Challenges are available on the Advanced and Plus plans.
In this article:
Overview
Challenges let you gamify your loyalty program by rewarding customers for repeated actions, placing a certain number of orders, staying subscribed over time, referring friends, or leaving reviews. Instead of a one-off reward, customers work through a series of milestones, so there's always a next goal to reach and a reason to come back.
How can Challenges help you?
A loyalty program works best when customers keep coming back. Challenges give them a clear reason to, by turning everyday actions into a series of milestones with a reward at each step.
They're a useful tool if you want to:
Boost retention – customers working toward their next subscription milestone are more likely to stay subscribed
Drive repeat orders – each purchase counts toward the next reward, encouraging another visit
Grow reviews and referrals – customers have an incentive to leave feedback or bring in friends, not just make a purchase
Rewards typically increase as customers climb through milestones, so your most engaged customers are also the ones earning the most from your program.
What Challenges are available?
There are four Challenge types you can set up:
Subscription Challenges
Reward customers for making a number of subscription orders — think of it as a "thank you" ladder for staying subscribed. This pairs perfectly with your existing subscription strategy, encouraging customers to keep their subscription active (for example, through Recharge).
Order Milestones
Reward customers for placing a set number of orders, regardless of the source. Whether they buy through your website, in-store, or your app, every order counts toward their next milestone.
Review Milestones
Reward customers for leaving multiple reviews and helping grow your brand. The more reviews they leave, the closer they get to their next milestone.
Referral Milestones
Reward customers for referring friends and growing your brand. With each new referral, they unlock new rewards and milestones.
How do you set up a Challenge?
Log into LoyaltyLion and go to the Challenges page, under the Engagement tab.
Choose the Challenge you want to set up by clicking Create challenge. (This guide follows the Order Milestones Challenge type as an example.)
Give your Challenge a name that explains what it's based on.
Create your Milestones. Each Milestone is set to a number of the chosen activity (for example, number of orders). For each one, choose whether the customer earns points or a reward, then define the amount. Any reward you use must already exist in your program before you create the Challenge. You can optionally name each Milestone, and you can have a maximum of 5 Milestones per Challenge.
You can set up Ongoing rewards. These continue to award points or a reward after all previous milestones are complete. You can cap how many times this fires, or leave it running indefinitely.
Adjust the timing of when a customer receives their milestone reward — either immediately or after a set time period.
Adjust the display and how Challenges appear on the Loyalty Page. Choose from three styles — Linear, Steps, or Stacked — then add a title and an optional description.
Check the preview as you go. This updates as you build and reflects exactly what your customers will see.
9. Save your Challenge when you're done.
How do my customers see their Challenges?
Your customers can see their Challenges on the Loyalty Page (via the Theme Editor) and, if enabled, through the Loyalty Page Shopify Checkout Extension.
Loyalty Page
The Challenges section is available in your Theme Editor sections and appears once a Challenge has been created.
The Challenges section is only visible when previewing the page as a Member.
When you select the Challenges section, you'll find a wide range of styling options — including the color, sizing, and grouping of milestones, as well as labelling and connectors.
Shopify Customer Accounts
A Challenges section is added to your customers' accounts automatically once a Challenge is made active. The progression style will match the one you selected when building the Challenge.
FAQs
Q: Can one Challenge reward more than one type of activity — say, orders and reviews?
No. Each Challenge tracks a single activity type. If you want to reward both, create two separate Challenges.
Q: Can I run more than one Challenge at a time?
Yes — but only one of each type. You can have an Order, a Subscription, a Review, and a Referral Challenge all running together, but not two Order Challenges at once. To replace an active Challenge with another of the same type, archive the first one.
Q: Is there a limit to how many milestones a Challenge can have?
Yes — a maximum of 5. You can extend beyond this with Ongoing Rewards once all milestones are reached.
Q: Can a single milestone give both points and a reward?
Not in one milestone. If you want both at a similar stage, add two milestones.
Q: Does the ongoing bonus count from the customer's very first order, or from when they finish the milestones?
From when they finish the milestones. The bonus cycle starts fresh at that point.
Q: What happens if an order is refunded after the customer earned a reward for it?
The reward is clawed back. If it was points, they're reversed, even if that pushes the balance negative because the points were already spent. A reward voucher that's already been redeemed isn't unredeemed.
Q: What about a cancelled subscription?
Only rewards still inside the holding period are rolled back. Rewards already issued for past subscription orders stand — the customer keeps what they've earned.
Q: If a milestone reward is clawed back, can the customer earn it again?
Yes. A later qualifying activity can re-earn a milestone that was previously reversed.
Q: Which subscription platforms count?
Subscription orders made through Recharge and Skio will count towards the Subscription Challenge.
Q: Which review platforms count?
Any review platform connected to LoyaltyLion will trigger review milestones, such as Loox, Yotpo, Bazaarvoice, and Stamped - no per-platform setup needed.
Q: If I edit a live Challenge, what happens to customers already part-way through? They keep progressing under the rules that were in place when they started. Your changes apply to customers who begin the Challenge after the edit.
Q: If I delete a Challenge, what happens to the customers in that Challenge?
When you turn off a Challenge, you'll see two options:
Stop new participants from joining. Customers already in the Challenge keep progressing until they complete or expire. Points already earned stay with them.
Stop new participants from joining, and end any in-progress journeys. Customers stop progressing toward unfinished milestones. Points already earned stay with them, but pending milestones won't fire. This cannot be undone.