Customer satisfaction is at an all-time low (according to Forrester Research), which means your net promoter scores are likely following suit, falling short of established benchmarks.
And it makes sense. The current digital landscape is flooded with such a large variety of customer experiences that finding novel and genuine methods to effectively engage customers can feel particularly challenging.
As you work to create a profoundly positive customer experience strategy, one question should guide your every decision:
How can our organization surprise and delight customers?
Surprising and delighting customers is one of the most powerful ways organizations can create memorable experiences that foster loyalty and advocacy. You can captivate your customers by integrating personalized marketing strategies, providing exemplary customer service, creating an emotional connection, or implementing a convenient buyer experience. But what about thanking customers with unexpected gifts to show your appreciation?
People perform random acts of kindness every day, such as holding the door open for the person behind them or giving up their seat for someone else on public transportation. Think about how you feel as the recipient of those generous acts. You may be so touched that you tell your friends about the situation or feel inclined to pass the kindness on. When you encounter an unexpected act of kindness, it alters your thinking and fills you with gratitude.
Why not nurture that feeling and thank your customers with a one-of-a-kind gift? That’s our forte at Nift—delighting and surprising prospective customers with a gift that makes their day and, in turn, transforms them into lifelong customers. Read on to learn more about customer acquisition strategies, the value of Nift, and how you can integrate Nift into your customer acquisition master plan.
The Struggles of Rewarding Customers Today
Organizations face two main challenges when it comes to delighting and rewarding their customers:
1. Ad Fatigue
One of the biggest challenges in customer acquisition is navigating user and ad fatigue. Think about it: the average person spends nearly 2 ½ hours on social media daily. During that time, they are constantly bombarded with ads (or trying to decipher what is an ad and what isn’t). Consumers are increasingly adept at tuning out advertisements that don’t resonate with their needs or interests. Ad blindness poses a significant obstacle for partner companies relying heavily on traditional advertising.
When potential customers become fatigued by ads, they are less likely to engage with promotional content, resulting in lower click-through rates (CTR) and conversion rates. This diminishes the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and forces companies to constantly innovate their approach to capture and maintain an individual’s attention.
2. Lack of revenue generation
Organizations are also struggling to generate sufficient revenue from new customer acquisitions. Acquiring customers involves extraneous upfront costs for marketing, sales efforts, and promotional activities, and those costs are rapidly increasing. In 2013, eCommerce businesses paid an average of $9 to acquire a new customer. By 2022, the cost surged to $29—(a 222% increase).
The lack of immediate revenue generation can strain cash flow and hinder the company’s ability to fund ongoing operations, invest in product development, or expand market reach. This financial pressure underscores the importance of achieving a balanced acquisition strategy that maximizes ROI while minimizing acquisition costs.
However, you can overcome these challenges by creating positive emotional experiences for your consumers. Studies have shown that consumers with positive emotions toward a brand are 5x more likely to repurchase and 4x more likely to refer friends and family. Kindness and gratitude go a long way—companies excelling in this area achieve 4-8% higher revenue than competitors. Organizations can start by saying “thank you” to customers with a gift.
The Value of a Gift: What is Nift?
Organizations need a long-term, proven solution to increase profitability and create memorable customer experiences. We believe the answer is Nift—an alternative growth channel proven to surprise and delight customers.
Nift supports a closed ecosystem of premium consumer apps, enabling them to give millions of exclusive, high-value ‘thank you’ gifts at key customer life-cycle moments without incremental costs. The gifts offered on the Nift platform cannot be found anywhere else. They are unique opportunities to try products or services provided by direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands and local restaurants.
Whenever a new strategy is introduced on the market, there’s always a bit of confusion, so let’s clear the air. Nift is not an affiliate program, advertisement, money-off coupon, or promo code that anyone can search for on Google. Nift is a service for partner companies, DTC brands, and local restaurants to attract and retain incremental net new customers.
But with hundreds of promo discount codes available, what makes a gift from Nift so successful? Nift gifts aren’t used as incentives. A customer completes an action, like writing a review or making a payment, and is surprised with a gift.
Simply put, we create positive customer experiences and revenue by saying thank you—because your customers deserve to be thanked.
How Nift Works For Partners
Gifting is a unique acquisition strategy, but the Nift process is simple. Let’s break it down into 5 easy steps:
Step 1: Nift sources gifts from top DTC brands like Thrive Causemetics, Forever Wick, Liquid I.V., and local restaurants like World of Beer.
Step 2: Your customer completes an action, like writing a review, making a payment, or upgrading a membership.
Step 3: You thank your customer with a personalized, high-value gift generated by Nift’s patented A.I.
Step 4: The brand pays Nift a CPC when your customer selects a gift.
