Set up a child birthday reward

A child’s birthday is a date parents plan for, and a reward that arrives a couple of weeks early lands right when they are shopping for the party or the present. With Celebrate a child’s birthday, parents add their children on your storefront and Charm issues a reward for each child every year, with bonus points or a discount code.

Steps

Go to Program → Earning points and click Add way to earn.
Choose Celebrate a child’s birthday (under For your industry).
Pick the Child’s birthday reward: Bonus points (200 by default), Free product, Amount off, Percentage off or Free shipping.
(Discount rewards only) Limit how long the reward is valid is on by default, with Days the discount code stays valid set to 7, counted from the child’s birthday. Turn it off for a code that doesn’t expire.
Send the reward before the birthday is on by default, with Days before the birthday the reward is issued set to 14 (up to 60). Turn it off to issue the reward on the day itself.
Child must be on file in advance is on by default, with Days the child must be on file before the reward is issued set to 30. Turn it off to reward children added at the last minute.
Ask for the birth year is on by default. Leave it on to get an age limit, age groups in analytics, and records that delete themselves once a child outgrows the program. Turn it off and customers give only the day and month.
(With the birth year on) Set Reward birthdays up to this age (1 to 18, default 12). This is the last birthday that earns a reward.
Set Children per customer (1 to 10, default 3).
Click Add, then Save.

How the reward works

One reward per child. Charm checks children’s birthdays daily. A parent with two children gets two rewards a year, each with its own email.
Children per customer is also the reward limit. Nobody can check how many children a customer really has, so the number of children they can add is also the most child rewards they can collect in a year. Removing a child who was already rewarded this year and adding another doesn’t unlock a second reward that year.
The head start moves the reward, not the code’s validity. With Send the reward before the birthday on, the reward and its email go out that many days early, and the code’s validity still counts from the birthday. With a 14-day head start and 7 days’ validity, the code works until 7 days after the birthday.
The waiting period counts to the day the reward is issued. With a 14-day head start and a 30-day waiting period, a child has to be added 44 days before the birthday to be rewarded this year. Children added by your staff don’t wait.
Leap days. A child born on 29 February is celebrated on 28 February in years without a 29th.

Age limit and how long records are kept

These rules apply while Ask for the birth year is on and the child has a birth year on file.

Birthdays from the first up to your age limit are rewarded. With the default of 12, a child is rewarded on turning 1 through turning 12. The day of birth itself earns nothing.
Older children can’t be added. Customers can’t add a child who has already reached the age limit, and the form says which ages the program is for, for example “For children under 12.” A birthday in the future is refused too.
Records delete themselves. 30 days after a child’s last rewarded birthday, Charm deletes the child’s record for good. This runs every night, also while your program is paused.
Lowering the limit. If you lower Reward birthdays up to this age, children older than the new limit lose their place in the program, and their records are deleted for good on the next night. The rule’s edit window warns you before you save.

Without the birth year, Charm stores only the day and month. There is then no age limit, no age groups in analytics, and records stay until the customer or your staff removes them.

Removing or pausing the rule deletes nothing. Children’s details stay with the customer like any other customer data until the customer or your staff removes them, the child outgrows the program, or Charm is uninstalled.

Adding and editing children

Parents add children themselves from the rule’s card on the floating widget, the Loyalty Hub or the landing page. Each child needs a name or nickname and a birthday, with the year when you ask for it. The first time, the parent also ticks a box confirming they are the child’s parent or legal guardian and agree to the name and birthday being used for birthday rewards and related offers. Charm records that consent once per customer and doesn’t ask again.

In the Loyalty Hub and on the landing page, parents tap a child to open its form. They can fix a child’s name at any time, but once a birthday is saved it can’t be changed again for a year. The form tells them when it unlocks, or to contact you. Remove sits at the bottom of the form and asks to confirm before it deletes the child’s name and birthday. Parents can still open and remove their children after you switch the rule off. The floating widget only adds children; editing and removing happen in the Loyalty Hub and on the landing page.

Your staff can help too: go to Customers, open the customer, and click Edit next to Children. Pick a child to change it and click Save child, click Add child to add another, or click Remove to take a child off. Under the form you see whether the parent’s consent is on file, and on which date. Staff edits skip the once-a-year limit on changing a birthday, but the age limit still applies, and staff can add more children than Children per customer allows, up to 10. A parent still earns at most that many child rewards a year. The Children row appears once your store has a child birthday rule, and stays while children are on file. With the rule switched off or removed, staff can only remove children.

What customers see

Floating widget: a “Your children” card on the widget’s main view lists each child with a child face icon, their name and their birthday. Among the ways to earn, Celebrate a child’s birthday has an “Add a child” link that opens a short form. Visitors who aren’t signed in see the reward only.
Loyalty Hub: a “Your children” section with a tile per child showing the face icon, name, birthday and when the reward arrives, for example “Your reward in 12 days, ahead of the birthday”. A child added too late for this year’s reward shows “Added recently, so the first reward arrives next year.” instead. The rule’s card links to “Add a child”, which turns into “Manage children” once a child is saved.
Landing page: the same “Your children” tiles above your ways to earn, and the same add or manage button on the rule’s card.
Email: the Child’s Birthday Reward email goes to the parent with each reward, so with a head start it arrives before the birthday. It names the child and nothing else about them. Find it in Emails under Child’s birthday to edit it or turn it off.

VIP tiers and inactive customers

With a Bonus points reward, Use different values for each tier pays each VIP tier a different number of points. See per-tier rule values.
You can hide the rule from some tiers with per-tier availability.
Pause recurring rewards for inactive customers in your points expiry settings also skips child rewards for customers whose points have expired for inactivity.