6 Magento 2 Gift Card Email Notifications: How to make each one work harder

If you’re running Mageplaza’s Gift Card extension, you’ve probably already turned on email notifications. The gift card arrives, the sender gets a confirmation, and everyone moves on.

But “turned on” and “working well” are two different things. Gift card emails land at some of the highest-intent moments in the customer journey: someone just paid for a gift, someone just received money to spend in your store, or someone is about to lose a balance they forgot about. Each of these emails is a chance to bring a customer back or to quietly lose them. The stakes aren’t small: Bankrate’s 2024 survey found 43% of U.S. adults are holding at least one unused gift card, and one in five has let a card expire.

This article assumes your notifications are already configured. If they aren’t, the delivery configuration guide covers the setup. Come back here once that’s done.

Below: every email the extension sends, what each one is actually for, and what to change so it does its job.

The 6 emails at a glance

Each email has its own template selector under Email Configuration, so you can — and should — customize them independently. Don’t reuse one template for all six.

1. Gift Card Email: the one that matters most

This is the email that carries the code, the sender’s name and message, and a link back to your store. It’s the email most likely to produce a purchase, so it deserves the most attention.

What to change:

• Code and “Shop now” button above the fold. Recipients open this email to get one thing. Don’t bury it under a header image and three paragraphs of copy.

• Give the sender’s message visual space. The personal note is what makes this feel like a gift rather than a coupon. Larger type, its own block, the sender’s name clearly attached.

• State balance and expiry date plainly. “$50 · valid until March 15, 2027”. An expiry date is a reason to act now.

• One line on how to redeem. “Enter this code in the Gift Card box at checkout”. It cuts the most common first-time-recipient support ticket. If you’ve enabled Check Gift Card Code Status on the frontend, link to that page too so recipients can verify balance and expiry without contacting you.

• Check what the recipient actually sees if Hidden Code is on. Gift Code Hidden Configuration masks part of the code in the sender’s copy. Make sure the recipient’s email still shows the full code — send yourself a test.

• Follow up on the drop-off. Recipients who click through, add to cart, and leave without checking out are the warmest leads you have — an abandoned cart email that mentions their gift card balance is a natural second touch.

• Verify scheduled delivery before peak season. If buyers can pick a delivery date, cron does the sending. A card that arrives two days after a birthday is worse than no card. If you don’t have visibility into cron, the Cron Schedule extension logs every run.

2. Sender Confirmation: close the loop for the buyer

Gift card buyers can’t see whether the recipient got the card. This email removes that anxiety while reaching someone who has just proven they’ll spend money in your store.

What to change:

• Lead with the facts: recipient name, the address it went to, amount, date and time sent. That’s the whole reason they’ll open it.

• Don’t show the full code. The sender doesn’t need it, and a code in two inboxes is twice the leak risk. This is exactly what Hidden Code Configuration is for.

• Add one soft cross-sell line. “Treat yourself too” with a link to a curated collection. One line, not a product grid.

• Anticipate the follow-up question. “Didn’t arrive? Reply to this email or contact us and we’ll resend it”. Resending is an admin action (Manage Gift Codes > Send), so give the buyer a clear path to you rather than a self-serve button that doesn’t exist.

3. Gift Card Update Notification: keep card owners engaged

Customers opt into this from My Account > My Gift Card > Notification Setting. That means everyone receiving it has asked for these updates, making this a valuable audience that many stores underuse.

What to change:

• Say exactly what changed. “Balance is now $35.00 (was $50.00)” is useful. “Your gift card has been updated” is noise.

• Deep-link to My Gift Card, not the homepage.

• Promote the opt-in. Most customers never see the Notification Setting checkbox. Add a line to email #1: “Want alerts when your balance changes? Turn them on in My Gift Card”. Opt-in rates for this email depends on by whether you mention it.

4. Before Expired Notification: recover balances before they’re lost

Expiring balances are found money for the store where the law allows it, but they’re also a real source of complaints: 20% of U.S. adults have let a gift card expire. A well-timed reminder converts “I didn’t know” into a purchase.

What to change:

• Set the window to match your purchase cycle. Around 14 days can be a practical starting point, then adjust based on actual redemption behavior.
• Urgency, not guilt. “Your $50 gift card expires on March 15” beats “You still haven’t used your gift card.”
• Remaining balance and exact expiry date as merge variables. Both should be in the template, not written in by hand.
• One CTA, pointed at a category page, not the homepage. Give them somewhere to spend it.
• Remember the same day count drives the SMS reminder if SMS delivery is on. Changing one changes both.

5. Gift Card Unused Notification: nudge the gift-giver

The least-used notification and probably the most underrated. It tells the buyer that the recipient hasn’t used the card yet, putting the buyer in a position to do something about it.

