The 12 Best Gamification Campaigns and Why They Excelled

Online shoppers have an endless number of options at their fingertips. It takes just a single click to switch from one website to the next — and only 2.86% of eCommerce site visits convert to a purchase.¹

The upshot: every second that a customer spends on your website counts. Using innovative gamification in your marketing is a great way to capture a shopper’s interest, keep them engaged, and guide them towards completing their purchase.

Deciding what your gamified campaign should look like can be a difficult decision. Luckily for you, we’ve outlined some of the best gamification campaigns created to give you an idea of what good looks like.

Keep reading to discover the biggest gamification trends in business today to inspire your eCommerce site.

Suggested reading: Is your website equipped to deliver exciting promotions that drive conversion rates? Read our free eBook, ‘Do You Need a Promotion Engine?’, to find out.

What is gamification?

Gamification is the process of incorporating game-like elements in a non-gaming setting. Broadly speaking, these elements could include:

Events that engage users and build a sense of community.
Rewards that incentivise shoppers to convert into customers.
Challenges that get people excited about interacting with your brand.

Gamification can be implemented in advertising, digital marketing, education, and workplace scenarios. In eCommerce, gamification can refer to loyalty programs, spin-the-wheel popups, quizzes, point systems, and more.

Studies have shown that eCommerce gamification can directly impact customer engagement, helping to boost interest and increase the user’s focus.² If you’re considering incorporating gamification into your campaign, you’re already on track for increased customer acquisition and improved promotion performance.

Discover the best gamification campaigns

We’ve listed 12 of the best gamification campaigns to give you inspiration for your eCommerce site. Consider using similar techniques to create highly effective promotional and marketing campaigns:

1. Samsung

Samsung made the most of the 2020 Black Friday weekend through an exclusive ‘Early Bird’ Black Friday discount deal.

In line with gamification best practices, the discounts were first seeded across a number of different social media platforms, encouraging new customers to get involved. On Black Friday, those who had signed up received a unique mystery discount code to use onsite, creating a sense of novelty and excitement.

Features that Samsung used to ensure that the customer journey remained streamlined throughout this promotional campaign included:

Coupon codes that were auto-populated from each customer’s email account
Single-use discount codes to prevent code leakage and enhance security
Bespoke message overlays for increased personalisation

Over 300,000 users were engaged as part of the campaign, and Samsung gained approximately 200,000 new customers.

Want to learn more? Read the full Samsung Black Friday case study.

2. Fashion Nova

Fashion Nova, a giant in the fashion eCommerce space, incorporated gamification onto their site through ‘spin to win’ discount prizes.³ Users were presented with a visually stimulating, high-contrast wheel that offered discounts of between 5% and 30%.

‘Spin the wheel’ games can be especially effective when used in combination with exit intent recognition technology, which identifies when a user is showing signs that they want to leave the website and promptly delivers a discount or gamified promotion.

By encouraging users to get involved in an onsite ‘game’, you can reduce the likelihood of them going to a competitor’s store.

3. Nike+ Challenge

Gamification doesn’t have to stay online for the entire journey. The Nike+ Fuelband is a great example of this, as it transformed the whole concept of sport into a game for its customers.

Shoppers could purchase the Fuelband on the Nike website and wear it to track their workout activity in the corresponding app.⁴ Not only did this campaign encourage shoppers to purchase the Fuelband, it likewise increased a feeling of brand loyalty and community — improving eCommerce conversions and making it more likely that customers would return to their site.

Image from Lessons learned from the rise and fall of the Nike+ FuelBand | by Priscilla Woo | Bootcamp

One user said, ‘My friends and I used to have weekly challenges of who could gain the most NikeFuel Points while also cheering each other on during the challenges.’⁵ Gamification became a part of this customer’s life, and so did Nike.

4. Sephora

Sephora’s Beauty Insider Program is a great example of how brands can use gamification for brand loyalty and customer retention. The program has a number of unique elements:

Exclusive promotions: Points-based discounts and exclusive items that are only available to those who are part of the loyalty program.

Tiered discount system: By spending above a certain amount on the Sephora website, users can become ‘VIB’ or ‘Rouge’ members and get new benefits.⁶
Onsite personalisation: Tailored product recommendations that help users feel a closer connection to the brand and its products.

The tiered discount system is a particularly effective form of gamification, encouraging repeat purchases and allowing customers to ‘unlock’ a higher level of exclusivity.

Image from Rewards Case Study: Sephora’s Beauty Insider

5. ASOS

ASOS is a leading innovator in the social media marketing space. Their famous #AsSeenOnMe campaign encouraged customers to share photos of themselves wearing an outfit from ASOS, giving them the chance to have photos shown on ASOS’s social media and website.⁷

This allowed ASOS to increase customer acquisition through social media engagement while also improving the online customer experience. The result? Customers were more likely to be engaged, excited, and committed to their purchases.

Image from ‘As Seen on Me’: The User Generated Content for ASOS

6. Jacamo

Jacamo, a leading menswear retailer, took an engaging yet secure approach to their Halloween promotions to generate interest.

