Creating Gift Offers

Gift upsell offers are a powerful way to increase your average order value (AOV) by rewarding customers with free gifts when they reach specific spending thresholds. This guide walks you through how to create, customize, and launch a Gift upsell offer in your Shopify store.

What is a Gift Upsell Offer?

A Gift upsell offer lets you automatically reward customers with a free product when they spend a certain amount on your store. A floating widget appears across your site, encouraging shoppers to increase their cart value to unlock rewards.

Where to Create a Gift Upsell Offer

The Gift Upsell Offer is part of the Upsell Builder app. Setting up a Gift upsell offer takes just four steps:

Open the Upsell Builder app from your Vitals Homepage:
Click Create Offer:
Choose the Gift upsell offer:

This opens the gift offer editor. Everything is set up on a single page: your settings are grouped into cards, with a live preview of the widget beside them that updates as you make changes. The sections below walk through the cards from top to bottom.

Internal Name and Applies To: Select Qualifying Products

At the top of the page, give the offer an Internal name. Only you see it in your Vitals dashboard, so pick something that helps you recognize the offer later.

Then, in the Applies to card, choose which products count toward the spending goal:

All products: every product in your store counts
Specific products or collections: click Browse to pick individual products or collections
Exclude specific products or collections: keep certain products or collections out of the offer, even if they match your selection above

You can select up to 90 products and up to 90 collections, and the same limits apply to exclusions. If you need more, group the products into a Shopify collection, publish it to the Online Store, and select (or exclude) that collection instead.

💡 Tip: This card defines what counts toward the spending threshold—not the gift itself (that comes in the Gifts card).

Schedule: Choose When the Offer Runs and Who Sees It

In the Schedule card, choose when the offer goes live:

Immediately: the offer starts as soon as you publish it
Schedule: pick a Timezone, Start date and Start time for the offer to start

Check Set end date to have the offer stop automatically on a date and time you choose. Leave it unchecked to keep the offer running until you turn it off.

If your store sells through Shopify Markets, the Visibility section lets you show the offer in All markets, Specific markets, or All markets except the ones you pick.

Under Exclude from this offer, you can hide the gift offer from certain customers:

Shopify B2B customers: hides the offer from customers who are logged in and buying for a company through Shopify B2B, so free gifts stay with your direct-to-consumer shoppers
Customers with specific tags: click Add tags and choose the Shopify customer tags to exclude. Customers with any of these tags won't see the offer

Excluded customers don't see the floating gift widget and don't get the gift discount at checkout. Both settings are off by default, and customers are only recognized once they're logged in to their account, so guests always see the offer.

Gifts: Set Spending Goals and Gift Tiers

In the Gifts card, define how much customers need to spend and what they receive in return.

Start with the settings at the top of the card:

Gift label: the discount name customers see in their cart and at checkout. This field is required.
Calculate discount from: choose Price or Compare-at price. This decides which price is shown crossed out next to the free gift in the widget; the gift itself is free either way. If a product doesn't have a compare-at price, its regular price is used.
Automatically add gift to cart: when enabled, the free gift is added to the cart automatically once the spending goal is met. Otherwise, customers claim it with the button in the gift widget.

Gift distribution

Once your offer has more than one tier, choose how many gifts a customer can claim:

Best gift only: Customers can claim one gift from any qualifying tier. With auto-add enabled, the highest tier's gift is added and upgraded as higher tiers unlock.
One gift from each level: Customers can claim a gift from every tier they qualify for.

Create Gift Tiers

Click Add another gift level to add a tier. You can create up to 10 tiers, allowing you to reward higher spending with better gifts.

Each tier includes:

Spending goal: Minimum cart value required
Gift products: One or more items customers can receive (click Browse to pick them)
Quantity: Number of gift items awarded

If multiple gift products are added, customers can choose one from a dropdown. To copy a tier, click the duplicate icon on its row; to remove it, click the delete icon.

