Reward Loyal Customers
A ticket site needed loyalty banners that met customers where they actually were in the journey, not just the moment named in the brief.
UX Writing
Reward Loyal Customers
Four loyalty banners for a ticket site, designed around where the customer actually is in the journey, not just the moment named in the brief.
The brief, restated
A ticket site rewards loyal customers with 20% off their next ticket after 5 purchases. Four banners are needed: pre-purchase and confirmation moments, at the 1st and 5th purchase.
Core assumptions:
The 20% discount is applied automatically at checkout, no code required
The programme is not opt-in; progress is tracked automatically from purchase 1
"5 purchases" means 5 separate transactions, not 5 tickets in one order
The problem
Write all four banners the same way and you end up with the same offer repeated four times in different words. I split them by what the customer actually needs to know at that exact moment, not just the offer itself.
Stage | Goal | Message |
|---|---|---|
1st purchase (before payment) | Introduce the programme | "Make 5 purchases and get 20% off your next ticket." |
1st purchase (after payment) | Confirm progress | "1 of 5 completed." |
5th purchase (before payment) | Build anticipation | "Complete this purchase to earn your reward." |
5th purchase (after payment) | Celebrate and explain next steps | "Your reward is ready, we'll apply it automatically to your next eligible ticket." |
Process: grounding in real patterns
Before drafting, I looked at how live loyalty programmes handle progress and reward moments. Rituals' My Rituals programme uses purchase-count tiers rather than spend thresholds, the same mechanic as this brief.
The reward progress box's near-completion framing ("Spend €17.30 and choose from multiple gifts") informed how Banner 3 shows exactly what's left, not just that a reward exists
Purchase-count language ("1 more purchase") directly shaped Banner 2's "4 more to go"
The clear locked-vs-unlocked contrast in tiered programmes shaped how Banner 1 previews a reward the customer hasn't earned yet
Questions I'd take to the team
Does the 20% discount expire, and if so, after how long?
Can it stack with other promotions, like a festival's own early-bird pricing?
Is there a risk of purchase-gaming, buying cheap tickets just to unlock the reward?
How I'd validate it
Qualitative: Test the 1st-purchase banner with new users, does the reward feel motivating or premature?
Quantitative: Compare repeat-purchase timing for customers who saw the banner vs. those who didn't.
North star metric: Percentage of customers who reach purchase 5 after seeing the purchase-1 banner.
Supporting metric: Redemption rate of the 20% discount once earned, an unused reward is a broken reward.