Gift card delivery and emails
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Every gift card reaches its recipient by email. You decide who sends that email — Toki or your own email service — what it says, and when it goes out. You can set this up once for all gift cards, and still adjust the delivery of any single card later.
Choose who sends the email
Each gift card product has a Delivery Provider setting:
- Open Loyalty and scroll to Gift Card Products.
- Click Edit next to the product.
- Pick a Delivery Provider and click Save.
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Toki | Toki sends the gift card email using Toki's email service. |
| External | Toki sends events to your connected external email service (for example, Klaviyo) whenever a gift card is delivered or gifted. You then set up that service to send the emails. |
Two events are involved: Product Gift Card Delivered goes out for the recipient when the card is delivered, and Product Gift Card Gifted goes out for the buyer as soon as the card is issued, when the card is a gift. Toki sends them to the email and SMS tools you've connected: Attentive, Drip, Klaviyo, Listrak, Omnisend, Postscript, and Sendlane. For Listrak, enter a Listrak event ID for each of the two events when you set up Listrak on the Integrations page. The same events can also start an event-triggered campaign or a workflow in Toki. Toki sends these events with either delivery provider; External simply leaves the emailing to your service.
Each event carries what your email needs: the gift card code, the amount, its currency, and the personal message, if there is one. Product Gift Card Delivered also includes the buyer's name and email address when the card is a gift. Product Gift Card Gifted also includes the recipient's email address and the date and time the card is scheduled to be delivered, in UTC. The amount arrives as a plain number, with the currency as a separate three-letter code such as USD, so format it in your email tool. For the exact property names to use in your templates, see Toki events and properties in your email and SMS tools.
Want to send gift card emails through your own email service? Chat with us and we'll set it up with you.
Edit the gift card email
When the delivery provider is Toki, the email content comes from your store-level template:
- Open Loyalty and scroll to Email Settings.
- Next to Template settings, click Show.
- Open the Gift Cards tab.
- Edit the Gift Card Subject and Gift Card Template.
- Click Save.
The Sender Address and Sender Name in the same section control who the email appears to come from.
You can use these variables in the subject and template — Toki fills them in for each gift card:
| Variable | What it inserts |
|---|---|
{{code}} | The gift card code. |
{{amount}} | The gift card amount, formatted in your store currency. |
{{note}} | The buyer's personal message, if there is one. |
{{recipientEmail}} | The recipient's email address. |
{{domain}} | A link to your store. |
The Gift Card Subject and Gift Card Template fields show the email Toki sends. Until you edit them, they hold Toki's default email: a short subject line, and a message that lists the buyer's note, Code: {{code}}, and Amount: {{amount}} on separate lines.
Manage delivery for a single gift card
You can change the recipient, the email content, and the send time of any individual gift card:
- Open Loyalty and scroll to Gift Card Products.
- Click Edit next to the product.
- In the Gift Cards table, open the row's Actions menu and click Manage delivery.
The Manage Gift Card Delivery window shows the gift card code and lets you adjust:
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Recipient | Who receives the gift card email. Pick a different member here — useful when a recipient wants the card at another address. |
| Delivery method | Gift card settings (default) follows the product's Delivery Provider. Toki only, External only, and Both override it for this delivery: Toki's email, the Product Gift Card Delivered event, or both. Toki only and Both send Toki's email even when Assign customer to gift card is on. |
| Use existing email template | Checked, the email uses your store-level subject and template. Uncheck it to write a custom Email Subject and Email Template for this delivery only. They start out as "Your Gift Card" and "Your gift card code is: {{code}}". The custom template supports the same variables as above. |
| Send immediately | Checked, the email goes out right after you save. Uncheck it to pick a Delivery date instead. |
| Delivery date | The date and time the gift card email will be sent, in your timezone. |
A banner at the bottom of the window sums up exactly what will happen after you click Save — for example, "After saving, the gift card delivery will be processed immediately. The gift card's delivery settings will be used. The current email subject and template settings will be used."
How scheduling works
- The Deliver At column in the Gift Cards table shows when each card's email is scheduled to go out. The Manage Gift Card Delivery window also shows the Current delivery date with your timezone.
- Saving new delivery settings replaces the previous schedule. Only the latest settings count — the email is sent once, not twice.
- If you pick a delivery date in the past, the email is sent immediately after you save. The summary banner tells you before you commit.
- Toki delivers gift cards by email, so the recipient needs an email address on file. If a card was created for a member without one, set a recipient with an email address in the Manage Gift Card Delivery window.
Other emails around gift cards
- Buyer confirmation. When a customer buys a gift card for someone else and the delivery provider is Toki, the buyer also gets a confirmation email with the amount, the recipient, and the gift card code for their records.
- Assign customer to gift card. When this setting (in the Gift Card Products section) is on, Shopify sends its own notification to the assigned customer, so Toki leaves the emailing to Shopify — the recipient gets one email, not two.