Everyone loves getting Amazon gift cards, which is why they’re such a popular choice for survey incentives and marketing rewards. In fact, they are the most desired gift card of any retailer in the U.S., chosen by over half of Americans.
Offering Amazon gift cards can help you increase survey response rates and webinar attendance, encourage engagement and referrals, and much more. It’s easy to guess why they make great gifts, but what makes them ideal for marketing campaigns, employee rewards, and research incentives? Here are some advantages of using Amazon gift cards for your business rewards programs.
Amazon rewards can be easily delivered digitally to participants’ or employees’ email addresses, eliminating the need to mail physical cards. Using a digital rewards management platform that can automate delivery makes it even simpler, allowing participants to get their Amazon reward immediately after completing the necessary task.
Once they get their reward email, it’s also easy for recipients to redeem their Amazon gift cards. They can sign in to their Amazon account (or create a new one) and enter the claim code from the email to add the reward value to their account balance. Since Amazon.com gift cards never expire, they can hold on to that balance in their account as long as they want.
Marketers, researchers, and recipients alike appreciate the versatility of Amazon rewards for surveys and other activities. You’ll love that they are available in any denomination up to $1,000, so you can offer customers and respondents a small $3 reward for a short survey or quick community task, or up the value to $200 for participation in a long-term, in-depth study.
Recipients love that they can use their reward to purchase any of millions of products on Amazon’s website, including book and music downloads. They can also be used at the affiliate websites smile.amazon.com, which donates a small percentage of your purchase value to a charity of your choice, and fresh.amazon.com, which sells groceries.
Marketing, employee, and research programs that use rewards internationally can benefit from the availability of Amazon gift cards in a number of countries worldwide. It’s important to note, however, that they must come from the appropriate country’s site. That means Amazon.com gift cards cannot be used on Amazon’s international websites, like Amazon.de for Germany. When using Amazon gift cards for surveys and rewards, you need to choose separate ones for participants in other countries. (BHN Rewards offers this option for 11 different countries and automates currency conversion and country selection via its Global Choice feature.)
Also note that, unlike the U.S. gift cards, some of the international ones do have expiration dates — typically 10 years.
Despite all the great advantages of using Amazon gift cards for all kinds of rewards programs, from sales and customer feedback to academic and market research, there are times when it’s not the right choice. For instance, if you want to send digital incentives and rewards to countries where Amazon is not yet an option, or if you prefer to send the same reward to recipients in multiple countries, you might want to consider virtual Visa or Mastercard prepaid cards instead. Or you can let your digital rewards platform automatically curate the reward options — including Amazon gift cards, where available — based on the recipient’s location and currency.
Even among U.S. recipients, it’s often worthwhile to offer a choice of reward. Knowing that they will get to pick what’s most meaningful to them makes them more likely to complete the survey or task. You can curate the list, though, to target your audience. For instance, for a survey about reading preferences, you may want to offer a choice of rewards from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, and Apple. Once you choose your reward options, make sure you write the most effective survey invitation email to improve your response rates as much as possible.
Create a free BHN Rewards account to get started sending Amazon gift cards and other great digital rewards!
Hannah is a reformed journalist who has more than 15 years of experience and now focuses on content marketing for innovative tech companies.
Hannah is a reformed journalist who has more than 15 years of experience and now focuses on content marketing for innovative tech companies.
