Join the newsletter is a way to earn that gives customers points, or store credit, when they subscribe to your marketing emails.
It grows your email list and rewards the customers who join it. Shopify tells the app when a customer subscribes, and the app gives the reward automatically.
You manage it on the Ways to earn page with your other ways to earn. See What are ways to earn?
Before you start
Turn on email sign-up in Shopify. In your Shopify admin, go to Settings → Checkout and set Email, under Marketing opt-in, to show the sign-up checkbox, for example Checkout and sign-in.
Turn on the Appstle Loyalty app embed in your theme. See Set up your loyalty program.
Add Join the newsletter
In the Appstle Loyalty app, click Ways to earn, then click Add a way to earn. The Points program editor opens on the gallery.
Click Join the newsletter. It's under Social and sign-ups.
Click Add way to earn. The editor opens its settings.
Go through the five steps below, then click Save at the top right of the editor.
A store can have one Join the newsletter way to earn. Once you add it, it shows Added in the gallery, and clicking it opens the one you have.
The five steps
The panel on the right shows each step with a summary of its setting. Click a step to change it.
Step | What you set |
Reward | Under Customers get, choose Points or Store credit (needs a plan that includes it), then enter the amount. Turn on Take points back if they unsubscribe to remove the points when a customer unsubscribes. With Store credit, leave it off: it takes back points, not the credit, and customers can earn the credit again each time they resubscribe. |
Who can earn | To limit who earns it, add tags to Only customers with these tags or Not customers with these tags. Leave both empty to include everyone. |
When points arrive | Choose Right away, After a waiting period (you set the days) or After you approve them. To approve them, click Open Pending points. |
Schedule | Choose Always on or Between dates (Starts and Ends, in your store's time zone). Schedules need a plan that includes them. |
What customers see | Set the Name and Description customers read, an Icon, a Button link and the Message when points arrive shown in their points history. |
Who earns it
A customer earns it when Shopify reports that they subscribed to your marketing emails, for example at checkout or in a sign-up form on your store.
If customers have to confirm their subscription by email, they earn it once they confirm.
Each customer earns it once. With Take points back if they unsubscribe on, a customer who unsubscribes loses the points and can earn them again if they subscribe again.
Subscribed customers who haven't earned it yet earn it the next time they place an order, if your settings let them earn it then. That includes customers who subscribed before you added it, while it was paused, or outside its schedule.
Customers marked Omitted or Omitted by customer on the Customers page never earn it.
Customers marked Guest on the Customers page have no account with your store, for example shoppers who checked out as guests or only used your newsletter form. They earn it only if Enable Auto-Activation for Customers is on in More → Advanced Settings, or your store uses Shopify's new customer accounts. If Guests earn too shows in Who can earn, turning it on also lets them earn it.
Your tags in Who can earn decide who earns it. They're checked when the customer subscribes, and again at each later order until they earn it.
Customers whose points you imported are left out only if you turn on Leave out customers whose points were imported, under More options in Who can earn.
What customers see
Customers find it on the loyalty page, and in the loyalty popup when they click Ways to earn.
The Subscribe button shows only if you set a Button link, for example your sign-up form. It opens that link in a new tab. Clicking it gives no points: they arrive when the customer subscribes. Change the button's text in Design.
A signed-in customer who has earned it sees a tick. In the popup, the tick replaces Subscribe. On the loyalty page, Subscribe still shows.
Customers who don't match your tags don't see it. With Only customers with these tags set, that includes customers who aren't signed in.
Things to know
While the app embed is off, sign-ups earn nothing. After you turn it back on, customers who are still subscribed earn it the next time they place an order.
The popup and the loyalty page show it only while Show loyalty on your store is on in Design → Customize → Visibility. Points still arrive when it's off. See Choose who sees loyalty and where it shows.
If you turn on Only on some days each month under More options in Schedule, sign-ups earn only on the days you pick, in your store's time zone. Customers still see it on other days.
Each time it earns, the app sends the Point Earn email (Credits Earn for store credit), if it's on in More → Email Templates.
Changes in the editor reach your store when you click Save. If the update to your storefront doesn't finish, the page shows a message with a Retry button.
While it's paused, nobody earns it, and unsubscribing doesn't take points back.
For text message sign-ups, see Give points for text message sign-ups.
Troubleshooting
A customer subscribed but got no points: check that the app embed and the Active switch are on, and that there's no Starts or Ended badge on the Ways to earn page. Find the customer on Customers: a customer who isn't listed there, or is marked Omitted, Omitted by customer or Guest, doesn't earn it. Then check their tags.
Earlier subscribers got nothing yet: customers who subscribed before you added it, or before you fixed the problem, earn it the next time they place an order while still subscribed.
A customer signed up through another app's form but got no points: the app only hears about subscriptions saved in Shopify. Check that the form marks the customer as subscribed to email marketing in Shopify.
You can't tell why: open More → Activity Logs and look for a failed entry for the customer. There's one if the app embed was off, or if the customer was left out because their points were imported. A tag or schedule mismatch, or an Omitted or Guest status, leaves no entry, so check those as in the first item.
The sign-up checkbox doesn't show at checkout: check Email under Marketing opt-in in Shopify's Settings → Checkout.
There's no Subscribe button: add a Button link in What customers see.
Points arrived, then disappeared: Take points back if they unsubscribe is on and the customer unsubscribed.
The points are pending: look at When points arrive. If it waits or needs approval, find them in Customers → Approve Pending Transactions.