In an ever-expanding eCommerce ecosystem, it is becoming increasingly difficult for businesses to retain customers. Irrespective of the industry they are in, the products or services they sell, there’s always another handful of businesses looking to entice the same target audience. 

But at the same time, studies have found that 75% of consumers choose to favor companies that offer rewards. In fact, it also highlights that 56% of consumers stay loyal to brands that understand their needs and offer rewards that add value to them. 

Now considering that almost 65% of a business’s revenue comes from existing customers, increasing retention by just 5% can boost profits by 25-95%. And the very first strategy you’d be looking to implement is a customer loyalty program. 

To set up a customer loyalty program, you need to create a custom journey for repeat consumers. A journey that looks into their past interactions, purchases, preferences and offers them rewards to take another step forward. All in all, it is all about bringing a lot of moving pieces together. 

That’s where having the right loyalty and rewards app for your Shopify store comes into play. 

In this article, we’re going to help you choose the best customer loyalty and rewards app by comparing three popular solutions – LoyaltyLion, Smile.io, and AiTrillion.

Table of Contents

Introducing the best customer loyalty program apps

About AiTrillion 

AiTrillion is a Shopify app that offers 10+ marketing solutions rolled into one to help you with customer engagement, retention, and experience. Trusted by 10,000+ small and medium-sized businesses, it is a leading solution for Shopify stores looking to streamline the number of apps they make use of, consolidate data and run powerful campaigns to drive more revenue. Some of its key features include: 

  • Trigger-based and exit-intent popups 
  • Customer loyalty program 
  • Product and store reviews
  • Email marketing automation 
  • Web push notifications 
  • Product recommendations 
  • And more 

The app is suited for businesses of all sizes as it enables creating a scalable customer loyalty program. It does not require any additional integrations to proactively communicate with loyalty program members. 

You can install the Shopify app here to avail a 30-day free trial

About LoyaltyLion 

LoyaltyLion is an eCommerce customer loyalty and engagement platform for Shopify stores. It enables businesses to set up customer loyalty programs using varied rewards to create engaging experiences for buyers across all stages of the sales cycle. It is one of the go-to choices for businesses just getting started with a customer loyalty program.  

About Smile.io 

Smile.io is a customer loyalty program app that offers very similar features to that of LoyaltyLion. It helps Shopify stores set up customer loyalty programs that offer consumers points in lieu of taking the desired action like submitting a product review, following on social media, and similar. 

LoyaltyLion vs Smile.io vs AiTrillion – A detailed comparison

Ease of use and setup 

The number one aspect you need to consider when choosing a Shopify customer loyalty app is the ease of use and setup. Whether you’re just getting started or are experienced at setting up a loyalty program, the app interface needs to intuitively guide you to the next steps up until the launch. 

All three apps – LoyaltyLion, Smile.io, and AiTrillion come with plug-and-play solutions for Shopify stores. All you need to do is add the app from the Shopify app store, and go through the onboarding process for setting up. 

Now AiTrillion comes packed with more features for setting up advanced loyalty programs and the required campaigns around the same. To ensure you don’t get overwhelmed by the setup process, they offer a clean dashboard with core elements of a loyalty program neatly displayed on the left-hand side menu. This ensures the menu items under loyalty act as a mental checklist during setup. 

Shopify Loyalty Program Earn Points

Customizations 

A customer loyalty program needs to be in sync with the overall experience your brand wants to deliver. This is why it is important to see what customizations the Shopify customer loyalty app has to offer to create a more on-brand experience for members. 

Now Smile.io only works with a pop-up loyalty widget that comes with a limited set of customizations. There is no SDK available and a full-page program is not an option unless you request heavy customizations from the developer. 

On the other hand, LoyaltyLion offers a fully integrated, customizable loyalty page that can be tailored to match your visual expectations with an interactive editor. They also give you access to comprehensive SDK and API, which essentially means you can work with Shopify web developers to further customize the loyalty experience offered on your store. 

In comparison to both the Shopify loyalty apps above, AiTrillion lets you do what the two have to offer. Be it setting up a simple popup for your loyalty program or a full-fledged, customized page, the app lets you choose the scale at which you want the setup to deliver a seamless experience to customers. 

Customisation

Reward types 

Now Smile.io and LoyaltyLion essentially work on giving out loyalty points as rewards to consumers for different actions. AiTrillion on the other hand lets you go ten steps ahead and offer various rewards in the same loyalty program; this includes: 

  • Money off
  • Percentage discount
  • Free shipping
  • Free product (voucher) 
  • Product discount (voucher)
  • Loyalty points 

Aitrillion Give loyalty rewards

Reward triggers 

Similar to reward types, it is also important that a loyalty app lets you set up different actions or triggers for which you give benefits to customers. 

Now both Smile.io and LoyaltyLion let you set up rewards for micro and macro actions from a consumer. Right from making a purchase to reorders, leaving a product review, following you on social media, sharing their purchase, referring a friend, and so on, you can set multiple triggers under the same program to make it a more engaging experience for the members. 

