Updated May 13, 2025
Improving your gift card email open rates is of the make-or-break of gift card programs.
It's simple math.
No email opened = no gift card redeemed = no benefits of gift cards
It's quite simple: your bulk digital gift cards are only going to incentivize your customers and research subjects if they actually get them. If your email open rate is low, the hard work doesn't really matter.
💌 In this article, we'll share tips to improve your gift card email open rates. We'll also show you how to actually track whether your gift cards are being opened and redeemed.
Before we get started, let's make it clear: it absolutely is safe to send gift card by mail, as long as you work with a secure, reliable, and transparent gift card distributor.
That's because, when you partner with the right distributor, they're doing more than pressing “send.”
Behind the scenes, they handle sender-authentication tools (like DKIM and DMARC) that keep spoofers out of the inbox. They can also track deliverability and otherwise help ensure you offer lands in the primary tab instead of spam.
The result?
📈 Higher open rates, because your recipients know they can trust you, AND because they're much more likely to actually receive their email in the first place.
Security teams love this setup, too, especially if you find a gift card company that's SOC II compliant. This designation means that their processes have passed a rigorous audit for data security, availability, and privacy. It's essentially an independent stamp of approval makes it much easier for your IT and executive teams give the green light—no endless questionnaire, no last-minute bottlenecks.
Plus, when you use a gift card distributor, email isn’t your only option for gift card delivery.
The same gift card platform should allow you to send gift cards in bulk (or individually) via text message, a social DM, a Slack chat, or whichever channel your recipients prefer (learn more about gift card integration with other apps here).
🔑 Meeting your recipients where they already are is often the key to making open (and redemption) rates climb.