Getting Started with Offers
The Sparkfly Platform provides a full lifecycle for promotions and rewards from creation to distribution to settlement. The platform integrates in real-time at the point-of-sale and provides item level discounting and tracking. The capabilities of the Sparkfly Platform are available through the use of various APIs.
API Reference
Looking for the complete API reference? You can find it here: Offers API Reference
Terminology / Conceptual Overview
Offers
The core entity within the Sparkfly Platform is the Offer. An Offer represents a promotion or reward that can be issued to a customer and redeemed at the point-of-sale. Offers can be configured with various parameters such as discount type, value, validity period, and usage limits.
Offers are managed through the Sparkfly Portal, which provides a user-friendly interface for creating and managing Offers.
Campaigns
A Campaign is a sub-entity of an Offer that represents a distribution channel, marketing initiative, or specific targeting criteria for an Offer.
Item Management
The Sparkfly Platform provides robust item management capabilities, allowing users to create and manage Item Sets and Items. Item Sets are collections of related items that can be used for targeting Offers, while Items represent a specific mapping to a product or SKU at the point-of-sale. These entities enable granular control over which products are eligible for specific Offers.
Members
The Member entity represents a customer within the Sparkfly Platform. A member can represent an identified or anonymous customer. Members are the root entity for managing customer-specific data and interactions within the platform. Key components of the Member entity include:
- Offer States: Offers that have been distributed to the member and are available for redemption (also known as Offer States).
- Offer Activities: Records of Offer-related actions taken by or on behalf of the member, such as offer issuance, redemption, and expiration.
- Member Profile: Information about the member, such as personal details and preferences.
- Loyalty Enrollments: Records of the member's participation in loyalty programs when using Sparkfly Loyalty.
Offer States
The Offer State represents an instance of an Offer that has been issued to a Member.
Credentials
A Credential is a text-based identifier associated with a Member intended for use at the point-of-sale. There are two types of Credentials:
- Offer Credential: A string of text associated with a specific Offer and Member. In most cases, this can be thought of us a coupon code. All offers issued to a member will have a unique Offer Credential that is used to identify and redeem that specific Offer at the point-of-sale.
- Loyalty Credential: A string of text associated with a Member for the purpose of identifying a member at the point-of-sale, typically for loyalty program participation. These special credentials are not tied to any specific Offer, but rather to the Member as a whole, allowing the Member to access all Offers issued to them with a single identifier. Examples of these are:
- Phone Number
- Email Address
- Membership Number