Getting Started with Distributions

The Distribution Manager helps you automate communication with your customers. You can publish and distribute your promo codes and share promotion updates. With a couple of clicks, you can set multi-channel distribution that responds to your customers' actions. Everything is managed straight from the dashboard. 

In this guide, we'll go through the Distribution Manager features to show you the distribution essentials and workflow.


  1. Glossary
  2. How does it work?
  3. Distribution Setup


Here are the key definitions you need to grasp to understand how distributions work.


Defines the process of creating a messaging workflow in the Distribution Manager. It comes down to defining message details such as audience, message trigger, purpose, and channel. 

Distribution Manager

Manager enables you to set up distribution. To open the Manager, go to the Distributions tab in your dashboard and click on the Plus in the top-right corner.


The publication is an action of assigning a unique code to a particular customer. 


The message means pushing out data from Voucherify to the end-customer or other application. Message limit in the pricing refers to all distributions that use our API to call your application. 


Action that results in sending the message. You can choose from many triggers to define automatic communication workflows (customer entered or left segment, order status has changed, code was published, the reward was redeemed, and more). 

Automatic Distribution

Trigger-based distribution. Messages are sent in response to a predefined action (trigger) like code redemption or a new customer in the segment. 

Manual Distribution

Manual distribution is a one-time action. Messages are sent once you finish distribution setup in the Manager and confirm with Save and Send.

Anti-SPAM Policy

By subscribing to the Voucherify Service, you accept to use it in compliance with the Voucherify Anti-spam Policy

Trial Messages Limit

Each trial account has a security limit on messages that can be sent. If you want to unlock the limit, send a request to our Support Team. To get the limit unlocked, you will have to describe the purpose of using distributions and add your company's name and address in the Brand Details section in your Project Settings.

Marketing Consent

If you collect marketing consents from your customers, the Distribution Manager lets you define which are required to send the message. As a result, only customers who have the given marketing permission checked in Voucherify will receive a message. 


Webhooks allow external services to be notified when certain events happen. You can use webhook as a distribution channel and push a message to the given webhook every time distribution is triggered. 

Custom event

Custom events are actions taken by your customers that you track in your application or website and pass to Voucherify using our API.


The audience defines message receivers. In some distributions, the audience is determined by the distribution trigger. 

Customer segment

Segments group customers using standard attributes (email, postal code, and many more) and custom attributes added as metadata. You can also use custom events and system attributes to create segment criteria. Segments are used in validation rules and distributions to define the campaign/distribution audience. 

Segment syncing

When you create a new segment, you'll see a syncing status next to its name. Syncing means checking if your existing customers meet criteria of the new segment. When syncing is done, you can see SYNCED status next to the segment name. In manual distribution, messages are sent 10 minutes after the syncing is completed. 

How does it work?

Creating a distribution in the Distribution Manager is a 4-step process:

  1. Choose a trigger to send messages automatically or manual mode to send a message(s) right away.
  2. Define distribution conditions (name, purpose, audience).
  3. Use marketing consents to group your audience (optional).
  4. Choose a channel and design your template.


You can choose between the following distribution purposes:

  1. Notify customers about promotion  share details of the particular in-cart promotion (promotion tier).
  2. Send and publish unique codes from the campaign  each receiver gets a unique code from the chosen campaign assigned (published) automatically to their profile.
  3. Send a plain message to customers  plain message with no promo codes included. 


If you send a manual message, your audience can be a customer segment or a single customer. In automatic distribution, the audience is determined by a message trigger:

  • Customer entered or left the segment

In the case of segment-based distribution, chosen segment operates as your audience. 

When you send unique codes from a campaign that is limited to a particular segment by validation rules, you'll see that segment in the Manager. Mark the checkbox if you want to send messages in response to changes in the segment used in the campaign validation rules.

  • Voucher-based triggers (gift credits added, loyalty points added, voucher redeemed, voucher redemption rollback, reward redemption)

The audience is limited to customers who perform the triggering action using the codes from the chosen campaign. For example, if the trigger is v oucher redeemed, a customer gets a message once he/she redeems code from a particular campaign added to the distribution setup:

  • Order status changes

Changes in order status determine the audience. Every customer whose order status changes as defined in the distribution gets the message. 

  • Successful code publication

The message gets to a customer in response to a code publication. The audience is limited to customers who will get the unique code published to their account (code from a particular campaign). 


Voucherify supports multi-channel delivery. While setting up distribution, you can choose the following integrations and built-in channels:

  • Email using Voucherify as your email provider
  • Email using external provider (SendGrid, Mandrill, Mailgun)
  • SMS (Twilio, CM Telecom, Textlocal)
  • ActiveCampaign
  • Braze
  • MailChimp
  • Intercom
  • Webhook

Note that not all channels entail sending a message to end-customers. It's up to you if the Voucherify messages will be sent directly to the end-customers or the 3rd party applications of your choice. For example, after choosing MailChimp or Braze channel, messages won't be sent to the end-customers. Distribution transfers codes to customer profiles in the respective external application, and then you can forward them to your end-users.

Message editor

Voucherify is equipped with a messages editor to customize your emails and text messages. You can choose between a simple template or a configurable flyer that gives you a much wider scope for personalization. 

Here are email customization options:

  • A text editor (font effects, font size, links, text layout). 
  • Variables (e.g., customer name, QR code, loyalty score, referral reward, customer cockpit, reward value, and many more).
  • Dividers (width, color).
  • Footer (custom information, text, colors).

Email Designer

Enterprise clients get even more options for customization, such as custom HTML email templates.

Distribution Setup

Setting up the distribution starts from running the Manager. Go to the Distributions and click the plus. 

Now, decide whether you want to set up manual or automatic distribution.

Manual Distribution

Manual distribution delivers messages once you confirm its settings with Save and send. Please note that each manual distribution is sent with a 10-minute delay, so you can introduce edits or stop the message delivery within this time. 

If you chose a customer segment as your audience, 10 minutes countdown starts when the segment is fully synced. Syncing ends once all customers were validated against segment criteria. Syncing status is displayed next to the segment name so you can monitor if the segment is already synced or if syncing is in progress.

In Distribution conditions, set the name, define the purpose and choose your audience. Manual distribution delivers messages to a single customer (2) or all customers from the chosen segment (1). 

Automatic Distribution

Automatic distribution can trigger a message in response to one of the following actions:

1. Changes in a chosen customer segment:

  • Customer entered segment 
  • Customer left segment

2. Voucher-related activity:

  • Gift credits added 
  • Loyalty points added
  • Voucher redeemed
  • Voucher redemption rollback
  • Reward redemption

3. Cart-related activity (once your order data are synchronized with Voucherify, distribution can respond to changes in customers' orders):

  • Order created
  • Order update  
  • Order has been paid
  • Order canceled

4. Successful code publication – the message is sent once the code from a campaign is assigned to a customer.

After choosing the trigger, the Manager directs you to the Distribution Conditions. You can name distribution, choose the message purpose and audience

Whether you choose manual or automatic mode, you can set up Marketing Consents when Distribution conditions are ready.  


Using Consents, you can set which marketing permissions are required to send messages (1) or disable consents' verification (2).

Channels choice & messages

The next step is about channel(s) configuration. First, enable channel settings as in the screen below. Note that you can enable many channels within a single distribution.

The detailed message setup depends on the chosen channel. Please go to the dedicated tutorial to see how to configure the message:

After you confirm distribution, manual messages will be sent with a 10-minute delay, whereas automatic distribution will be triggered every time a customer performs the required action. 


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