Nearby reminders: your card shows up when customers are at your door

How do Apple Wallet and Google Wallet handle it differently?

Both wallets accept up to 10 locations per card. The difference is who writes the alert.

In Apple Wallet you write a proximity message for each branch, and iOS shows it with the card. In Google Wallet, BTAQA sends only the branch coordinates, and Google decides the alert radius and wording. For the Apple side in detail, read the Apple Wallet loyalty card guide.

• Apple Wallet: up to 10 locations, each with your own message.
• Google Wallet: up to 10 locations, with Google's radius and wording.
• On both, the phone decides when to show the card, not the merchant.

How do you write a proximity message people open?

BTAQA caps the proximity message at 30 characters, because a lock screen only has room for a short line. Every word has to give a reason to come in now.

Lead with the reward, not your shop name, and give each branch its own message if its crowd is different. A mall branch and a neighborhood branch rarely want the same line.

Each location has one message for every card language, so write it in the language most of that branch's customers read. The field accepts emoji, inside the same 30 characters.

• Start with the benefit: "Your next stamp is here" beats a generic welcome.
• Write it the way you'd greet a regular at the door.
• Skip the pressure. Nobody asked for an ad.

What happens when you add or edit a branch?

Your locations belong to your account, not to a single card. Every active location with coordinates goes onto all the loyalty cards you issue, so you set a branch up once and every card uses it.

Saving a location does not send an update to cards that are already in customers' wallets. Cards added after you save carry the new list right away. A card already saved in Apple Wallet picks up the list on its next update, for example when the customer collects a stamp or redeems a reward. On Google Wallet the list sits on the card's program, and it refreshes the next time a new customer adds that card.

So add a new branch a few days before it opens, and expect existing customers to get the reminder over their next visits, not on the same day.

• Turning Active off takes the location off the card at its next update and keeps it saved in your list.
• The form won't save a location without coordinates, so always pick the branch from the search results.
• Edit opens a location so you can change its name, message, or place on the map.

How do nearby reminders work for a cafe, car wash, or barbershop?

Nearby reminders pay off where customers pass you without coming in. The moment differs by business, so fit the message to the place.

Once the customer walks in, the visit runs as usual: they open the card from the lock screen, and your staff scans it with the BTAQA scanner app to add the stamp.

• A coffee shop in a mall: the card shows up as shoppers walk past the branch, with a line like "Your next stamp is here".
• A car wash on a main road: drivers pass it every day, and the reminder lands when a wash is one turn away.
• A barbershop with several branches: each branch gets its own message, so customers know the card works at the one nearby.

How do nearby reminders fit with your other notifications?

A nearby reminder only reaches customers close to a branch, and the phone alone decides when. When you want to reach every cardholder at a moment you choose, wherever they are, use push campaigns.

Messages that run on their own, such as a welcome, a birthday greeting, or a win-back for customers who stopped visiting, belong to automated notifications.

Because the phone builds the reminder from data already stored on the card, BTAQA sends nothing at that moment, so it doesn't use any of your 3 daily push campaign sends.