🛒 Supported on Shopify only
💳 Available on all plans (unless specified below)
👤 Accessible to all roles
Program participation settings allow you to control which customers can participate in your loyalty program. Allowing guest customers - those without a store account - to participate can help expand the reach of your program.
ℹ️ Note: Program participation settings only apply to your online loyalty program, these settings do not apply to Shopify POS. To learn about Shopify POS you can review our article on understanding in store settings.
Edit program participation settings
By default, all customers can participate in your loyalty program. Customers with accounts, and those who are guests, can earn points, refer friends and participate in your VIP incentives. This setting can be adjusted to limit participation to only those with a store account.
To view or change your program participation setting:
In Smile Admin, navigate to Settings > Program Participants.
Select All customers or Only customers who have a store account.
Click Save.
⚠️ Warning: When switching from All customers to Only customers who have a store account, customers without accounts will no longer earn points on orders, their referral links will show as expired, and they will lose their VIP placement. Any previously earned rewards or points will remain in their account.
How program participation works for customers without accounts
When All customers can participate in your program, guests who have not created an account with an email and password, will be able to engage with points, referral links and VIP incentives.
Here is what you can expect for each of the components of your program when All customers can participate:
Points - All customers on your store will earn points on orders. Customers will need to create a store account to be able to redeem their points and earn other points that are only available through the Smile panel.
Referrals - All customers on your store will have a unique referral link they can share with their friends. If a customer does not have an account at your store to login and view their referral link, they will receive an on-site message on the order 'thank you' page with their referral link to share.
VIP (💳 available on Growth and Plus plans) - Guest customers will be placed into tiers along with customers who have accounts. As all customers move up tiers they will earn any entry rewards and receive any emails you have enabled.
Integrations - All third-party integrations with earning rules will apply to guest customers. For example, if your store has an integration with a review platform like Judge.me, guests will be able to earn points for leaving reviews.