How can I leverage the Marketo database and tokens to send out pre-paid gift card codes to users?

[Nathan_Sauser]

I'm looking to use Marketo to send out pre-purchased gift cards. We would receive a monthly list from a vendor and want to send out an email with a unique gift card code. At this time I'm not interested in 3rd party plugins that attach to Marketo.

I have a feeling I might be able to use Marketo tokens to populate the gift card number, but are there any recommendations on how to accomplish this exactly? Can I create a database field to upload the codes to and then use a token to pull into the email?

I appreciate any help. Thanks!

Nathan

[SanfordWhiteman]

Every Marketo user has a Marketo Unique Code field, which is automatically filled with an unguessable alphanumeric code. (Designed principally to be used for personalized URLs/pURLs.) This code can't be changed, though, so it would only apply to a one send for a single user.

You can create other custom fields and fill them (via import or webhook) with a similar alphanumeric code. It may not even be necessary for the code to be unique across the entire database as long as it is only valid together with a single email address for a fixed period of time.

But there are other parts you're leaving out. A modern gift card can only be redeemed once, by anyone (which means you must generate completely unique codes as the email address is not an additional key). And how are you going to determine that the gift card code is one of the valid ones? Where are people using these codes?

[Nathan_Sauser]

Thanks for your reply.

Sanford Whiteman wrote:

But there are other parts you're leaving out. A modern gift card can only be redeemed once, by anyone (which means you must generate completely unique codes as the email address is not an additional key). And how are you going to determine that the gift card code is one of the valid ones? Where are people using these codes?

Yes, this is the predicament. I have 125 Amazon gift card codes that have been pre-purchased and I know they have never been used. I'm trying to figure out how to deliver each one within an email campaign.

We are incentivizing users who download and use an app. So the web vendor will send us name and email for users who qualify and I need to send out the gift card codes. Does that answer your question?

[SanfordWhiteman]

OK, if they're Amazon cards, then you don't need to worry about generating unique codes.  Of course you need to make sure only one person gets each code.

The simplest way is to have an Excel/Sheets workbook with one column the card code, the second column an email address, prob'ly a third column for distribution date. 2nd and 3rd cols start out empty.

As you get requests for cards, add the target email and timestamp. Then do a partial export of the sheet for the new names only. Import into Marketo fields LastAmazonCardCode (String) and LastAmazonGiftCardDistroDate (DateTime) or anything that makes sense for your business. Send those tokens to people.

A more robust, truly automated method would be to use a webhook to pop gift card codes off a "stack" as new people are qualified and send them the next available one. But the primitive method above will work for you.