card themes match with the seasons (a romantic vibe for Valentine’s Day, wintery imagery for the holiday shopping season). 

If you have customer segmentation layered onto your email marketing campaigns, use gift cards savvily. If you have customer segments based on location, use different messaging for your UK customers, say, than your American ones, based on how Brits may talk differently than Americans. Or recently new customers may receive a different kind of gift-card messaging than loyal customers since day one. 

By using customer tags, you can track passionate customers who also repeatedly purchase gifts, and begin to give them the kind of content and incentives that will keep them returning to your brand. Such a decision could involve offering a gift card to a customer who has frequently purchased them for others, i.e. “This time treat yourself on us!” as a thank you and an incentive to place another order.

Remember the last gift you got from someone who knew exactly what kind of person you are and customized the present to your hobbies and personality? You can replicate that kind of goodwill with your store’s gift card program by fostering a culture of personalization within your four walls, er, your many web pages.