When the prize of a promotion is a coupon, voucher or discount that the winners/users have to redeem in a physical store, establishment or venue, the organizer of the promotion can make use of the “Validation Portal”, a tool that will enable the organizer to check and verify the prizes at the point of sale in a secure, reliable and flexible way and without fraud.

Not only can the organizer distribute the prizes/coupons to the users who register in the promotion supported by Easypromos, but he can also use the “Validation Portal” to ensure that the code is actually valid before honoring the discount or giving the prize to the winner.

The basic operation is as follows: When registering in the promotion, the user receives a coupon that includes a unique alphanumeric code that, optionally, can also be shown as a QR code. The organizer of the promotion can upload the codes or let the Easypromos platform generate them. The user will then show the code in a point of sale that will have access to the Validation portal. The staff at the point of sale will enter the user’s code in the Validation Portal o scan the QR code, if available, and the portal will respond if the code is valid or not, and if it’s valid, at that moment, it will be marked as redeemed.

In addition, the Validation Portal can also be used to validate codes that have not been assigned through an Easypromos entry form, but have been given to users offline. This may be the case, for example, of a code printed on a flyer, of a code sent by the brand through a newsletter, etc.

Note: The Validation Portal is available in Premium and White Label promotions.

 

Here you can see the content of this tutorial:

1. How it works at the validation point:

• A. The user experience
• B. The vendor experience

2. Configuration of the promotion:

• Step 1. Create the unique alphanumeric codes
• Step 2. Enable the Validation Portal
• Step 3. Create the validation points
• Step 4. Customize the design of the Validation Portal
• Step 5. Distribution of the promotional code in PDF
• Step 6. Distribution of the promotional code via email
• Step 7. Validation stats

3. Annex: Example of email with instructions to the validation point

4. How to validate codes that have been distributed offline

 

1. How it works at the validation point:

Here we explain how the system to validate promotional codes works:

A. The user experience

The organizing brand has disseminated the promotion through their online channels and has distributed the prizes among the users that have registered in the promotion. To make the process easier, each winner has received a PDF specifying the prize. With this PDF, the winners go to the point of sale to pick up the prize or get the discount etc.

Here you can see an example of a coupon in PDF format that the user will show at the point of sale, it can be printed in paper format or shown directly from the email on the mobile phone:

B. The vendor experience

Once the promotion has been configured and activated, the URL of the Validation Portal should be communicated to the validation points that will attend to the customers who wish to redeem their codes for their prizes/discounts.

To access the Validation Portal, the validation point should have a desktop or laptop computer, tablet or smartphone with internet connection from where they will access the Validation Portal via URL. When they access the first time, they need to enter the specific validation point’s password. After that, they can enter the codes that the winners show them to validate them.

If the codes have been coded in QR format, the validation points can also use a smartphone or tablet with a QR code reader app installed to scan the codes instead of entering the numeric code manually. For Apple devices we recommend this QR reader and for Android we recommend this one.

 

How to validate the coupon?

If the code is presented in numeric form, the person at the point of sale should access the URL of the validation portal and enter the number. If the code is presented in QR code format, it can be scanned directly with a QR code reader app on any mobile device and once scanned, the app will open up the URL in the internet browser.

The first time the validation point accesses with a new device, the password that the organizer of the promotion provides should be entered:

When the code is entered in the Validation Portal, three different messages can appear:

 

1. Valid code. The name and the email address of the user will show, together with the information about the prize:

2. Invalid code:

3. Code already used: the exact date of its validation and the validation point where it was validated will be shown:

The process is repeated for each new code.

 

2. Configuration of the promotion

Step 1. Create the unique alphanumeric codes

First of all you should create the prize of the promotion, also if it’s a coupon voucher that you want to give to all users who register in your promotion. This prize should be configured as a “promotional code”. You can configure this in the “Options” tab of the prize:

Both if you have uploaded your own list of codes by creating a codeset, and if you have selected the option to have Easypromos generate the codes, this option will allow you to enable the Validation Portal.

 

IMPORTANT: You will not be able to enable the Validation Portal if you haven’t first created a prize in the promotion with unique codes linked to the prize. To create a prize with unique codes, please follow this tutorial that explains how you can upload your own codes, how to code them in QR format or how to configure to have Easypromos generate the codes automatically.

