Overview
You can reward customers on their birthday with either points or a reward.
Customers enter their birthday date in the “Earn Points” section of your loyalty page. Each year on that date, they’ll automatically receive their birthday reward or points.
Setting up the birthday rule
To set up or edit a birthday rule, go to Manage > Rules
New rule: Create new rule > Birthday
Existing rule: Happy Birthday > Edit
Under 'Customer gets', choose what the customers receive:
Points
Award a set number of points (you can customise by tier if using tiers).
💡Success Tip: Give enough points for customers to redeem at least your lowest-value reward (e.g. a $5 voucher) to encourage immediate purchase.
Reward
Select a reward from your existing rewards list. If using tiers, you can assign different rewards per tier.
Setting up birthday rewards
You can either use an existing reward or create a new one specifically for birthdays.
Supported rewards:
(applies to both existing rewards and birthday-specific rewards)
Discount vouchers (money or percentage off)
Unsupported rewards:
Seamless Free Product (use our enhanced Birthday Bundle AI campaign feature if you'd like to offer this reward on a customer's birthday!)
🚀 NEW FEATURE: Check out our new Birthday Bundle AI campaign to award seamless free product rewards and double points on purchases during a customer's birthday window!
Option 1: Use an existing reward
Simply select one of your current rewards when configuring the Birthday rule.
Option 2: Create a birthday-specific reward
If you want different settings (e.g. reward expiry, minimum spend, or discount value), or a reward that isn’t visible in your main program, create a new one.
Steps to create a birthday-specific reward
Create a new reward as usual
In the setup screen, go to Availability > Manage
3. Under Reward distribution, select Trigger-based distribution only > Done
This hides the reward from the main program and the Available Rewards section of the loyalty page, so it can't be redeemed manually using points.
4. (Optional) If using a reward with an associated product SKU, you may also choose to hide the product from your online store. This will not prevent you from selecting it as a Birthday reward within LoyaltyLion.
💡Success Tip: Renaming Birthday Rewards
When you create new rewards specifically for your birthday rule (using the Trigger-based distribution only setting), it’s a good idea to rename them so they’re easy to identify - both for you and your customers.
Example:
Instead of: $10 off
Rename to: $10 off (Birthday Gift!)
Additional settings
By setting up specific birthday rewards, you can then also apply different settings for these rewards than for other rewards in your program. For example:
Reward expiry: Encourage repeat purchases by setting birthday rewards to expire within a specific timeframe after the customer’s birthday
Minimum spend: Protect your margins and increase AOV by setting a minimum spend threshold before the birthday reward can be applied
Birthday data collection: In program settings, you can choose not to collect birthday years
Flexible birthday year collection
You can now collect birthdays without collecting birth years.
You can now choose to exclude the birthday year entirely, helping reduce personal data collection while still running birthday rewards and activities. You can configure this in the admin, under Manage > Program settings > Data and privacy.
For integrations that require a full date, we safely pass a placeholder year of 9996, ensuring compatibility with webhooks, imports, and tools like Klaviyo, and include leap year birthdays.
This gives you tighter control over customer data, simpler compliance with child privacy and data minimisation policies.
FAQ's
Q. Can a customer change their birthday?
If a customer has entered their birthday incorrectly, they will need to contact your customer support team to get this updated. We don't let customers update their birthdays themselves to protect against fraud.
You can edit your customer's birthday in the Customers tab in LoyaltyLion. To make this change, simply go to Customers, select the customer you wish to change, and at the top, right-click Actions > Change birthday.
Q. If a customer's birthday is changed, when do they receive their points/reward?
We only give birthday points/rewards once per calendar year. If a customer changes their birthday but has already received points that calendar year, they will not receive them again until the next calendar year.
Examples:
1) Customer receives birthday points in June 2025 -> birthday is changed to August -> customer next receives points in August 2026.
2) Customer receives birthday points in December 2025 -> birthday is changed to January -> customer next receives points in January 2026.
Q. When do customers receive their points/reward?
Customers will receive points around midnight UTC on their birthday. If customers add their birthday on their birthday after midnight UTC, they won't receive the points until their birthday the following year.
Q. Can customers receive their points/reward on the day they enter their birthday?
If you want to give points for someone leaving their birthday, you may be able to do this by setting up a Shopify metafield and a Shopify Flow. Both of these features are available through Shopify. Reach out to support@loyaltylion.com for further details.
Q. When does the birthday rule show as completed in LoyaltyLion?
The rule shows as completed on the customer's birthday, as this is when the points/reward is triggered, rather than when they input their birthday. This will reflect in the points earned/spent graph, as well as the activities completed graph.
Customers will receive their birthday points/reward around midnight UTC on their birthday.
Q. If a customer enters their birthday as part of the account creation process, will they receive the points/reward?
Customers will only receive the points/reward if they have entered their birthday via the loyalty page or if we have imported their birthday into LoyaltyLion (learn more about birthday imports).
Q. Do customers have to enter their year of birth?
The birthday year is an optional field when setting up the birthday rule. You can choose whether you want customers to have to add in their year of birth or just their birthday day and month. See here.
Q. Which birthday dates are accepted?
Birthdays must be set to a date more than 5 years ago and less than 110 years ago. For example, on 5 August 2025, the birthday would need to fall between 5 August 1915 and 5 August 2020. If the birthday entered is outside these limits, we will ask to the customer to enter a valid date.