Birthday campaign definition

A campaign with birthday wishes and gifts for your contacts is a classic example of an automated campaign. Its scenario repeats itself every day of the year, targeting only those contacts whose birthday it is on that day.

#1 - Creating a birthday contact filter

Contact filter on birthdays in the future

For birthdays and similar events, Splio offers the event anniversary operator which can be very useful when you have date formats such as date of birth. Take a look at the first image. Use this operator to match contacts at a specific time (in days, months, etc.) before their birthdays.

Contact filter on birthdays during the current month

Alternatively, if you wish to target those contacts whose birthday happens within the current month, make sure to build your filter like on the second image.

For targeting birthdays in a specific month of the year, use:

birth date contains -01- :(January)
birth date contains 
-02- :(February)
birth date contains 
-03- :(March)
....
birth date contains 
-12- :(December)

Contact filter based on date of birth of your contacts who did not add the Mobile Wallet Pass (optional)

Wish your customers a Happy Birthday encouraging them to return to your store to pick a gift or reward on their birthday. Adding the Pass is a must if you wish to have your customers notified of the latest news and benefits of your brand. Please take a look at the third image.

#2 - Creating an automatic birthday campaign

When creating automated campaigns, you can create a sequence of follow-up actions. One possible use for such a sequence of actions is to send a reminder to your contacts that gifts are waiting for them, then send another reminder to those who have not yet claimed their gifts.

First, let's
create the campaign:

  1. In Automations, click Create campaign.

  2. Name your campaign and choose a creation mode. Tip: Use a clear, descriptive name to make it easy to find later.

    Depending on the creation method you choose, the steps to follow may differ. If you select a template, you’ll get a preconfigured campaign that you can simply customize. If you start from scratch, follow these steps:

  3. Choose the type of campaign. Select a Recurring Campaign so the message is sent when the contact belongs to a specific audience - here, a birthday campaign

  4. Set up the audience by clicking Edit starting point. A side panel will appear. In the Audience tab, select Multiple times for repeatability frequency, so that your customers enter the campaign each time they match the audience

  5. Limit entries (optional). You can set a limit to control how many times a contact can enter the campaign, based on a defined frequency (see image 2)

  6. In Include, click Add audience > Filters. Here, add your previously created birthday filter.

  7. Then click on the Recurrence section in the side panel. Here, set the Start date for your campaign and the Recurrence for sending your communication: every day, week, month, or year, as well as the time.

  8. Once the Starting point is set up, add one or more Actions by clicking the + button to insert a new step in your scenario. The side panel will then allow you to configure :

    • The channel and design: In the sidebar, under the Design Details tab, select the channel for your campaign (e.g., email) and choose the message design you want to use.

      Configure action settings: In the Action Settings tab, you can define the campaign or action category, as well as the channel type (Marketing or Transactional). You can also set up email capping and schedule automatic email expiration

    • You can also add additional actions: you can assign rewards (e.g., discount coupons), or create a multi-branch campaign with audiences segmented by specific conditions (e.g., cart value, product category) or randomly

      To go further:

  9. Click on the + again in the side panel: set a Delay between the first and second emails you are going to send. We generally recommend one week

  10. Click on + and in Channel > Send an email: select the second email you want to send to wish your contact a happy birthday and remind them to come and enjoy their gift

  11. Choose another Delay between the second and third emails. In general, we also recommend one week here. Then add your third email to the campaign scenario

  12. Finalize and activate the campaign. Check the entire scenario, test if necessary, then click on Run to activate your abandoned cart campaign

Our tips to time your campaign well

The data import frequency to consider
  • Through Datahub: you will hit your customers the day after. We would recommend scheduling your campaign to start early in the morning (as soon as your customer checks their phone or just after breakfast. 8.00 – 9.30 AM): keep in mind that the start date of your campaigns shall be always after the data has been synced in Splio.

  • Through API: you can hit your customers in real-time, right when the event has happened (a few seconds or minutes after they fulfilled a condition or an event).

Different strategies

The different one:
  • Sending a reminder or late birthday email. These can boost your average open rates and revenue per email by over 20%.

  • Standing out: sending a communication 1 or 2 days after the birthday.

  • Making it mysterious.

The organized one:
  • Planning a campaign a few days before the day. How about sending a communication 3 days before the birthday, promoting a visit to one of your stores on the day of the birthday to offer a small present or a special offer upon purchase?

  • Sending an email that impresses the recipient and shows you put effort into creating something special, just for them, integrating a cool glittering GIF for example.

  • Creating a birthday email in different steps such as:

    • Sending an email suggesting that the recipient shares his or her wishlist with friends and family

    • Following up with a late birthday email or a reminder email

    • Following up with a week-long or month-long series of birthday wishes

The standard one:
  • Early in the morning, breakfast time, or lunch break.

  • Offering a discount coupon, or a free product voucher