 

Step 2. Enable the Validation Portal

Access the Editor of the promotion and next Tool > Validation Portal and enable the section:

Step 3. Create the validation points

The next step is to create a validation point. The validation points allow you to identify where the codes are validated. To create your the validation points, you have two methods available:

 

1. Import the validation points from a file. The editor incorporates a tool to upload the validation points by importing them from a file. In this way, you will be able to list the validation points in a CSV file or in a text sheet and then import all the validation points at once with a simple copy/paste, and the system will generate them automatically.

Follow this tutorial to see how you should work on the file and prepare it for uploading the validation points in the promotion.

 

2. Add the validation points manually. If you prefer, you can add each of the validation points manually. To do this, you only have to click on the "Create validation point" button. A pop-up window will open up where you should define the name of the validation point and the access password:

Note: The app will only ask for the password the first time a validation point access the portal.

You can create as many validation points as necessary. You can for example create a validation point for each store/venue/physical location where participants can redeem their code.

Example:

If you give away discount codes in your promotion and these codes can be redeemed in 10 different stores, you can create a validation point for each store and give them the name of the store/location.

This way you will be able to see how many codes have been validated in each store, and you will also see in which store each user has redeemed his/her code.

Step 4. Customize the design of the Validation Portal

Finally, the last step is to customize the design of the Validation Portal with the following options:

• Logo (optional). The recommended size is 500x500px.
• Background image. The recommended size is 2100x1300px.
• Enable Redemption of codes not registered on the promotion.
• Hide option that allow validation points to un-redeem a code. By default, employees can unredeem codes (for instance if the code was redeemed by mistake). You can hide that feature from the validation point if you do not wish employees to be able to do un-redeem codes. 
• Help instructions (optional). Use it to suggest a support contact or instructions to help the user of the validation point.

 

Step 5. Distribution of the promotional code in PDF

When you have created the necessary validation points, the next step is to prepare the PDF that the winners can download, to include the promotional code that each winner has been assigned when registering in the promotion. This way, the winners can take the PDF to the validation point to redeem the code/prize.

To add the promotional code to the downloadable PDF, follow these steps:

1. In the same “Options” tab in the configuration of the prize, find the option “Does this prize have downloadable content?” and select the option: “Yes, and Easypromos will generate the PDF”:

2. Now, click on the button “Generate PDF template”:

3. You will now access the Coupon Editor where you can customize the PDF for the winners completely. Among the available customization options is the option to add the following elements: text, images, boxes and lines, and the most important element in this tutorial: the promotional code that has been assigned to each winner/user.

When the template is generated, is comes with the element {user_code} by default. This will be replaced with each user’s unique alphanumeric code.

You can click on the green button “Add element” to add more elements to the PDF, for example the QR code.

Note: If you’ve uploaded your own codeset, to be able to add the QR code in the PDF, in the codeset you should also configure the following option:

This way the following option will be available in the coupon editor:

4. When you have designed and customized the PDF, click on “Save layout”. Don’t miss this video to see all the customization options the PDF editor offers:

 

Step 6. Distribution of the promotional code via email

A good practice is to send the PDF with the prize and the promotional code to each winner. This way, they will always have the proof of their prize by hand, to easily be able to find and show at the point of sale when they are going to redeem it.

To create this email, you have the Email Platform available. This tool lets you automate sending of emails to the users that register in your promotion. To make your work even easier, the promotion comes with a pre-configured email template that you can send to all winner, including the prize PDF. You only need to activate the email, and if you want, customize it as you wish. To do this, follow these steps:

 

1. Go to “Options” tab in the configuration of the prize again and click on the option “Create email to send the content automatically”:

2. Next click on the option “You can edit the email in the Email Platform” to review and customize the email:

3. A new tab with the configuration of the email in the Email Platform will open. As you will see, the email body includes the smart tag {{prize_summary}} which in the email that the user receives will be replaced with the reference of the prize that the user has won and a link to download the prize PDF.

Note: In this tutorial you can see all options for customizing emails in the Email Platform.

