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Loyalty programmes built on points alone keep customers transacting — but gamification keeps them playing. By layering interactive features on top of your points mechanics, you give customers reasons to open the app between purchases, share your brand with friends, and feel genuinely invested in your community. Each gamification tool in Pocketshop is designed to be quick to set up and immediately rewarding for the customer, so you can run fresh activations as often as you like without a heavy production lift.

Feature Overview

Challenges

Set multi-step tasks customers complete for bonus points or prizes. Digital scavenger hunts and in-store interaction triggers all live here.

Quizzes

Create interactive Q&A sessions that test product knowledge or brand trivia. Award points or unlock coupons for correct answers.

Contests & Prize Draws

Run time-limited prize draws that any customer can enter. Use them to generate reach, grow your app install base, and reward participation.

Games

Deploy mini-games — like spin-the-wheel — that let customers win points, coupons, or rewards through an element of chance. High entertainment value, minimal setup.

Social Sharing

Give customers a one-tap option to share a challenge, prize draw, or their loyalty milestone to their social networks for organic word-of-mouth reach.

Levels & Points

Assign customers to named levels based on their points balance or engagement score. Higher levels unlock exclusive content, early access, or elevated rewards.

Challenges

Challenges guide customers through a sequence of actions — each step earns them progress toward a final reward. Think of them as digital scavenger hunts: customers might need to visit your store three times in a week, scan a QR code at a specific in-store location, and leave a review to complete the challenge and claim their prize. What you can trigger a challenge step with:
  • A receipt scan above a minimum value
  • A check-in at a physical location
  • Scanning a specific QR code placed on shelving, packaging, or a window display
  • Completing a quiz or game within the app
  • Making a referral
Creating a challenge:
1

Define the goal

Go to Gamification → Challenges → New Challenge and write a clear, motivating title and description. Tell customers exactly what they need to do and what they will earn.
2

Add steps

Build the step sequence. Each step has a trigger type, an optional completion message, and a progress indicator shown to the customer.
3

Set the prize

Choose whether completing the challenge awards points, unlocks a coupon, or grants a reward from your catalogue.
4

Set a time limit

Add a start and end date to create urgency. Challenges with a visible countdown generate higher completion rates.
5

Target your audience

Apply segment filters to focus the challenge on the customers most likely to complete it — for example, regular visitors who haven’t yet made a referral.
6

Publish and promote

Activate the challenge and send a push notification to your target segment announcing it.
Rotate a new challenge every month to give customers a fresh reason to engage. A predictable monthly rhythm — combined with a push notification on the first day of each month — trains customers to check the app regularly in anticipation of the next activation.

Quizzes

Quizzes reward customers for knowing — or learning — about your products, brand story, or industry. A customer who answers three questions about your new collection correctly not only earns bonus points but also leaves more informed and more likely to buy. Quiz mechanics:
  • Multiple-choice or true/false question formats
  • Configurable points or prize awarded per correct answer, or for completing the full quiz
  • Optional explanatory text shown after each answer — use this to educate, not just evaluate
  • Time limit per question for added excitement
  • Results screen showing final score and total points earned
Quizzes work especially well as a launch activation for a new product line, a seasonal knowledge check (e.g. a gift guide in December), or an onboarding flow that introduces new customers to your brand values.

Contests and Prize Draws

Contests let any customer enter for a chance to win, with winners selected randomly or by a criterion you define. Unlike challenges, there is no task beyond entering — making contests low-friction and highly shareable. Use cases:
  • Reach campaigns: Require social sharing as the entry mechanism to amplify your contest organically.
  • App installs: Gate entry to app users only, giving non-customers a reason to download.
  • Segment-specific draws: Run an exclusive draw for customers who have made five or more purchases to reward loyalty while generating excitement.
Set the number of winners, the prize (physical, voucher, or points), and the draw date. Pocketshop selects winners automatically and notifies them via push notification. You review the winner list in the dashboard before prizes are dispatched.
Check local regulations regarding prize draws and competitions before publishing a contest. Requirements around minimum purchase conditions, no-purchase entry alternatives, and winner announcement vary by country.

Games

Mini-games like spin-the-wheel give customers an instant, chance-based reward experience. The customer opens the game, taps to spin (or interacts with the game mechanic), and immediately sees what they won — points, a coupon, a reward, or a “try again” outcome. Configuring spin-the-wheel: Games are most effective as time-limited events — a week-long spin-the-wheel during a sale period, for example — rather than permanent features. Scarcity drives daily opens far more effectively than always-on availability.

Combining Gamification with Campaigns

Gamification features deliver their full value when paired with Pocketshop’s campaign and push notification tools:
  • Launch push: Announce each new challenge, quiz, or game with a targeted push notification the moment it goes live.
  • Reminder push: Send a reminder two days before a challenge or contest closes to customers who haven’t yet participated.
  • Streak notifications: Alert customers when they are one step away from completing a challenge — the near-completion feeling is a strong motivational trigger.
  • Reward unlocks: When a customer completes a challenge, pair it with a targeted push notification that surfaces the exclusive reward or coupon they have just earned.
Build a monthly content calendar for your gamification activations. Plan one challenge, one quiz or game, and one contest per month. Preview everything in the app before publishing, and schedule your push notifications in advance so launches happen consistently — even during busy trading periods.