The floating gift widget is what customers see while shopping. It updates in real time as they progress toward rewards. You set its color theme, countdown and text in the Widget card, and its position, display and styling in the appearance editor.

Color theme

Choose a preset Color theme (for example Black, Gold, Blue or Pink). It sets the color of the gift icon and claim button on your storefront.

Countdown timer

Check Add countdown timer and enter a Title to show a countdown in the widget. The countdown ends at the offer's end date, so the checkbox is only available after you set an end date in the Schedule card.

Widget text

Customize the text for each stage of the customer journey:

At 0%: before spending begins
Between 1 - 99%: while progressing toward the goal
At 100%: when the goal is reached
Reminder to claim the gift in the Cart page
Gift claimed: after the gift is added to the cart

Customize appearance

At the bottom of the Widget card, click Customize appearance to open the full-screen appearance editor. It has its own preview, where you can switch between desktop and mobile.

Position: choose the side of the screen (Left or Right) and the Distance from top, in pixels or percentage
Display options: under Show on, pick the Pages (Product, Homepage, Collection, Cart) and Devices (Desktop & tablet, Mobile) where the widget appears. You can also turn on Show widget on non-product pages when goal is at 0% and Show dismiss button. Once a customer dismisses the widget, it stays hidden until the spending goal is reached.
Appearance: set the Accent color, icon and Text size. If the countdown timer is on, you can also set its alignment, size, background and text colors here.
Custom CSS: add your own CSS for advanced styling

Position, pages and devices are shared settings: they apply to all your gift offers, not just this one.

Publish Your Offer

There's no separate review step: all your settings stay on the same page, and the preview shows how the widget will look. When you're ready, use the buttons in the editor:

Publish: makes the offer live, or schedules it if you chose Schedule in the Schedule card
Save as draft: saves your changes without publishing the offer

The offer can't be saved until the Internal name and Gift label are filled in.

After Publishing

Once your offer is live:

It will appear in your Upsell Builder dashboard
You can edit it anytime in the same single-page editor
A live preview updates in real time as you make changes
The More actions menu at the top of the editor lets you Duplicate the offer, Translate it (when your store has more than one language), or open its Analytics

Best Practices for Gift Upsell Offers

Use tiered rewards to encourage higher spending
Choose relevant gifts that complement purchased products
Keep thresholds realistic to avoid discouraging customers
Enable auto-add for a smoother customer experience
Test messaging to maximize conversions

Why Use Gift Upsells?

Gift upsell offers help you:

Increase average order value (AOV)
Improve conversion rates
Enhance customer satisfaction
Create a more engaging shopping experience

By following this guide, you can quickly launch a high-converting Gift upsell offer that motivates customers to spend more while delivering added value.

💡 Our gift app was not thought out for offering a $0 item as a gift.

The app's purpose is to offer a Gift that actually has value, but is discounted to $0 when your gift upsell condition is true.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q: Is the Gift provided automatically to the customers after they meet the criteria?

A: Not by default. If you would like the gift to be automatically added when its requirements are met, enable the option "Automatically add gift to cart" while creating the Gift upsell offer in Vitals.
Q: What happens if I have two Gift offers on different collections (e.g. Winter and Spring) and a customer meets both spending goals?

A: Both gifts activate. Each Gift offer tracks spending independently based on its own eligible products, so qualifying for one does not block the other. The floating widget displays all active offers together, and the customer can claim gifts from both. If auto-add is enabled on both offers, both gifts are added to the cart automatically.
Q: What happens if I have two Gift offers on the same eligible products?

A: The same cart spending counts toward both offers independently. If a customer spends enough to meet both thresholds, both gifts become available. The widget shows both offers, and the customer can claim both. With auto-add enabled, both gifts are added automatically for tiered offers. For non-tiered offers, the offer with the higher spending threshold is auto-added first; the customer can still claim the other gift manually.