They sent out an email campaign offering surprise discounts of up to 20% for customers to discover at checkout. The goal was to drive site traffic while controlling the average discount rate and ensuring that their promotions were properly functioning.

The tactic worked: click-through rates hit 42%, a marked improvement. By using single-use codes, Jacamo kept the promotion simple and effective, enticing customers with the prospect of a hidden discount.

Find out more about how Jacamo saw this campaign through in the full case study.

7. Clinique

Clinique’s long-running ‘Skin Care Diagnostics Tool’ uses a series of interactive quizzes to identify what customers are looking for, offer them personalised product recommendations, and deliver unique discount codes.⁸

Image: Screenshot from Skin Care Diagnostic Tool | Clinique

This encourages user engagement by establishing a goal-oriented environment in which the result of the quiz is the desired outcome. Customers can then share their results with others through online community hubs, increasing discussion around the brand.

This gamification campaign example shows how even subtle gamified elements such as online quizzes can be a great way to build the connection between you and your customers.

Pro tip: Read our recent article, ‘How to Streamline Your eCommerce Customer Journey’, to discover the top gamification strategies and how to incorporate them into your campaign.

8. Tesco

Tesco’s eCommerce revenue is expected to grow by almost 20% between 2022 and 2027.⁹ Their 2023 Easter campaign is a good example of how the connection between online and offline marketing can be used to increase community engagement and, in turn, boost profits.

For nine days in March 2023, customers who spotted one of their limited-edition Tesco logos could reshare photos of it with the hashtag #CrackingEaster for a chance to win £1000.¹⁰ This campaign encouraged customers both to go visit their local Tesco, and to get involved in the online Tesco community.

Image from Tesco gives its logo an Easter makeover | shots

9. Beauty Bay

Beauty Bay wanted to run a campaign that was all about making their loyal customers feel special. And they achieved just that by offering early access to a highly anticipated product collaboration with beauty influencer NikkieTutorials, generating huge levels of excitement for their VIP customers.

The company achieved this through the tried-and-true method of urging customers to sign up for early access in advance, then sending out unique codes accordingly. This allowed customers to view and buy products from the collaboration through a gated page on the site.

This exclusive access led to 87,000 new sign-ups before the campaign officially started. The result? A direct increase in sales, with a 23% boost in revenue from the items involved in the promotion.

10. N Brown Group

The N Brown Group is a UK-based retailer that owns a number of brands, including Simply Be, Jacamo and JD Williams. They distributed exclusive offers and discounts across their various brands and developed a tailored loyalty program for SimplyBe customers.

Thanks to engaging onsite experience features, customers that signed up for the loyalty program were provided with a personalised product selection and received greater value discounts the more they shopped on the site.

This strategy provided customers with a tangible reward for their loyalty and created the sense of progress and achievement associated with gamification.

Read the full case study here.

11. Ted Baker

Fashion retail is one of the most competitive markets out there — so coming up with creative gamification ideas is essential. In 2016, Ted Baker launched a standout Valentine’s Day campaign that transformed the main website landing page into a ‘Hook Your SoleMate’ game.

Image from Ted Baker launches gaming website for Valentine’s Day | Retail Week

Bold colours, interactive game features, and a prize incentive all made this an incredibly successful gamification campaign example, earning Ted Baker 50,000 additional website visits and a low bounce rate of 21%.

By connecting the website gamification to a specific event in the calendar year, the clothing retail company was also able to foster a sense of urgency that helped to encourage shoppers to convert into customers.

12. GoPro

GoPro Awards is a long-running competition that allows customers to submit photos taken on their GoPro, giving participants the chance to:

Get featured on GoPro’s social media accounts
Receive a cash reward
Win GoPro gear

Like ASOS’s #AsSeenOnMe campaign, this method of encouraging user-generated content has been incredibly successful at increasing GoPro’s brand awareness and loyal customer base. Gamification in social media campaigns can show off the quality of your products and get customers excited about using them.

Image from GoPro Awards | Video & Photo Challenges

Suggested reading: Discover impactful gamification case studies to get more inspiration for your next campaign.

Gamify your campaigns with a secure Promotion Experience Platform

Gamification is a tried-and-tested method for boosting customer acquisition, engagement, and retention. It can be incorporated in many different ways, and therefore gives businesses a wide scope to get creative with their marketing campaigns.

When implementing gamification, it’s important to be aware of the potential security and software risks that come with it. You should look for a software provider that has a proven track record of successful gamification campaigns, and is willing and able to accommodate your unique security requirements.

At Uniqodo, we do just that. Our Promotion Experience Platform is a leading gamification tool that allows you to securely integrate a variety of promotional coupons, discounts, and offers across your website and social media accounts. Our onsite experience software can be implemented in as little as one line of code, and has been used by established brands such as Travelodge, EE, Samsung, and Beauty Bay.

To learn more about how Uniqodo can help you build a more impactful onsite experience, book a free discovery call with a member of our team today.