What to do if a customer does not receive their gift card

If a customer does not receive their gift card, it's either because the purchaser entered an incorrect email address (in which case the email will bounce back to us, and we'll notify you - see below), or the email was blocked by a spam filter, was placed in quarantine or some other filter set up on their email inbox (in which case we usually cannot notify you because we do can not tell).

How to tell if an email was not delivered due to an incorrect email address

We mostly get notified by email servers if an email was rejected because of an incorrect email address or a full mailbox, etc… Firstly, we'll record the fact that it failed to be accepted by the recipient's email server in our dashboard by viewing the gift card, like this:

We will also send you a notification email according to your email notification settings:

And the email looks like this:

How to change the purchaser or recipient's email address on a gift card

To fix a bad email address and resend the gift card by email, just find the order on your dashboard and view it. You'll then be able to edit the gift card:

How to send a gift card email to the correct email address

To resend the gift card email, just find the order on your dashboard and view it. You'll be presented with an option to send by email:

Once you've done that, you will be able to choose which gift card to resend (if there are multiple gift cards in the order) and, crucially, to which email address to send the gift card to:

The email is marked as 'delivered', but has not made it to an inbox

Typically, in these circumstances we get confirmation that the email was accepted by the recipient's email server (and we confirm that in the dashboard to you), but no email arrives in the inbox 🙄. It does not often happen, but it's infuriating for all involved if this is the case.

Email is a tough delivery medium to work with thanks to spammers over the last 20 years. As a result, platforms like Gift Up cannot 100% know whether an email really made it to a user's inbox. We can sometimes tell if it was clicked on or opened, which is a good indication of inbox delivery, but it's also possible an email server accepts an email but just does not deliver it to an inbox.

Ultimately, email is a fallible delivery method - it's entirely acceptable and correct for a mail server to accept an email because the 'to' address is correct and valid, and put it somewhere other than a user's inbox, like a spam folder or in quarantine. These things are rule based usually, and email inboxes are configured in some weird and wonderful ways sometimes. In the end, sometimes we have to accept that an email does not make it to an inbox.

At Gift Up we monitor our email reputation with email service providers and have a very good relationship with them, so they tell us when an email gets outright rejected or actively marked as SPAM, but some more independent mail servers just say nothing back 😭

Typically, the first you'll know about it is when a customer emails to ask where their gift card is. All you have to do is reply with a downloaded version of the gift card to them. Because of the simple fact that you are replying to an email they sent, the reply is almost guaranteed to make it to their inbox as a result.

How to change an email's scheduled send date & time

Occasionally, a customer selects the wrong email send date/time. You just need to cancel and reschedule the email for the correct date & time.

1) Click the "cancel email" link:

2) Click "send by email" where you will be able to choose which email address, which gift card(s) and when to schedule the email for: