This article recaps the "using incentives strategically" segment of our Customer Journeys & Drip Campaigns webinar (AppFront Growth Series, Campaigns 201).
Start with PMIX and COGS
Before setting any discount or offer, know your product mix (PMIX) and cost of goods sold (COGS) for the items involved. If you don't already have these numbers, pull the report before you build anything — you want every reward to feel valuable to the guest without quietly bleeding your margin.
Stack incentives with timing
Beyond the core offer at each step, you can stack in smaller rewards — like bonus points — tied to a short delay after a guest completes the action you wanted. This reinforces the exact behavior you're trying to build, on top of the main incentive.
Watch your frequency curve
Your Insights page includes a frequency curve — if it's trending down, that's your signal journeys are worth turning on to reverse it. New push notifications that confirm points just earned on an order also help here, since they reinforce the loop: guests see the reward land right after the behavior you wanted.
Next up: how to turn journeys on, and a full rundown of AppFront's pre-built templates.