But such a program will quickly fail—and fail in such a way as to be counter-productive—if the points are not set properly. In other words, if the number of points needed to get a reasonable prize and the number of points offered for non-purchase activities are set such that it's impossible to redeem those rewards in a reasonable period of time, this campaign won't work. The initial stats suggest that Gilt.com may have fallen into that particular trap. One incented behavior--visiting the site five days in a row—will deliver 100 points. And what will that 100 points buy? Well, a gift certificate (valued between $80 and $100) requires 25,000 points. A loyal shopper could perform that quintuple-consecutive-visit chore 249 times in a row (that's visiting the site every day for 1,245 consecutive days, which is almost visiting the site every day for 3-and-a-half years) and still not qualify for that gift certificate.
To make a CRM rewards program effective today, it needs to move beyond points only offered for purchases. (Heck, even the Pope is offering concrete incentives for following him on Twitter.) Gilt.com, an e-tailer that has already gotten creative by offering mobile-only offers, is trying to do just that by offering loyalty points for visiting the site on several consecutive days.