The Campaign Guidebook

Choose the action that matters

Start with what you want people to do. A wallet might want customers to make their first payment. A developer platform might want teams to build an integration. A game might want players to return for another session.

Be specific about the audience, too. New users may need an introduction; existing users may need a reason to try something different. Your goal should help you choose the tasks, message, and reward.

Make success measurable

Turn the goal into a target: "180 new players complete a second mission within seven days of their first."

Decide what counts and count it consistently. An account, a wallet, and a person are different units. Compare your target with recent results if you have them. If you don't, treat the target as an assumption you'll learn from.

Try the journey yourself

Go through the steps you'll ask participants to complete. Can they access the feature, understand the instructions, and finish the action?

Check the requirements that could trip them up: a particular account, supported wallet, subscription, or device. Explain these before people join.

Give each task an owner

Choose one person to coordinate the campaign. Then assign the main tasks: preparing the experience, setting reward rules, creating promotional materials, checking results, and helping participants.

In a small team, one person may handle several tasks. The point is that everyone knows who to go to. Keep the plan and links to the latest materials in one shared place.

Leave time to test and fix

Work backward from your launch date. Reward rules need to be settled before partners promote them. The participant journey needs to work before you can test it.

Leave room for people outside the team to try the campaign and for you to fix what they find. A plan that ends development the evening before launch has already spent its testing time.

Budget beyond the rewards

Include the work needed to create, promote, and run the campaign: design, setup, partners, support, and any service or transaction fees.

Set a spending limit and leave room for unexpected costs. If costs grow with participation, calculate what happens when more people join than expected.

Make the invitation clear

Explain the campaign in a few sentences: who it is for, what people will do, and what they can get from it. A game might invite friends to complete a mission together. A developer campaign might invite teams to build something useful.

Use the same message and reward details on the campaign page, social posts, and partner materials. A memorable name helps, but clear instructions do most of the work.

Walk through every step

Follow the journey from the first link to signup, the task, confirmation, and the reward. At each step, ask: does the participant know what to do next?

Explain delays, including when an action is still being checked. Remove unnecessary steps before the first useful action. Check the journey on mobile and make sure people can use it with a keyboard.

Choose the right activities

Use quests to guide an action, achievements to mark progress, competitions to create a contest, and referrals to invite others. Choose the format that supports your goal.

Give newcomers a clear starting point and returning users something worth coming back for. Someone joining late should still understand what they can complete and earn.

Reward the action you want

Choose a reward that fits the activity: recognition, access, a product benefit, a cosmetic item, or another clear benefit. Explain when it is earned and whether everyone can receive it.

For referrals, decide what the invited person needs to do before a reward is earned. Rewarding signup alone can attract invitations that never lead to product use. If points have no guaranteed redemption value or future token allocation, say so.

Make the rules easy to find

State who can join, what counts, the deadlines and time zones, and how to claim. Explain limits and tie-breaks. If only 200 rewards are available, tell people how recipients are chosen.

Budget for the maximum reward cost, including delivery. Have the right person check any terms, privacy requirements, or restrictions that apply to your audience and rewards.

Handle mistakes and misuse fairly

Plan for duplicate accounts, self-referrals, copied submissions, and repeat claims where relevant. Give participants a way to ask for help when a valid action is missed.

Explain how rule changes will be communicated. Avoid taking away earned progress because the campaign became more popular than expected.

Go where your audience is

Start with where people already discover products and ask for advice: your community, creators, newsletters, partner communities, or events.

Give each channel a purpose. One might introduce the campaign; another might explain a task or bring existing users back. Decide what you will publish, where it will send people, and who will prepare it.

Give partners what they need

Share a short campaign description, visuals, rules, dates, tested links, and a contact for questions. Creators can use their own voice while keeping the offer accurate.

Choose partners whose audiences are likely to use your product. Test campaign links on mobile and check that you can recognize the traffic they bring. A tracked visit helps explain where someone came from; it does not prove the promotion caused every action.

Keep something for after launch

Plan tutorials, reminders, participant stories, and closing messages alongside the announcement. Leave room to answer questions that emerge once people join.

Keep some budget and partner activity for later. You may want to fix a confusing step before sending more people into it.

Put the experience together

Decide where people will participate: inside your product, on a campaign page, or both. Keep instructions, reward details, and help close to the tasks they explain.

Claimr's Widget gives you an interface for quests, progress, referrals, and rewards inside your product. Configure its modules and appearance, then connect the product actions your campaign uses. Use the API and SDK if you need your own interface.

With Claimr MCP, a connected AI assistant can browse available task types and help create the quests and tasks. Describe what participants should do, then review the proposed setup before applying changes.

Decide how a task is completed

For each task, define what the participant does, how completion is checked, and what happens next. Clicking a link is different from completing an action in your product.

Show a pending message when confirmation takes time. Make sure repeated events do not award progress twice. Check how activity connects to the right account or wallet, and explain any permissions participants need to grant.

