Increase AOV—and Acquire New Customers!—by Upselling Gifts to Subscribers with the ARPU Gift Block

Subscribers—your most loyal customers—are great for word of mouth marketing. But, what’s even better is when they go beyond recommending your products and actually buy friends and family your product as a gift. 

So how do you make sure they take this step? Remind them, of course. And the most natural moment to suggest a subscriber buy someone your product as a gift is in their upcoming charge notification (also referred to as an upcoming shipment notification). 

This email has higher open rates than marketing emails and, when you use the ARPU* Gift Block, you can let subscribers buy a gift for their friends or family in just a few clicks.

In this article, we’ll break down how you can use the Gift Block in ARPU to increase Average Order Value (AOV) and attract new customers. 

This email has higher open rates than marketing emails, and now you can use it to let subscribers buy a gift for their friends or family in just a few clicks.

* If you’re not familiar with ARPU, we replace Recharge’s upcoming charge notification with custom emails offering 2-click upsells and delays.

What is the Gift Block?

The Gift Block is a section in the ARPU upcoming shipment notification where you can showcase select products subscribers can buy as gifts. You have complete control over which products to offer as gifts and the discounts associated with those products, which is separate from any discounts you might have on other 1-time upsells. 

The Gift Block is a section in the ARPU upcoming shipment notification where you can showcase select products subscribers can buy as gifts.

Here’s what the experience looks like for a subscriber who buys a gift for someone else using the Gift Block:

1. The subscriber opens the upcoming shipment notification email that arrives a few days before their card is charged (the exact send date for this notification is set by the merchant)
2. They scroll to the Gift Block where they see a preview of products that can be purchased as a gift and click a “Shop Gifts” CTA
3. They’re taken to the Gifts Checkout page where they can see all gift products available for purchase (you choose what to show)
4. They add as many gift products as they want and go to the “Shipping Details” sidebar
5. They enter the shipping details of the person they want to send the gift to, add an optional gift message*, and choose the date to send the gift
6. The subscriber selects “Buy Gift Now” and is taken to a Thank You page where they can see an order summary and choose to buy another gift or add more to their own upcoming subscription order**

* The optional gift message will be included in a notification email sent to the gift recipient

** The subscriber purchasing the gift pays for gift shipping 

The subscriber does not have to log in to Recharge in order to complete the gift purchase process. 

How You Can Use The Gift Block

Here are a few ideas to help you get started.

Use the Gift Block for Seasonal Holidays

You can use the Gift Block to remind your subscribers of products that would make great gifts for upcoming seasonal occasions. 

You’ll be able to customize the look and feel of your Gift Block as well as the gift options to align with holidays.

You can use the Gift Block to remind your subscribers of products that would make great gifts for upcoming seasonal occasions. 

For example, with the winter holidays coming, you can promote your products as great gift choices and customize the look of the Gift Block with seasonal colors. Additional ideas include promoting gifts in the months leading up to Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine's Day, etc.

Heavily Discount Some Products When They’re Purchased As Gifts

You can also encourage gift purchases by applying heavy discounts to products that only work when they’re purchased as a gift. You can even make certain products free when they’re purchased as gifts. Imagine allowing your most loyal subscribers a chance to gift someone your product. Technical note: These discounts do not affect any 1-time upsell discounts you might have running in your ARPU email campaigns.

Think of it as the cost of acquiring a new customer. 

Consider doing this for products that are good introductions to your brand so that when a subscriber sends it as a gift to someone else, it will increase the chance of converting the gift recipient into a customer / subscriber.

Think of it as the cost of acquiring a new customer. 

If you don’t want to offer these heavy discounts on gifts to your entire subscriber base, you can use Shopify tags in ARPU to send them to a segment of subscribers, like those with extra high LTVs. 

This way, only a subset of your subscribers can take advantage of the heavy discount, and since they’re your most engaged subscribers, there’s a higher chance that they’ll know the value of your products well and will send gifts to people who are potentially great fit customers.

How To Set Up The Gift Block in ARPU

Ready to add the Gift Block to your upcoming shipment notification?

To learn more about how to customize your Gift Block and test it before enabling it for your entire subscriber base, check out this help document as well as the video below.

‍

To start, make sure the Gift Block code is in the email template(s) that you want to include the Gift Block in. You can check this by going to the Settings page in ARPU, selecting Email Templates, clicking Configure by one of your email templates, and searching for {{ gift_block }}.

If this code block is missing, you’ll need to add it. In the default email template, we recommend inserting the Gift Block under the Upsell Block so that the style is consistent. 

Make sure to add {{ gift_block }} to all email templates you want to feature gifts in.

Once the Gift Block code is in your email template(s), you can enable and customize gifts by going back to the Settings page and selecting Gift Settings.

At the top of this page, you can enable the Gift Block by clicking the toggle button. For the Gift Block to be live and active in your upcoming shipment notifications, you’ll need to add at least one product as a gift option at the bottom of the Products tab on this page.

Start Utilizing Gifts in ARPU 

The Gift Block is a great way to attract new customers through loyal subscribers and increase AOV, all in one email that your subscribers are already opening.

Your subscribers want to share the value they get from your brand with their friends and family.  Make that an incredibly easy process by using the Gift Block.

Your subscribers want to share the value they get from your brand with their friends and family.  Make that an incredibly easy process by using the Gift Block.

You’re invited to watch the Gift Upsells Training Session to learn how to include the Gift Block in your upcoming shipment notification emails. You can watch the recording of this training session here.

If you want to test out ARPU and see how easy it is to include 2-click upsells, effortless delays, and the Gift Block in your upcoming shipment notifications, check out our free 14-day trial.