Loyalty Reward Redemption

Event Serialization

always

Business Use Case

1️⃣ The CRM & Loyalty Manager (Marketing) reviews the weekly redemption mix by loyalty_tier and reward_type; when free-shipping redemptions in a tier climb above plan while points burn stays flat, they re-price that reward in the catalogue and shift the tier's featured offer.,2️⃣ Revenue Accounting (Finance) uses points_redeemed and points_balance_after at month-end to release deferred loyalty liability, and cross-checks reward_value against the discount lines on the matching purchase transaction_ids so the benefit is recognised once rather than double-counted as revenue.,3️⃣ The Lifecycle Marketing lead builds a segment of enrolled members with zero redemptions in the last 90 days and a positive balance, and triggers the points-expiry reminder journey ahead of the programme's expiry run.,4️⃣ The Merchandising planner joins redemption transaction_ids to order contribution margin to identify which reward types dilute margin most by category, and caps the highest-dilution reward before the peak trading window.

Business Criticality

High

Journey / Navigation Area

Engagement

Owning Function

Marketing

Calculation Notes

1️⃣ Implemented as the GA4 recommended event `spend_virtual_currency`, fired on the loyalty platform's confirmation of the points debit or reward application — not on the reward-selection click and not on the confirmation page render; `loyalty_redeem` is retained as an alias only and must never be sent as the event name.,2️⃣ points_redeemed carries the virtual-currency debit (mapped to the GA4 `value` parameter alongside virtual_currency_name) and reward_value carries the fiat face value of the benefit paired with an ISO-4217 `currency`; the two are never interchangeable and are never summed together. reward_value is excluded from revenue, GMV and AOV because the matching `purchase` event already reports the discounted order value under the same transaction_id.,3️⃣ Serialization is `always`: a member may redeem several times per order (for example points plus a free-shipping offer), so one event fires per reward with a shared transaction_id. Deduplicate on reward_id + transaction_id when a member refreshes or re-enters the confirmation step, and apply the standard 30-minute inactivity session timeout — a redemption resumed after a lapse is attributed to the new session while transaction_id preserves the order-level join.,4️⃣ Excluded: reward previews and balance simulators, points expiring under programme rules with no member action, member pricing applied automatically without a reward object (measured as a member price benefit in promotion reporting), goodwill points issued by service agents, and employee, test and internal QA accounts identified by the loyalty account flag (GA4 user property loyalty_account_flag, ACDL/XDM loyalty.member.accountFlag, W3 profileInfo.loyaltyAccountFlag; values employee, test, internal).,5️⃣ Cancellations and returns re-credit the points in the loyalty ledger — never delete or retro-edit the original event. Net redemption is derived by joining the re-credit to the original reward_id and transaction_id, and every report that publishes net figures must state the reversal window in force (typically the 30-day return window).,6️⃣ Non-order redemptions (partner point exchanges, charity donations, tier benefits) carry a null transaction_id and, where no monetary benefit exists, reward_value = 0 with currency still populated; these rows must be filtered out of any checkout-attach or basket-level analysis rather than being treated as zero-value orders.,7️⃣ Timing and reconciliation: client events land within normal digital-analytics intraday latency while the loyalty ledger remains the system of record for balances. Reconcile points_redeemed against ledger debits daily, use points_balance_after as the tie-breaker on disputes, and treat a variance above 2% as a tagging defect rather than a business movement.

Data Mappings

{
  "digitalData": {
    "page": {
      "pageInfo": {
        "pageName": "Loyalty | Reward Redemption Confirmation"
      },
      "category": {
        "primaryCategory": "Loyalty",
        "subCategory1": "Reward Redemption"
      }
    },
    "user": [
      {
        "profile": [
          {
            "attributes": {
              "customerLoyaltyTier": "gold",
              "loyaltyAccountFlag": "member"
            }
          }
        ]
      }
    ],
    "event": [
      {
        "eventInfo": {
          "eventName": "spend_virtual_currency",
          "eventAction": "loyalty reward redemption",
          "timeStamp": "{{event_timestamp}}"
        },
        "attributes": {
          "virtualCurrencyName": "points",
          "value": 2500,
          "pointsBalanceAfter": 4250,
          "redemptionID": "LRD-20260929-000123",
          "rewardID": "RWD-FREESHIP-STD",
          "rewardType": "free_shipping",
          "rewardValue": 12.5,
          "currency": "USD",
          "customerLoyaltyTier": "gold",
          "redemptionChannel": "web",
          "transactionID": "ORD-10045872",
          "rewardValueExcludedFromRevenue": true
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

{
  "event": "spend_virtual_currency",
  "virtual_currency_name": "points",
  "value": 2500,
  "points_balance_after": 4250,
  "redemption_id": "LRD-20260929-000123",
  "reward_id": "RWD-FREESHIP-STD",
  "reward_type": "free_shipping",
  "reward_value": 12.5,
  "currency": "USD",
  "customer_loyalty_tier": "gold",
  "redemption_channel": "web",
  "transaction_id": "ORD-10045872",
  "reward_value_excluded_from_revenue": true
}

[
  {
    "_openkpis": {
      "loyalty": {
        "member": {
          "customerLoyaltyTier": "gold",
          "accountFlag": "member"
        }
      }
    }
  },
  {
    "event": "spend_virtual_currency",
    "eventInfo": {
      "timestamp": "{{event_timestamp}}"
    },
    "_openkpis": {
      "loyalty": {
        "redemption": {
          "virtualCurrencyName": "points",
          "value": 2500,
          "pointsBalanceAfter": 4250,
          "redemptionID": "LRD-20260929-000123",
          "rewardID": "RWD-FREESHIP-STD",
          "rewardType": "free_shipping",
          "rewardValue": 12.5,
          "currency": "USD",
          "redemptionChannel": "web",
          "transactionID": "ORD-10045872",
          "rewardValueExcludedFromRevenue": true
        }
      }
    }
  }
]

{
  "eventType": "spend_virtual_currency",
  "timestamp": "{{event_timestamp}}",
  "identityMap": {
    "loyaltyId": [
      {
        "id": "{{hashed_loyalty_member_id}}",
        "authenticatedState": "authenticated",
        "primary": true
      }
    ]
  },
  "_openkpis": {
    "loyalty": {
      "member": {
        "customerLoyaltyTier": "gold",
        "accountFlag": "member"
      },
      "redemption": {
        "virtualCurrencyName": "points",
        "value": 2500,
        "pointsBalanceAfter": 4250,
        "redemptionID": "LRD-20260929-000123",
        "rewardID": "RWD-FREESHIP-STD",
        "rewardType": "free_shipping",
        "rewardValue": {
          "amount": 12.5,
          "currencyCode": "USD"
        },
        "redemptionChannel": "web",
        "transactionID": "ORD-10045872",
        "rewardValueExcludedFromRevenue": true
      }
    }
  }
}

Source Data

Dependencies

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Report Attributes

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Governance

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