Boost credit card adoption with cashback rewards

Financial institutions and fintech providers can accelerate card adoption and attract new applicants by implementing cashback campaigns. Customers earn cashback rewards based on how much they spend using their new credit card.

With recurring, user-action achievements, you can incentivize new cardholders to maximize their spending and build a habit of using their card as the preferred payment method for every purchase. These achievements track cumulative spending and reset automatically, allowing you to reward high spending habits and drive long-term card adoption.

In this tutorial, let's say you are a fintech company launching a new Bronze credit card for your customers. To drive card adoption and top-of-wallet behavior, you can create a cashback campaign that rewards customers for reaching monthly spending targets:

• Goal: Drive long-term card use by offering cashback rewards every time the customer reaches monthly spend targets of $100, $250, and $400.

• Duration: The campaign schedule runs for a full calendar year:

  • Start: January 1, 2026, 00:00
  • End: December 31, 2026, 23:59

• Rewards: Cashback is awarded monthly based on the cumulative amount spent:

  • Spend $100: Receive a $10 coupon.
  • Spend $250: Receive a $15 coupon.
  • Spend $400: Receive a $20 coupon.

  A customer spending $400 or more receives all three coupons, creating a total of $45 in cashback value. This type of reward creates a 10-12% cashback rate.

Set up the achievements and rules

1

Prepare your environment

Create a standard campaign named Cashback Rewards with the Achievements and Coupons features enabled. We will define the rules for this campaign later in this tutorial.

Next, you can set a start and end date for the campaign:

1. On the left-side menu of your campaign, click Settings > Schedule, and set:
   • Start time: January 1, 2026, 00:00
   • End time: December 31, 2026, 23:59
2. Click Save Schedule.

Before setting up the rules, we will create three achievements to track a customer's monthly spend. Every purchase adds to the customer's progress in all three achievements.

2

Create an achievement: Spent $100

Create a recurring on expiration, user-action achievement named spent$100 to track the customer's progress toward the $100 spending goal. The achievement resets every month during the campaign.

• Set the Target to 100. Each $1 spent increases the customer's progress by 1. This target value tracks their progress toward the $100 spending goal.
• Select End progress on achieving target.
• Select Reset every: 1 month(s).
• Select Last day of the month.

Later, we will set up the $10 coupon cashback reward for completing the spent$100 achievement in the campaign rules.

3

Create an achievement: Spent $250

Create a recurring on expiration, user-action achievement named spent$250 to track the customer's progress toward the $250 spending goal. The achievement resets every month during the campaign.

• Set the Target to 250. Each $1 spent increases the customer's progress by 1. This target value tracks their progress toward the $100 spending goal.
• Select End progress on achieving target.
• Select Reset every: 1 month(s).
• Select Last day of the month.

Later, we will set up the $15 coupon cashback reward for completing the spent$250 achievement in the campaign rules.

4

Create an achievement: Spent $400

Create a recurring on expiration, user-action achievement named spent$400 to track the customer's progress toward the $400 spending goal. The achievement resets every month during the campaign.

• Set the Target to 400. Each $1 spent increases the customer's progress by 1. This target value tracks their progress toward the $400 spending goal.
• Select End progress on achieving target.
• Select Reset every: 1 month(s).
• Select Last day of the month.

Later, we will set up the $20 coupon cashback reward for completing the spent$400 achievement in the campaign rules.

5

Create a rule to check for minimum $100 spend

Let's create a rule named Check $100 spend to track if the customer spends at least $100 in any given month during the campaign.

This rule checks the following conditions:

• The spent$100 achievement is not completed yet.
• The Rule Engine has triggered a Customer Session Closing event, confirming that the customer completed a purchase order and the session is in closed state.
• The session value is greater than or equal to 1.

If all conditions are met, the Rule Engine updates the customer progress in the spent$100 achievement by the value of the session total.

Rule 1: Conditions

When all of these are true:

• Check customer progress in an achievement:

  • Achievement spent$100 is not Completed

• Check for event types and custom event values:

  • Event type: Customer Session Closing

• Check attribute value:

  • Session Total (Current Session) is greater than or equal to 1

Rule 1: Effects

• Update customer progress:
  • Achievement name: spent$100
  • Update progress by: Session Total

6

Create a rule: Award $10 coupon cashback for $100 spend

Let's create a second rule that checks if the spent$100 achievement has been completed for a given month and immediately awards the customer with a $10 cashback coupon. The coupon's validity is set to three months after the session.

