Use Custom Rewards when you want to award points for an action Glow cannot automatically verify on its own.

For example, a custom reward can work well for actions like sending you a photo, attending an event, completing a form, joining a community, or doing another task that someone on your team needs to review.

If Glow already has a built-in earning type or integration for the action, use that instead. Built-in earning types are better for actions Glow can verify automatically, such as account signup, orders, birthdays, anniversaries, referrals, and supported integrations.

Before you create a custom reward

Decide three things before you turn the reward on:

What the customer needs to do.
How the customer should prove they did it.
Whether one customer can earn the reward once or more than once.

Keep the reward description short and clear. Customers see it in the loyalty widget, so it should tell them exactly what to do.

Create the custom reward

In Glow, go to Rewards > Custom Rewards.
Select Add Custom Reward.

Custom Rewards page with Add Custom Reward highlighted

Enter a Reward Name.
Enter a Reward Description with the instructions customers should follow.
Enter the number of points customers should earn.
Choose whether customers can earn the reward Once or Unlimited times.
Set Enabled? to Enabled when you are ready for customers to see it.
Select Save Reward.

New Custom Reward form showing the name, description, points, once/unlimited, and enabled fields

What customers see

Enabled custom rewards appear in the loyalty widget with your other ways to earn points.

Guest shoppers can see enabled custom rewards in the widget. To submit a custom reward request, customers need to be signed in to their store account.

When a signed-in customer submits a custom reward request, Glow creates a pending submission and sends an email notification to your Glow account email address. Points are not added to the customer's balance until you approve the submission and choose to award points.

Review custom reward submissions

In Glow, go to Rewards > Custom Rewards.
Find the custom reward.
Select Submissions in the Manage column.
Select Details next to the submission you want to review.
Confirm outside Glow that the customer completed the action.
Set Status to Approved, Denied, or Pending.
If you approve the submission and want Glow to add the points, set Award points on save to Yes.
If you deny the submission, add a clear reason if you want the customer to understand what happened.
Choose whether to Notify customer.
Select Save.

Submitted custom reward approval form showing status, award points on save, and notify customer

How once and unlimited custom rewards behave

If the reward is set to Once, an approved submission marks that reward as earned for that customer.

If the reward is set to Unlimited, the customer can submit it again after an approved submission.

If a submission is still pending, the widget shows that status instead of letting the customer submit the same reward again. If a submission is denied, the reward becomes available to that customer again.

Common issues

The custom reward is not showing in the widget

Check that the custom reward is set to Enabled. Disabled custom rewards do not appear to customers.

Also confirm that the loyalty widget is showing on your storefront and that your widget/app embed setup is working.

The customer submitted the reward, but points were not added

The submission may still be pending. Go to Rewards > Custom Rewards, open Submissions, and review the request.

If the submission is approved, make sure Award points on save is set to Yes before saving. If that option is set to No, Glow updates the submission status without adding the custom reward points.

The customer cannot submit the same custom reward again

Check whether the reward is set to Once or Unlimited.

With Once, the reward is only available again if the latest submission was denied. With Unlimited, the reward is available again after an approved submission.