Create a SmartOffer (Advanced)

For those that want to dive deep into the broad functionality and capability that SmartOffers hold, this article is for you.

Note: If you're looking for a quick guide for SmartOffer setup, visit our Create a SmartOffer (Basic) article.

1. Go to the SmartOffers tool in the left-hand navigation of your CityGro Portal. (If you don’t see it, email us at customersuccess@mailgro.com to have it enabled on your account)
2. Click “+ New SmartOffer”
3. Decide whether the offer you want to create is Promotional or Loyalty.
   1. Promotional – Offers that are activated by sending a message (text or email) to a customer. They can also be offers for customers that just walk in the door and check in on a kiosk. 9 out of 10 offers that are set up are promotional offers.
   2. Loyalty – Offers that customers have to work for. The receive them by earning or “spending” a specific amount of points. Picture your traditional "punch card"-type offer.
4. Complete the “Details” section.

Promotional Offer

1. At the very top of the offer section in the grey bar area, you will see a place where you can give your offer an internal use only name. It defaults to “New SmartOffer Date”
2. Promotional Offer Section
   1. The SmartOffer title is in the white area is the public name that your customers will see on the offer.
   2. The second area is for the fine print of the SmartOffer. This is where you should put any rules or restrictions that you want to include. “Some restrictions apply” and “Cannot be combined with any other offer” are some typical fine print elements.
3. Limits – Only add limits if you are planning on making your SmartOffer a web offer that can be shared, is going to be posted on social media or does not need to be activated. If you are going to attach your SmartOffer to a message don’t put limits here. You will put limits on the SmartOffer through the Blast editor.
   1. The first setting is to limit how many times a contact can EVER use this offer.
   2. The second setting is to limit how many contacts can use this offer EVER. You would use this setting if you were making an offer that was for “first 200 customers to redeem get X”.
   3. You can create a time frame for an offer to be available by using the start and expiration settings.
4. Redemption Options – This section is only changed if you intend to make your offer a web offer (see What is a web offer to get details on what web offers are and can do). You can leave all the default settings if you SmartOffer is only available on your kiosk.
   1. If you want your SmartOffer to be redeemable only on the kiosk then you leave the “require contact to redeem on kiosk” setting checked. If you want people to be able to redeem a SmartOffer as a Web Offer on their phone or device then uncheck the “require contact to redeem on kiosk”.
   2. Redemption Instructions are optional. There is a default message displayed. If you have specific or unique instructions when people redeem web offers, then you would enter those instructions here.
   3. After someone redeems a web offer their device will display information about what offer the customer redeemed and when. It is recommended that you place a redemption time restriction for employee clarity. 10-15 minutes is usually sufficient for a customer to redeem an offer and show it to an employee to get said incentive. Once the time period expires a new window pops up and tells the customer and employee that this offer is no longer available to this customer.
   4. You can create a barcode for web offers so that a scanner on your POS can be used to add discounts to a customer’s bill.
   5. If you check the last setting, then customers cannot redeem an offer without an employee entering a code on the kiosk or device approving the redemption. This is a very rarely used setting and should only be used with good reason.
   6. Press the orange next button to advance to the “Design” settings page.
5. Design
   1. You can add a header image by pressing the “+ Add” button. You can upload a new image or choose from a library of already uploaded images.
   2. You can add a background image by pressing the “+ Add” button (you may have to hit the grey x to clear out a default image first). You can upload a new image or choose from a library of already uploaded images.
   3. If you want to get creative you can alter the color of just about everything displayed on the SmartOffer
   4. Hit the orange next button in the bottom right corner to advance to “Advanced” settings.
6. Filter
   1. (You probably do not want to do this even if you think you do). You can add a filter by pressing the orange button. This allows you to display an offer to only a specific audience. Super special circumstances only.
   2. You can place an estimated ticket price for the customer that uses this offer. In the future, we plan on having a statistic that will display estimated profit/ROI for SmartOffer redemptions.
   3. Click the “Save + Enable” button to go to the promote settings.
7. Promote
   1. If your SmartOffer is going to be used as a Web Offer, then the shareable Smartlink is what your customers can click on (using their own devices) to pull up your offer. You can place the link on social media or in a text so customers can easily get their web offer and redeem it right on their device.
8. Activation- This will be left as default settings the grand majority of the time.
   1. The checkbox is defaulted to checked. This means that the offer will only appear for customers who have received an SMS or Email with the offer activated with it. If you uncheck the box, then the offer will appear for every customer (minus filtered customers) and they can use it as many times as the specified limit (in the SmartOffer settings) prescribes.
   2. The expiration settings are only necessary if you uncheck the activation setting AND the offer is a web offer. This expiration is the time that customer has to redeem an offer after they have activated the offer for themselves through a web offer.
   3. The kiosk-based activation code is only for SmartOffers that are to be redeemed on the kiosk. This is a passcode that is specific for only this offer. In very rare cases this would be used.
9. Verification – how you want our system to check if someone trying to use a web offer is in your contact list. It is recommended that you leave it on SMS unless you do not use SMS for your account. Leave this as SMS unless you have asked a CityGro Support Team Member about it.
10. Final Step – Save and Close.

Loyalty Offer

A Loyalty SmartOffer is mostly the same steps and settings as promotional with the exceptions mentioned below. Loyalty offers can only be redeemed on a kiosk. They are not compatible with web offers.

1. Punchcard / Loyalty Requirements (Details Page)
   1. You must choose how many points are required to redeem the SmartOffer.
   2. You will then select which punchcard points can be taken from. The default is called “Loyalty Points”.
   3. If you want points to be deducted check the box. (You usually want to check this)
   4. If customers on a check-in-based system (for example one check-in gives them 1 point for the whole day) then you most likely want to check the box to not add points when the offer is used.
2. Redemption Options – Loyalty Offers can’t be made into web offers so you can leave this section as the default settings.
3. The whole promote section is disabled because Loyalty Offers can only be used on a kiosk. Therefore, activation and web offer settings do not need to be addressed. Please understand that a loyalty offer can be seen by everybody minus any customer who has been filtered (Filter settings) while the offer is active.

Note: Accounts that have parent/child relationships may have restrictions on what SmartOffers can appear on the kiosk SmartOffers page. Once created an offer may be required to manually be added to the Offers in some circumstances. If that is the case, then refer to our article “How to add a SmartOffer to the kiosk”. There can be cases where your account is a child account while you are using a kiosk flow shared down from a parent account. These relationships do not allow you to add your own self-made SmartOffers. Please contact a CityGro Employee if you have questions. Some questions may be referred to the individual(s) that manage/own any parent account.