 

Step 7. Validation stats

When the promotion has finished, you can review the stats of the validated codes and see at which validation point they were validated. You can see these data from three different places:

 

1. From the list of validation points that you have created. For each validation point, you can check the number of validations carried out, as well as download a file in CSV format with the list of codes validated for each validation point:

2. From the list of Users, where you can easily review the codes that have been validated with the Validation Portal from the User Manager, as well as export the list of validated codes to an Excel/CSV file by following the steps in the following video:

 

3. From the individual page of each validation point. Each validation point will be able to check and export the codes it has validated:

3. Annex: Example of email with instructions to the validation point

Here we show you an example of an email with instructions for the validation point that you can use and adapt to your campaign.

 

Hello,

Once the coupon online promotion is disseminated, there are customers who will visit our stores to redeem and enjoy their prize [OPTIONAL: specify the name of the prize]. The winners will present at the counter of the store the coupon with the information of the prize and their participation data, so that the prize can be validated by our store personnel..

Below we detail the instructions to validate the prizes in a safe and quick way, which we have divided into three steps:

- Step 1. Prepare the validation

In order to validate that the prize is correct and has not been previously validated, it will be necessary to use a QR code reader app. Therefore, in the store we must have a mobile device (tablet or mobile phone) with a QR code reader app installed.

We recommend to use the following apps:

• Android devices.
• Apple devices.

- Step 2. How to redeem the prize

The customer will come to our stores with the prize they have won in the promotion. The customer can show the coupon printed or in his/her mobile phone (as a PDF or inside an email).

The customer will show the coupon to the store personnel, who will use the QR code reader app of the mobile device to scan the QR code in the coupon.

The QR reader app will automatically display the URL containing the QR code and its status. To access the status click the link to open it and you will be directed to to the mobile browser view.

Each new device accessing the validation portal will be prompted for a 1 time password. Successful completion of the password identifies this device as the Point of Validation agent.

These are the passwords of each validation point:

• Store A: [password]
• Store B: [password]
• Store C: [password]

- Step 3. Result of the validation

After scanning the QR code, the system will inform of the result of the validation on the screen: if it is a valid coupon, if it has already been validated before or if it is an invalid coupon.

If we need to close the session of the validation point, for example to use the mobile phone in another validation point, we must just click the “Logout” link at the top.

 

4. How to validate codes that have been distributed offline

Have you organised an offline promotion in which you distribute discount codes to your customers? With the "Validation Portal" you can also check and verify the codes that you have distributed offline and that users present at the point of sale, in order to ensure that the prize is valid, before being able to redeem it.

Example: A chain of restaurants delivers a flyer with a printed code to customers after consuming at the establishment. This code consists of a discount for the next consumption. In order to have control of the codes that customers will present to redeem their discount, all the codes will be loaded in the promotion, and the Validation Portal will be enabled in order to validate the codes. In addition, since it is a chain of restaurants with different branches, a different validation point can be created for each branch. In this way, you can control the codes that have been validated at the different validation points.

 

How to load the codes and set up the Validation Portal?

To do this, you must follow the following steps:

 

Step 1. Create a “Coupon codes” promotion:

 

Step 2. Create the prize as a promotional code

Then, after selecting your organizing brand and the template you want to use (Premium or White Label), go to the Editor and locate the General > Prizes section. Here you must create a prize of the type "On participating", which must be configured as a "promotional code", an option that you can configure in the "Options" tab of the prize.

Click on "create" to load all the codes you want to validate through the Validation Portal.

 

Step 3. Enable the Validation Portal

Next, access the Tools> Validation Portal section and enable the module:

 

Step 4. Enable the validation of codes that have been distributed offline

The next step is to enable the Validation Portal so that it can be used to validate the codes you have given to users offline. To do this, you just have to check the following check box:

 

Step 5. Create the validation points

The next step is to create a validation point. Validation points allow you to identify who validates the unique codes that have been delivered to users. To do this, click on the “Create validation point” button. Next, a pop-up window will open where you must define the validation point name and an access password:

Note: The app will only ask for the password the first time a validation point access the portal.

You can create as many validation points as necessary. You can for example create a validation point for each store/venue/physical location where participants can redeem their code.