Check the numbers before launch

Complete a test journey and follow it through reporting: arrival, first action, reward, and return. Confirm that the numbers match what happened and that internal tests stay out of campaign totals.

Prepare answers to common questions and useful error messages while building the experience.

Complete the whole journey

Start with the link participants will receive. Join, complete a task, receive the reward, leave, and return. Try the devices, account types, and wallets your audience will use.

For each test, write what should happen and what actually happened. Keep a screenshot or result that helps the next person understand any problem.

Try the things that can go wrong

Check slow connections, expired sessions, delayed confirmation, and repeated actions. Where relevant, test the wrong network, self-referrals, and repeat reward claims.

Try an action near the deadline. Check that a pending task looks different from a rejected one, instructions are readable on mobile, and the journey works with a keyboard.

Watch someone outside the team

Invite people who resemble your audience to try the campaign without coaching. Ask what they expect to earn and where they feel unsure.

Fix problems that block participation, lose progress, calculate rewards incorrectly, or prevent delivery before launch. Repeat the affected tests after each fix. Smaller improvements can follow according to their impact.

Check that everything agrees

Compare the campaign page, announcements, partner materials, and FAQ. Rewards, dates, time zones, and participation rules should match.

Read the instructions on a small screen. Buttons should explain the action, completed tasks should look complete, and delays should have an explanation.

Review what is still unfinished

Bring the people responsible for the campaign, setup, rewards, and support together. Check test results, remaining issues, reward funding, and the promotion schedule.

Decide what must be fixed before launch and what can wait. Name the person who gives the final go-ahead. If a rule or feature changes afterward, repeat the tests it affects.

Agree on who responds

Walk through launch day: who checks the page, confirms the first completed task, and tells partners to publish?

Then consider a problem, such as rewards failing to arrive. Decide who can pause the affected activity, who investigates, and who updates participants. Check that those people have the access they need.

Launch in a clear order

Make the campaign available, check the public journey, confirm reporting works, then release announcements and notify partners. Give each step an owner.

Where useful, open to an initial group before the largest promotion goes out. This gives the team a chance to catch problems early. Make opening times clear to participants and partners.

Watch actions and questions together

Check arrivals, completed tasks, delays, errors, and reward claims. If many people arrive but few start, look at the instructions and the first step before assuming the audience is wrong.

Read support questions alongside the numbers. Repeated confusion often points to something the page needs to explain. For a widespread problem, tell participants what is affected and when they will hear more.

Keep the first days under control

Record fixes, incidents, and promotion times so you can explain changes in the results. Wait until people have had the full time to return before judging repeat use.

If a critical step fails, follow your pause plan and explain what happens next. Once the campaign is stable, move to regular reviews and a support schedule the team can maintain.

Ask the same questions each week

Are the right people joining? Are they completing the main action and coming back? What are you spending, and where are people getting stuck?

Give each group the same amount of time to return before comparing results. Someone who joined yesterday has not had seven days to come back. Include the same types of cost each time you report performance.

Test a change you can learn from

Start with a problem you have observed. A confusing task may need clearer instructions. A difficult action may need a tutorial. A weak channel may need a different message.

Write what you expect the change to improve and when you will check. Avoid changing several major things at once. Compare similar groups where possible and note other events that could explain the result.

Give people a reason to return

Plan a fresh challenge, partner session, useful tutorial, or recognition for participants. Each addition should support the campaign goal.

Keep reminders relevant and respect opt-outs. Follow the published reward rules, preserve earned progress, and explain important changes.

Explain when each part ends

Tell participants when tasks close, when checks finish, and when reward claims expire. These may be different dates.

Review delayed actions and disputed results under the published rules. Track which rewards have been delivered and which still need attention. Keep a contact available for unresolved claims.

Compare results with your goal

Return to the target you set at the start. Report what happened, how many participants completed the action, and the full campaign cost. Explain any gaps in tracking. Use the same definitions you started with.

Divide the full campaign cost by the number of participants who reached each goal. First actions and repeat use answer different questions.

See what lasts after rewards end

Check whether people continue using the product after the incentive ends. Give the final participants their full time to complete or return before finishing the report.

Discuss what worked, what confused people, and what the team would change. Save the useful materials and lessons, thank contributors, and share an honest account of the results.

Decide whether another campaign makes sense

Did you reach the people you wanted? Did they take the action that mattered? Was the result worth the cost and team effort?

Repeat what worked, change what did not, or stop if the campaign has served its purpose. Sometimes improving onboarding or running an ongoing loyalty program is more useful than another season.

Explain what people keep

Decide what happens to points, achievements, tiers, and rankings. Explain what carries over and what resets before asking people to participate again.

Recognize returning participants while giving newcomers a fair starting point. Keep completed onboarding and useful history where possible, and follow through on outstanding rewards.

Use the gap to improve

Fix recurring problems, update instructions, and turn participant feedback into product improvements. Keep the community informed about what is happening.

Build the next brief around the product's current needs. Give people a fresh reason to participate and use the previous campaign's results to set a better-informed target.