What to change:

• Frame it as helpful, not as surveillance. “Just a heads up — the gift card you sent Sarah hasn’t been used yet. A quick reminder from you might help!”

• Don’t fire it too early. Consider starting around 30 days after delivery, then adjust based on how quickly recipients typically redeem their cards.

• Give them something to do. Include the recipient’s name and the gift card amount so the buyer can send their own reminder, and add a line offering to resend the card if it went to the wrong address. Since that’s a support request, link to your contact page.

• Be careful with bulk orders. Buyers sending dozens of gift cards may not want a separate unused reminder for every card.

6. Customer Balance Update Notification: for Gift Card Credit

This is different from #3. Gift Card Update is about a specific card; this is about the customer’s store credit balance. If you don’t use Gift Card Credit, ignore this one.

What to change:

• Show the transaction, not just the new balance. “+$50.00 from redeeming card ABC-XXXX. New balance: $75.00”.

• Link straight to checkout or a collection. Someone who just redeemed credit is often ready to spend it.

• Keep it to three lines. It’s a receipt, not a campaign.

Fixes that apply to all six

Customize every template. The defaults work, but they’re generic. Duplicate each Mageplaza gift card template under Marketing > Email Templates, edit the copy, and assign the new version to the matching email.

Write subject lines that say what’s inside. “You’ve received a $50 gift card from Anna” beats “Gift Card Notification”. “Your $50 gift card expires in 14 days” beats “Reminder”.

Use one consistent sender identity. Pick one of the five Magento senders and use it for all six emails. Inconsistent “From” names hurt deliverability and confuse recipients.

Fix deliverability. Gift card emails are high-value and time-sensitive; if they hit spam, the whole feature fails silently. Gmail’s sender guidelines require SPF or DKIM for every sender, and both plus DMARC above 5,000 messages a day. The free Mageplaza SMTP extension handles authenticated sending and keeps a log so you can confirm each gift card email actually went out.

Design for the phone. Most of these emails are opened on mobile. The code must be selectable, the button tappable, and nothing critical inside an image that may not load.

Test with a real order. Buy a gift card product on your own store, walk through every email that should fire, and read each one as the recipient would. Fifteen minutes, and it catches most of the problems above.

Measure whether it’s working

Optimizing without measuring is guessing. Three things to set up:

• UTM-tag every link in the six templates (utm_source=giftcard&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=before_expired, etc.). You’ll see in Google Analytics which email drives sessions and revenue.

• Watch the Gift Card Report on each gift card product (enable revenue statistics for each Gift Card product in configuration). Amount Used vs. Total Balance tells you your redemption rate, which the Before Expired and Unused emails are designed to improve.

• Check the SMTP email log after peak periods to confirm it sends match orders. A gap here is a cron or deliverability problem, not a copy problem.

Re-check these a month after any template or timing change. If redemption doesn’t move, change one variable at a time, such as window length, subject line, or CTA destination, and compare.

FAQ

Can I use a different template for each of the six emails?

Yes. Each notification has its own template selector in Email Configuration. Create the new template under Marketing > Email Templates, then assign it to the matching field. You don’t have to change all six at once — start with the Gift Card Email, since it has the most impact.

Why did the recipient’s gift card email arrive later than expected?

If the buyer chooses a delivery date, the card is sent by cron on that date (in the timezone the buyer selected, if that option is enabled). If cron isn’t running reliably, the email waits. Check your cron schedule first; the code itself is created at invoice or order completion, so the delay is almost always on the sending side.

Why didn’t the Unused Notification fire for a gift code I created manually in the backend?

It only applies to gift codes generated from an order. Codes created by admin in Manage Gift Codes or from a Gift Code Pool don’t trigger it, even if the balance is untouched.

Does the Before Expired email go out for every gift card?

Only for cards that have an expiry date. If Gift Card Lifetime is blank (or Expires At is empty on a manually created code), the card never expires and the reminder never sends. Cards that already have status Used, Inactive, or Cancelled are also skipped.

Customers say they never got the Gift Card Update or Balance Update email.

Those two are opt-in on the customer side, under My Account > My Gift Card > Notification Setting. If the box isn’t checked, nothing sends regardless of your backend setting. Mention the opt-in in the Gift Card Email so more customers turn it on.

Can I get a copy of every gift card email that goes out?

Yes. Enter one or more internal addresses in the Send To field of Email Configuration and each delivered gift card email is also sent there. It’s the easiest way for a support team to see exactly what a customer received.

Wrapping up

Six emails, each arriving at a moment when the customer is already thinking about your store. Turning them on was step one. Making each one specific, useful, and easy to act on, then measuring the results, is where the real value comes from. If you need help customizing templates or troubleshooting delivery, Mageplaza support is available.