Overview
You can give customers either points or a Discount reward on their birthday!
To get the reward, customers can enter their date of birth in the "Earn Points" section of the loyalty page. Once a year on that specific date, the customer will be awarded the points or reward.
Setting up the birthday rule
To set up/edit a birthday rule, go to Manage > Rules >
New: Create new rule > Birthday
Existing: Happy Birthday > Edit
Under 'Customer gets', choose between points or rewards. If you have tiers launched, you can choose different values for each tier.
Points:
💡Success Tip: We recommend giving enough points to allow customers to claim at least the lowest cost reward (e.g. enough to claim a $5 voucher), to drive them to make a purchase.
Reward:
You can choose from any pre-existing rewards in LoyaltyLion from the dropdown.
Setting up new birthday rewards
You can use your existing LoyaltyLion rewards for the Birthday rule - simply select the ones you’d like to gift to customers on their birthday.
However, if you’d like your birthday rewards to have different settings (for example, a unique minimum spend, reward expiry period, or discount value), or if you want to create brand new rewards that are only available for birthdays and not shown generally in your program, follow the steps below.
Setting up a reward that is ONLY used for the birthday rule:
Create a new discount reward (either flat or % off)
In the setup screen, go to Availability > and click Manage
3. Under Reward distribution > select Trigger-based distribution only.
This setting ensures that the reward doesn’t appear generally within your program and is only issued when triggered - for example, by a Birthday rule or Tier entry reward.
Note: Applying this setting to a reward will hide the reward from the 'Available rewards' section of your loyalty page, meaning customers can't redeem it manually using points.
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
💡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!)
FAQ's:
Q. Can a customer change their birthday?
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.
The 365-day cool-off period applies. This means that if your customer has already received points within a year, they will not receive them again after changing the date.
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 points 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 sign-up process, will they receive points?
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. 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.
Q. Which birthdays are valid?
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.