In comparison to the two, AiTrillion comes with 18+ built-in activity rules, making it much simpler for you to set up trigger-based rewards. These include the following: 

  • Make a purchase
  • Create an account
  • Refer a Friend
  • Visit store
  • Buy $X get Y points
  • On X Orders get Y points
  • Happy Birthday
  • Leave a review 
  • Purchase code
  • Follow on Instagram
  • Follow on Twitter
  • Follow on Facebook
  • Follow on Pinterest
  • Facebook share
  • Facebook share on thank you
  • Allow push notification

BONUS: Customer loyalty program gamification 

Apart from multiple triggers, gamification is said to be one of the most effective strategies to keep loyalty program members actively engaged. AiTrillion enables you to create a tier-based loyalty program, wherein the rewards can vary based on the number of interactions, purchases, and other parameters of engagement between your business and the consumer. 

Earn Points Loyalty Program Shopify

Analytics 

A customer loyalty program is meant to be optimized over time. Taking a set it and forgetting it approach is the shortest way to losing even your engaged customers. This is why it is important that your Shopify customer loyalty program app comes with comprehensive analytics and reporting around the program. 

Both Smile.io and LoyaltyLion offer analytics and insights across all aspects of a loyalty program. But AiTrillion takes analytics a step further by helping you deep-dive into different customer segments as well. This helps you understand a customer’s journey with the loyalty program and how you can tailor it further to boost engagement and retention. The visual representation of the data makes it further simpler to derive insights and actionables from the loyalty program performance. 

Shopify Loyalty program analytics report

 Integrations

Strong integrations allow you to use the customer loyalty program in the grander scheme of things for better customer engagement, retention, and experience. This may include integrating your customer loyalty app with product review apps, email marketing tools, web push notification solutions, and others. 

Smile.io and LoyaltyLion have an extensive library of integrations that you can explore to add more depth to your loyalty program. But AiTrillion is what simplifies it all! 

AiTrillion comes with 10+ apps built-in to enable the entire marketing stack you need to engage consumers. This means that to leverage email marketing or web push automation, product reviews, and other features, you don’t need any integrations. You get access to them all with one app, making the process even more seamless for you and the consumer both! 

You can always request AiTrillion for integrations if you’re specific about using a Shopify app. The Shopify developer team is experienced at building strong integrations with solutions in and outside the ecosystem.

Note: All the loyalty program apps offer Shopify POS integration to create a loyalty program for both online and offline customers. 

Integrated loyalty marketing platform

Pricing 

AiTrillion offers a 30-day free trial to explore all its features; post which the pricing starts at $49 per month only. Irrespective of the plan you are on, it gives you access to all the features you need to set up a loyalty program and the additional conversion features to boost engagement. Click here to install the app here.

LoyaltyLion comes with a free plan that offers limited features. Post which, their pricing starts at $159 per month for small businesses. It is important to note that the app only enables you to set up a customer loyalty program; you may have to integrate and make use of other Shopify apps to run specific campaigns. 

Smile.io also offers a free plan with limited features on its loyalty program setup. After which, they offer pricing plans starting at $49 per month. Again, in this case, you may have to use other Shopify apps, integrating them with Smile.io to run automated and synced campaigns for customer engagement. 

Customer support and success

All the customer loyalty program apps come with well-documented help articles, knowledgebases, and blogs to help you understand their features. Each of them has also shared multiple case studies to help you understand how others in the ecosystem are running successful loyalty programs to keep consumers engaged. 

But when it comes to proactive customer support and success, AiTrillion takes the cake. They have an extensive team of eCommerce experts who understand the importance of personalization and building tailored customer journeys online and offline. The team works with you right from the beginning and stays on top of things to help you succeed with the loyalty program. 

AiTrillion review

Which customer loyalty app does your Shopify store need?

Customer loyalty programs are fast evolving. They no longer are just about rewarding customers for the interactions they make. 

That’s why we recommend choosing an app that offers easy scaling of the Shopify loyalty program and comes with additional conversion features that let you offer a comprehensive experience to members. 

AiTrillion is built keeping in mind the increasing needs of an eCommerce business as well as consumer expectations. The features are frequently updated to ensure that your loyalty program meets all industry standards and benchmarks, keeping customers thoroughly engaged throughout the lifecycle. 

The app is chosen by leading brands on Shopify and Shopify Plus to set up their customer loyalty programs for its advanced set of features. 

Want to explore how different AiTrillion is from Smile.io and LoyaltyLion? 

Book a demo here

Additional reads: 

How To Amplify Your Email Marketing For The Success Of Your ECommerce Store (free ebook)

twinkle sharma

Twinkle Sharma

Like what we do?  Come work with us

Do you want more revenue from
your Shopify store?

We at AiTrillion cater to every aspect of the customer journey; from engagement, and conversion to retention at 55% less cost.