Step 5: No-cost revenue is generated when your user selects a gift. Nift shares that revenue directly with you: our partner company.
And that’s it! We’re simplifying how partner companies, DTC brands, and local restaurants approach customer acquisition simply by thanking their customers.
While the process is simple, the partner experiences are fully customizable. Nift is not a one-size-fits-all solution for partners. We offer flexibility on when and how a partner says thank you, whether via email, SMS, content cards, or a native app experience.
Whatever channel you choose to send a gift through, the ‘thank you’ must look and feel like the brand, as if it’s an extension of any of your marketing communications. If it looks like an ad, you’ll lose your customers’ attention.
Why Partners Choose Nift
Organizations use Nift to surprise and delight, reward positive behaviors, and say ‘thanks’ in advance. There are 5 main reasons partners choose to work with Nift:
- Native brand integration: All “thank you” gifts match a brand’s unique look and feel.
- Artificial intelligence: Nift’s proprietary AI maximizes gift selection and net revenue—you don’t even have to lift a finger.
- Customer selection: With Nift, you can control when, to whom, and how to show your thanks. Unlike digital ads, gifts are only shown to primed customers and ready to buy.
- Revenue driver: ‘Thank you’ gifts are proven to increase ARPU and customer loyalty, and new recurring revenue goes right to your bottom line.
- Low lift: Nift is a 100% managed service, so our team handles the heavy lifting. We build the creative assets, written content, and implement conversion and optimization strategies so your team can focus on more pressing matters.
Nift is a long-term customer acquisition solution for growing and established organizations. With traditional acquisition channels, decision-makers fight user fatigue and skyrocketing costs, but with Nift, those challenges are a thing of the past. Our gifting model avoids user fatigue because our interface and gifts constantly change and improve, and recurring revenue goes straight to your bottom line.
Nift Sounds Great, But What’s the Catch?
We know what you’re thinking: “This all seems too good to be true.” And we’re thrilled to tell you it’s not. Our partners, such as Tripadvisor, Tinder, Mindbody, Afterpay, and Park Mobile, use Nift daily to create positive customer experiences and generate revenue.
The proof is in the numbers. Customers who received a gift from Nift are proven to:
- Return 2.2x more often: 150,747 ‘thanked’ customers came back to the gym that thanked them. That’s more than twice as often as those who did not enjoy a gift.
- Review 25% more: First-time reviewers wrote a second review 25% more often than reviewers who didn’t receive a Nift gift.
- Engage 8x higher: Average campaigns will pull a 1% CTR, but thank you emails from Nift see a 7.9% CTR or higher.
Create Extraordinary Experiences With Nift
To build stronger customer relationships and generate no-cost revenue, businesses must focus on delivering genuine value to enhance the customer experience. As capturing consumers’ attention becomes increasingly challenging, organizations should prioritize quality over quantity. Instead of pushing hundreds of ads, thanking customers with a high-quality gift is a surefire way to surprise, delight, and convert new customers.
Schedule a demo with our team today to learn more about Nift and the power of saying ‘thank you’.
About the Author
Kathryn Maguire is the Vice President of Business Development and Founding Member of Nift Networks, a rapidly growing marketplace reshaping how people discover and engage with brands. Nift delivers personalized gifts to consumers, AI-matched to their individual preferences. These gifts are offered through premium consumer apps like Tripadvisor, Afterpay, and Tinder, expressing gratitude during key life-cycle moments. Brands, including HelloFresh, Liquid I.V., and Thrive Causemetics, partner with Nift to gain exclusive access to millions of highly engaged customers.
Under Kathryn’s leadership, Nift has more than doubled its yearly impact, serving millions of consumers and generating substantial profits. She has built and scaled Nift’s partnership network, fostering collaborations with industry giants such as ParkMobile, Planet Fitness, Afterpay (Block), and Tinder. Partners collectively distribute over 50 million Nift gifts each month.
Kathryn’s journey began at Forrester Research, where she managed relationships with Fortune 500 executives from companies like Abbott Labs, Cummins Engine, Kimberly-Clark, Leggett & Platt, and Snap-on Tools. In 2005, she co-founded CityVoter, disrupting the local media market through social media and e-commerce. The venture secured over six million dollars in venture capital and grew to a team of 20+ employees. As head of Business Development, Kathryn secured contracts with media giants CBS, Hearst, Gannett, and Belo, driving millions in revenue from clients such as Dell, Gilt Groupe, LevelUP (now GrubHub), KeyBank, and ZipCar.
Kathryn holds a degree from the University of Pennsylvania (Class of 1998). Her vision for Nift is to continue revolutionizing customer acquisition by saying “thank you” through Nift’s innovative gifting platform. Kathryn’s impact extends far beyond the ordinary—she’s shaping the future of customer engagement, one thoughtful gift at a time.
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