Designing a program

  • Updated

The following article will walk you through the steps needed to create your own program with SheerID.

Each program represents a single, gated offer targeted toward a specific consumer community (also known as a segment) and protected by a verification flow.

For example, you may have a program that verifies whether a visitor to your website is a student, and if so, provides a 15% discount on merchandise. If you also wanted to offer a 15% discount to verified first responders, this would be a second program.

You can create unlimited programs with SheerID.

Creating an account

Before you can get started creating programs with SheerID, you'll need to register an account.

If you've been working with a member of SheerID's Sales team, you may already have an account created. If you're not sure what it is or how to access it, reach out to your SheerID contact to inquire.

If you don't have an existing SheerID account and you're planning to create programs on your own, you can register an account for free using these instructions.

Once you have registered an account, log in at https://my.sheerid.com to begin building a SheerID program in MySheerID.

Selecting a segment

The first step in creating a program is to determine which segment you would like to target with your gated offer. These include Student, Military, First Responder, and others as shown in the image below.

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Click on the offer card for your chosen segment.

For this walkthrough, we have selected Student.

Defining your offer

Once you have selected the consumer segment you wish to target, the next step is to determine the offer's eligibility details.

Countries and language

The first step on this page is to select the countries and language in which you wish to make your offer available.

Each program can support up to 3 countries and be displayed in 1 language.

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Eligibility subsegments

Each consumer segment supports a predefined set of subsegments. By default, new programs will have the most popular applicable subsegments selected.

Our recommended best practice is to be as inclusive as possible (i.e., select as many subsegments as possible) in the offer definitions in order to reach the broadest possible audience. This is also useful in avoiding negative sentiment from consumers who unexpectedly find themselves excluded from a community during the verification process.

If you wish to narrow down your offer, you may deselect eligible subsegments beneath the “Eligible student status” heading.

In our example program above, high school students who have been accepted into college are excluded from receiving the gated offer.

Based on your subsegment selections, the program will automatically update the following:

  • The selectable organizations in the verification form.
  • The data sources used to instantly verify consumers.
  • The document review rules applied to your program.

When you are satisfied with your offer's eligibility details, press Next to save your progress and move to the next section.

What is your offer?

Define the discount that will be provided to eligible consumers.

This section will define either a specific dollar value or a percentage discount for your offer, as well as the discount method – Discount Code or Account Linking.

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Discount value

Use the Discount value toggle to select Percentage off or Fixed amount, then enter the numerical value of your offer into the next field. This field is required, but if your offer does not fit these parameters (e.g. special access, free shipping, etc.) you can edit the messaging during the publishing step.

For this walkthrough, we've configured the offer to have a "20% off" discount.

Discount method

The discount method you choose will determine how a consumer will ultimately redeem your offer.

Select Discount Codes if you would like to give every customer that successfully verifies a discount code. You can choose:

  • One code for all eligible customers. The same code is given to all verified customers (e.g. "LABORDAY-20"). This is the simplest option, but also the least secure type of promo code as it is an easy target for discount abuse.
  • Unique, single-use codes. Each verified customer receives a unique code (e.g. XYRC-0905-LPRF) pulled from a list of codes you have uploaded to your program until all codes are exhausted. Codes should be alphanumeric, and uploaded as a .CSV file with each code in a separate row.

You must define your discount code or upload codes in order to move to the next step if you have selected Discount Codes.

Select Account Linking if you'd like to update customer profiles in your database with verification data. Account Linking is the best reward method if you have an existing rewards program or account login process.

When you choose Account Linking, you must provide the URL where you want SheerID to POST verification data for eligible and ineligible events.

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Press Next to save your progress and continue building your program when you have defined your discount value and method.

Customizing the experience

In the Text, Theme, and Codes sections of MySheerID, you can customize the look and feel of your program's verification flow in order to better align with your own brand guidelines.

Customizing text

In the Text section, you can choose to edit Basic or Advanced text fields to customize the messaging that consumers will encounter during the following steps of the verification flow:

Basic

  • Collect Personal Info
  • Success

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Advanced

  • SSO
  • Email Loop
  • Document Upload
  • Countdown
  • Document Upload Pending
  • Document Upload Limit Exceeded

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By default, all text fields are prefilled with our recommended copy.

If you've chosen to narrow the scope of eligibility, you should also update the messaging under the Collect Personal Info heading to clearly and succinctly state the conditions of eligibility.

For example, if you have only selected the "Full + part time college students" subsegment as being eligible, you should update the text under Collect Personal Info to read something like, "Verify you're a student at a degree-granting school."

Read through each field and update any you'd like to better reflect your brand's messaging.

As you edit the fields, the form preview on the right side of the screen will update to reflect your changes.

Once you are satisfied with the content, click Next.

Customizing the theme

Design

In the Theme section, you can do each of the following under the Design tab:

  • Upload a logo for your program
  • Select from 5 web-friendly fonts
  • Customize your lightbox and font colors to match your branding (via color picker or hexadecimal codes)

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To upload your logo, click the Upload Logo box, and select a .png, .jpg, or .gif logo file that is 1MB or less. You can delete the logo and upload a new one at any time by navigating back to the Theme section of your program.

To preview what consumers will see in different stages of the verification flow, you can click on the Collect, Success, and Upload links above the lightbox on the righthand side.

Custom CSS

For a higher level of customization, click the Custom CSS tab and make changes to the lightbox directly via CSS code. 

Changes made in the Custom CSS tab will cascade, layering on top of and potentially changing any previously completed work done through the Design tab. Be sure to thoroughly test the final rendered styles.

Once you are satisfied with the content, click Next.

Overview

Before you publish your offer, you'll need to decide how to integrate the offer into your website or webstore. SheerID offers three ways to install your program:

  • Modal. Make use of a modal lightbox to present the offer in a pop-up window when the relevant button is clicked on your webpage. We provide the code snippet that can be copied and pasted into your current webpage code.
  • Embedded. This option will allow you to embed the offer as an iFrame within an existing brand webpage you own. We provide the code snippet that can be copied and pasted into your current webpage code.
  • New Page. Present the offer in a new, standalone landing page hosted by SheerID. This option provides a discrete URL toward which your marketing can point toward. If choosing this method, be sure to confirm the copy for this webpage matches your branding and offer, as it will default to our best-practice messaging.
  • None of the above. If none of the options presented meet your needs, as an example you can use your direct program URL. The URL format is https://services.sheerid.com/verify/YOUR_PROGRAM_ID/. Reach out to SheerID Product Support if you have questions.

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Once you've selected the method you'd like to use to publish the offer, your program will successfully be created. Additional details on publishing programs are available here.

It is recommended that you fully test your program before going live with it. Instructions for testing your program and pushing it live can be found here.