Customizing Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals Emails

How to Customize Yotpo Emails

A key part of running a successful rewards and/or referral program is keeping customers informed about their status. Event-triggered emails notify customers when they earn points, redeem rewards, move between tiers, or share referrals.

If you’re using an Email Service Provider (ESP) that integrates with Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals, you can configure and send these emails directly from your ESP. For the full list of supported integrations, see the Loyalty & Referrals Emails section.

If you prefer to use Yotpo’s built-in email notification system, go to Communications in your Yotpo Loyalty admin. From there, you can enable and edit the event-triggered Loyalty and Referrals emails you’d like to send.

Email Settings

Before enabling different emails through Loyalty & Referrals, you can make a few basic changes to your emails that do not require any HTML.

Settings overview

To configure your email settings:

1. From the Yotpo Loyalty admin, go to Communication > Settings.

2. Enter the Sender's name and Sender's email address that your messages will be sent from.

   Note

   The Sender's email address is not a reply-to address. Replies to these automated messages will not be delivered to that email address.

3. To update the email header image (without using code), select Upload Header Image and upload your store’s logo.

4. Set reminder triggers:

   1. Use Set a trigger for the Points Reminder and Redemption Reminder email and SMS to define when these reminders are sent.

      Inactivity refers to no point-earning or point-redeeming activity.

      Important

      These trigger settings apply not only to emails sent through Yotpo’s native email system, but also to event-based flows configured in your integrated ESP (such as Klaviyo). When you update the inactivity trigger in Communications > Settings, it directly affects when Yotpo sends the trigger event to your ESP.

   2. Use Set a trigger for a Referral Share Email Reminder to define when referral reminder emails are sent. Only applicable to the old Referrals Program. If you’re using the new Referrals Program, you won’t see this option in the admin.

      This reminder is sent to your customer’s friend, encouraging them to complete a purchase using their referral reward.

In addition to these basic settings, we strongly recommend customizing your email templates to align with your brand and existing marketing communications.

You can customize your email templates or formats in two ways: 

• Global customization: Apply HTML styling to all Loyalty & Referrals emails.

• Per-email customization: Apply HTML formatting to specific email templates only.

HTML formatting

To apply HTML formatting to your emails on a global level:

1. In the Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals main menu, go to Communications Settings.

2. Click the dropdown menu under Use our default email template or customize one according to your brand’s needs, and select Custom Template.

3. Insert the HTML that you would like to apply to all your email notifications in the HTML field.

   

4. Click the Save button to save your changes.

Email-Specific Changes

To customize a specific email or adjust its formatting, use the Customize Email option.

To customize your email templates:

1. From the main menu, go to Communications.

2. Then go to Loyalty emails or Referrals emails.

3. In the top right of the email card, click Customize Email.

This will take you to the individual email’s editor, where you can customize the subject and body of the email.

To change the HTML of this individual message:

1. Click the Layout dropdown menu and choose Use Custom Layout.

2. Add in HTML and CSS that will be applied to this specific message.

   •  If your HTML and CSS do not include body text for your email, be sure to include the *|BODY|* tag instead to support the body content you create in the text editor.
      

3. Click the Save button to save your changes.

Preview Email

You can use the Send Preview Email option to see exactly how the email will appear to your customers.

When you click this option, a preview email will be sent to the "Contact email" address configured in the General Settings section of your Yotpo Loyalty admin.

Adding Placeholders to Emails

Your Yotpo-triggered emails come with pre-populated text and values that can serve as guidelines when editing the email content. These dynamic texts are called placeholders. To adjust your emails to each shopper, we recommend using placeholders to tailor each message text.

You can add the following placeholders to make your email more personal:

While you get creative with your content, please keep in mind that there are certain placeholders that must remain in the body of your email to fully engage your customers. 

Click on the relevant email below to learn which placeholders should be added to it:

Referral Emails

Personalizing Referral Emails

If you have the ‘Marketing email’ configured as one of your available share options in the Refer Friend module, you can use special placeholders to give your referral emails a more personal touch by including details such as the names of the shoppers.

You can use the following placeholders in the email subject line and in the email body: 

Fallback Action

The fallback mechanism will be triggered if a customer did not provide their name. Simply add your chosen fallback term after the default: section of the first name placeholder.

For example, if you’d like this placeholder to populate with the referring customer’s first name and fallback to “your friend” in case the name isn’t available, use the placeholder in the following way: *|referrer_first_name, default:your friend|*

It's always a good idea to provide a link back to your store and a call-to-action that asks customers to check out your new items, log in to view their balance, or simply revisit your store.