We can name the rule Check $100 progress and award $10 coupon.

Rule 2: Conditions

• Has completed an achievement:
  • Achievement name: spent$100

Rule 2: Effects

• Create coupon code:

  • Campaign: In the current campaign

  • Recipient: Current Customer

  • Redemption limit: 1

  • Discount limit: 10

  • Code pattern:

    • Use custom code pattern:
      • Code length: 4
      • Character set: Numbers and letters
      • Prefix: SPENT-100-

  • Set start and end time:

    • Start date:
      1. Click to Select a date variable.
      2. In Attribute Selector, select the Current time attribute.
    • Expiration date:
      1. Click to Select a relative date.
      2. Enter and select 3 month(s) after the session.

7

Create a rule to check for minimum $250 spend

Let's create a rule named Check $250 spend to track if the customer spends at least $250 in any given month during the campaign.

This rule checks the following conditions:

• The spent$250 achievement is not completed yet.
• The Rule Engine has triggered a Customer Session Closing event, confirming that the customer completed a purchase order and the session is in closed state.
• The session value is greater than or equal to 1.

If all conditions are met, the Rule Engine updates the customer progress in the spent$250 achievement by the value of the session total.

Rule 3: Conditions

When all of these are true:

• Check customer progress in an achievement:

  • Achievement spent$250 is not Completed

• Check for event types and custom event values:

  • Event type: Customer Session Closing

• Check attribute value:

  • Session Total (Current Session) is greater than or equal to 1

Rule 3: Effects

• Update customer progress:
  • Achievement name: spent$250
  • Update progress by: Session Total

8

Create a rule: Award $15 coupon cashback for $250 spend

Let's create a second rule that checks if the spent$250 achievement has been completed for a given month and immediately awards the customer with a $15 cashback coupon. The coupon's validity is set to three months after the session.

We can name the rule Check $250 progress and award $15 coupon.

Rule 4: Conditions

• Has completed an achievement:
  • Achievement name: spent$250

Rule 4: Effects

• Create coupon code:

  • Campaign: In the current campaign

  • Recipient: Current Customer

  • Redemption limit: 1

  • Discount limit: 15

  • Code pattern:

    • Use custom code pattern:
      • Code length: 4
      • Character set: Numbers and letters
      • Prefix: SPENT-250-

  • Set start and end time:

    • Start date:
      1. Click to Select a date variable.
      2. In Attribute Selector, select the Current time attribute.
    • Expiration date:
      1. Click to Select a relative date.
      2. Enter and select 3 month(s) after the session.

9

Create a rule to check for minimum $400 spend

Let's create a rule named Check $400 spend to track if the customer spends at least $400 in any given month during the campaign.

This rule checks the following conditions:

• The spent$400 achievement is not completed yet.
• The Rule Engine has triggered a Customer Session Closing event, confirming that the customer completed a purchase order and the session is in closed state.
• The session value is greater than or equal to 1.

If all conditions are met, the Rule Engine updates the customer progress in the spent$400 achievement by the value of the session total.

Rule 5: Conditions

When all of these are true:

• Check customer progress in an achievement:

  • Achievement spent$400 is not Completed

• Check for event types and custom event values:

  • Event type: Customer Session Closing

• Check attribute value:

  • Session Total (Current Session) is greater than or equal to 1

Rule 5: Effects

• Update customer progress:
  • Achievement name: spent$400
  • Update progress by: Session Total

10

Create a rule: Award $20 coupon cashback for $400 spend

Let's create a second rule that checks if the spent$400 achievement has been completed for a given month and immediately awards the customer with a $20 cashback coupon. The coupon's validity is set to three months after the session.

We can name the rule Check $400 progress and award $20 coupon.

Rule 6: Conditions

• Has completed an achievement:
  • Achievement name: spent$400

Rule 6: Effects

• Create coupon code:

  • Campaign: In the current campaign

  • Recipient: Current Customer

  • Redemption limit: 1

  • Discount limit: 20

  • Code pattern:

    • Use custom code pattern:
      • Code length: 4
      • Character set: Numbers and letters
      • Prefix: SPENT-400-

  • Set start and end time:

    • Start date:
      1. Click to Select a date variable.
      2. In Attribute Selector, select the Current time attribute.
    • Expiration date:
      1. Click to Select a relative date.
      2. Enter and select 3 month(s) after the session.

Related pages

• Achievements
• Create achievements