Best Practices for Optimizing Digital Gift Card Programs
As the global shift toward digital commerce accelerates, gift cards — especially digital ones — have emerged as one of retail’s most powerful tools for engagement, revenue growth, and brand affinity. The 2025 edition of Best Digital Gift Card Programs – Australia, a benchmark report produced by NAPCO Research and Blackhawk Network (BHN), offers a comprehensive evaluation of 50 Australian merchants’ digital gift card programs. Through 128 criteria spanning desktop, mobile web, and app channels, the report surfaces critical insights into what top performers are doing right — and how others can follow.
Below, we explore key findings, standout practices, and actionable tips to help retail leaders elevate their digital gift card programs in an increasingly competitive landscape.
1. Make Mobile a Strategic Priority
Mobile continues to be a critical commerce channel, yet many retailers fall short in optimizing gift card experiences for smaller screens. The top-performing brands — Amazon.com, Endota, JB Hi-Fi, Rebel, and Red Balloon — all delivered best-in-class mobile journeys, scoring 80 percent or higher vs. the 54 percent average for others.
Best Practice: Ensure seamless mobile usability by integrating gift cards with the shopping cart, allowing gift and merchandise purchases in a single transaction. Supporting Apple Pay, Google Pay, and other mobile wallets significantly improves conversion and customer satisfaction.
2. Elevate Discoverability and Awareness
One major hurdle to gift card success is simple: consumers can’t buy what they can’t find. The lowest-performing verticals, such as travel and entertainment, scored just 42 percent in discoverability.
Best Practice: Create a dedicated gift card section on your website and ensure strong placement in the main menu, homepage and search results. Incorporate gift cards into general “Gifting” sections and promote them across key occasions and everyday use cases.
3. Enhance the Recipient Experience
While digital gift card experiences scored high (89 percent), physical card delivery still lags (51 percent). In both formats, the recipient’s experience is essential to brand equity and future loyalty.
Best Practice: Use branded, gift-like digital templates and premium physical packaging. Include personalization features (e.g., senders’ names and custom messages) as well as wallet compatibility and easy balance checks to create a more engaging and thoughtful recipient experience.
4. Remove Friction From Checkout
Abandoned carts are a silent killer of digital gift card revenue. A seamless, flexible checkout process makes a measurable difference in conversion rates.
Best Practice: Support multiple payment methods (including buy now, pay later and mobile wallets), avoid unnecessary form fields, and ensure rapid fraud checks that don’t result in false declines. According to the report, 48 percent of consumers will shop elsewhere after one declined payment.
5. Scale Content and Personalization With AI
As retailers seek to personalize gifting experiences, generative AI is playing a growing role in accelerating content creation — everything from occasion-specific faceplates to dynamic product recommendations.
Best Practice: Implement scalable tools for content generation and recipient targeting. Create visual, customizable gift card options that reflect your customers’ preferences and shopping behaviors.
6. Promote Gift Cards Year-Round and Across Channels
Only 12 percent of brands were actively running gift card promotions during the research window (December 2024). Even fewer leveraged social media for promotion, with an average marketing score of just 1 percent.
Best Practice: Develop a 12-month promotional calendar, incorporating holidays, birthdays, graduations, and “just because” moments. Use email, paid media, and social platforms, particularly Instagram and TikTok, to amplify your message. Co-branded campaigns and gift card-based promotions like “buy a $100 gift card, get $10 free” can also boost sales.
7. Build Out B2B Capabilities
Bulk gift card purchases for employee incentives, client appreciation, and promotional giveaways represent a high-margin revenue stream. Yet many retailers overlook B2B shoppers or bury the option on their websites.
Best Practice: Create a clearly labeled, easily accessible B2B gift card portal. Include details on digital and physical options, allow bulk purchases with simple checkout flows, and offer account management tools for enterprise buyers.
8. Embrace Continuous Innovation
Top performers stood out by innovating in ways that resonate with modern consumers — e.g., through charitable gifting tie-ins, printable coloring-page e-gifts, wedding registry integrations, subscription gift card formats, etc.
Best Practice: Experiment with innovative use cases and delivery formats. Personalize the gifting journey and explore new distribution channels such as influencer partnerships or live social selling events.
Conclusion
Gift cards are no longer just convenient last-minute presents; they’re a critical part of a retailer’s digital strategy, customer engagement framework, and bottom-line growth. The 2025 benchmark study makes it clear: the best programs prioritize discoverability, convenience, personalization, and omnichannel integration. There’s a significant opportunity for retailers to transform underperforming gift card programs into high-value brand assets.
By embracing these best practices and keeping pace with evolving consumer expectations, merchants can ensure their digital gift card offerings drive meaningful results year-round.
