Why Text Messages Are A Great Way To Send Gift Card Rewards

UPDATED: March 2025

It goes without saying that text messages have become an integral part of both our personal and professional lives. They've also become a mainstay in digital marketing, thanks in large part to their effectiveness as a communication tool (not surprising given their 98% open rate, or the fact that the majority are opened within three minutes of delivery 😲).

In this article, we'll discuss why sending digital gift cards in a text message is the best way to reward customers and employees (be sure to bookmark it if you you're planning to convince leadership to modernize your reward or incentive program!) .

We'll also cover the many benefits that texting offers as a delivery method, including higher redemption rates, instant delivery, easy redemption, and increased brand awareness.

And of course, we'll walk you through the process of sending digital gift cards via text, too. 💪

The benefits of sending your gift card rewards via text

Text messages are a popular communication method across all age groups, from Gen Z to Baby Boomers.

When you choose to send rewards through text, you're using the preferred contact method for most people. Texting is a convenient and cost-effective delivery option that not only saves your company time and money but also enhances the overall gifting experience.

Specifically, reward strategies that include texting offer the following advantages.

1. Higher redemption rates

The average open rate of emails average open rate of emails is around 21%, meaning there’s a high chance that someone won’t open your reward email, leaving your funds in limbo. Since most people open their text messages, customers are more likely to redeem their gift cards if they receive them over text.

With higher redemption rates, you’re wasting less of your rewards budget and increasing customer loyalty by reaching more people.

2. Instant delivery

Physical gift cards can be a nice touch, but text delivery has a major advantage over “snail” mail: it’s instant. Instead of waiting days or weeks, your customer can receive and redeem their reward in seconds. 

💬 “Digital gift cards get results," says Nat Salvione, Giftbit CCO. "The reward being digital and instantly available plays a critical role in that success.”

You make the process even more efficient by autommating your reward sending  via either a gift card platform or a gift card api. When someone completes the desired action, such as sending referrals to friends and family, a process triggers and instantly sends them a gift card reward. 

3. Easy to redeem

With hundreds of emails flooding their inbox, customers might struggle to find their reward email right away. The longer it takes, the more likely they’ll put it off until they forget about it.

Meanwhile, if you send the digital gift card over text, the recipient can easily press the notification and follow the provided link to redeem their reward. 🙌

4. Increased brand awareness

You can customize your text messages to match your brand image and personality, effectively increasing your brand awareness when sending gift cards. Also, most gifting apps allow you to customize your reward by adding your logo or attaching personalized text and voice messages.

Incorporating your brand into your rewards is an effective way to keep your business top-of-mind and increase customer loyalty.

5. Hassle-free sending

When you send gifts through mail or email, you need to get the customer’s contact information and follow several steps to send the rewards. You only need phone numbers when you choose to send your rewards through text messaging. 

With the help of rewards software, you can send the perfect gift to your customers automatically or manually. Whether you need to send one or a hundred gift cards, it only takes one mouse click to deliver them to everyone on your list.

How to send a gift card via text

Giftbit makes it very easy to send email rewards; but of course, not every use case works best via email. 

We'll also talk about our unique Giftbit links that allow businesses to customize their rewards with a branded template and send the links via text messages, and how simple it is to set up!

So if you want to send your rewards via text (or via QR codes and other methods), then you'll be using gift links. Each gift link (i.e. URL) is 100% unique and one of a kind, and each leads to its own reward. 

✅ To get started, you'll first need a free Giftbit account (easy to do - sign up here!). Once you're logged in, simply follow the straightforward prompts to order you gift links in the quantity you need. 

Once your order is processed, you'll get an email with a CSV attachment containing all your links.

From there, the sky's the limit: upload load them into your own system, set triggers in your CRM or other software you're using, turn them into QR codes, or start sending them out manually. 🚀 

If you've got any questions, reach out to Matt Brossard, our incentive specialist, any time. 

We've also put together more detailed instructions on how to send digital rewards via text here. 

More reward delivery methods for rewards and incentive programs

Of course, if you work with the right gift card distributor, you should have lots of options to send gift cards at your fingertips. 

For example, at Giftbit, our goal is to make it easy to send rewards via pretty much any method you can think of. Integrate them into your online surveys, mail them to recipients who aren't as active online, share them with employees via Slack, communicate with the cools kids via social media DM, use them to get more signups at your next trade show. 

💬 “Giftbit is really easy to use, and I think that is probably the most important feature of any tech product," says Greg Augustine, Project Manager at Prime46. See how Giftbit saves Greg up to 25% of his time here.