Reward Strategies: How to A/B test a new reward
Use A/B tests to determine which rewards impact retention most, and the best time to give them.
This guide explains how to build a Subscription Experience to A/B test a new reward incentive.
- Shopify Checkout Integration
Before you start
- Recharge created the A/B test a free gift with next purchase template so that you can quickly implement a Rewards program for your customer. While the template is pre-built, you can completely control the experience and update or remove any included nodes to personalize the customer experience further.
How it works
Use the template to test a free item or fixed amount credit at the order milestone of your choice. See what type of impact an incentive has before setting up a more in-depth rewards strategy to ensure that your strategy is effectively lifting retention.
You can update Recharge's prebuilt template before saving and activating your flow to best suit your business needs.
Step 1 - Create the experience
Create the A/B test rewards experience in the Recharge merchant portal:
- Click Retain in the merchant portal and select Rewards from the dropdown.
- Click Create from template and select A/B test a free gift with next purchase.
- Click Next to access the template.
- On the next page, select when customers should enter the flow:
- After order is processed: Reward customers as soon as Recharge processes a subscription checkout or recurring order for a customer.
- X days before recurring order: Notify customers before their upcoming order about the available rewards, and reduce the chance of churn.
- Click Get started to review the template.
Step 2 - Review the template
This template begins with a Trigger node set to trigger after Recharge processes a customer's recurring order. The template automatically includes two paths:
- Path A: Offer an incentive to a select segment of customers.
- Path B: Ensure that a select segment of customers do not receive an incentive.
Recharge designed the initial template to allow you to compare if customers who receive an incentive are more likely to engage with the brand and stay subscribed for longer. By offering one group of customers an incentive, you can gain insights into how free gifts perform with a select cohort, and if offering a free gift helps reduce retention.
Alternatively, you can add an incentive node to Path B, and offer a different incentive product to compare what product performs better with your customers.
You can update the Trigger node to set customer conditions and define which customers should enter the experience, or you can keep the existing trigger rules to process the flow on every single order.
Choose to keep Recharge's prebuilt notifications, or click on the Notification node and change each notification to suit your brand and voice. Consider removing the existing Notification node and adding the Klaviyo node to send your notifications through Klaviyo.
Adding nodes
Enhance the functionality of your experience by adding additional nodes, such as an A/B test node, or a conditional branch node. See Nodes for additional details.
Click Apply to save any changes. See available conditions for additional information.
Step 3 - Manage settings
Click Manage settings to rename the experience and add a description. You can also set the flow duration and run count limit. See Settings for additional details. These settings cannot be altered after activating the flow.
Step 4 - Save and activate the flow
Save the changes made to the flow template.
Click Activate Flow when you are ready to go live.