Why aren't customers earning loyalty points?

If your customers aren’t earning loyalty points, or aren’t getting points after a purchase, this guide covers the most common causes and how to find and fix them.

Customers may sometimes not earn loyalty points as expected. This can happen for several reasons, including configuration settings, exclusions, or integration issues.

This guide outlines the most common causes and provides steps to help you identify and resolve the issue quickly.

Before you get started

Have ready:
- The customer's email address or mobile number
- The order number, order date, and where the order was placed (online or in-store, and which store location)
- How many points the customer expected to earn
Check App Status to rule out an outage first.

Before proceeding, review the following checks. If any of these are disabled, you may experience:

Orders not syncing to Marsello
Points not being awarded
Customers being unable to redeem rewards

Check that your sales platform is connected

In Marsello, go to Settings > Integrations > Sales Platforms.
Review each store location connected to your loyalty program.
Ensure the toggle is switched on.
If it’s off, turn it on and save your changes.

If the integration is disabled, orders will not sync and points will not be awarded.

Check that your loyalty program is active

If your loyalty program is paused, customers will not earn points.

Go to Loyalty in your Marsello dashboard.
Confirm the program status is set to Active.
If it is paused or disabled, turn it back on.

Check that your customer portal is enabled

The customer portal allows customers to log in, view points, and redeem rewards.

Go to Customer Experience > Personal Device > Customer Portal.
Confirm the toggle is switched on.

If the portal is disabled, customers will not be able to access their points or rewards.

A common reason customers aren’t earning points is that one of these settings is turned off. If your sales platform, loyalty program, or customer portal is disabled, orders won’t sync and customers won’t be able to earn or redeem rewards.

Why are loyalty points showing in the Marsello dashboard but not in the customer portal?

Sometimes a customer’s loyalty points look correct in your Marsello dashboard but aren’t reflected accurately in the customer portal. This usually happens because the portal is showing an older version of the page, the customer is logged in to a different profile, or you’re comparing two different points totals.

How to check

Confirm the email address. In your Marsello admin, go to Customers and search for the email address the customer uses to log in to the portal. Marsello matches customers by email address, so a different email means a separate profile with its own points balance.
Look for a duplicate profile. In Customers, change the filter to Including removed and search by the customer’s name and mobile number. If you find a second profile, the points may be on one profile while the customer is viewing the other.
Compare the right totals. Points balance is what the customer can spend right now. Points collected is the total they’ve ever earned. It doesn’t go down when they redeem rewards, when points expire, or when a refund removes points.

How to fix

Ask the customer to refresh their account by logging out of the Marsello Customer Portalaccount and then logging back in. This action often resolves sync issues and displays the correct points balance.

📝 Note: While outages may occasionally delay point updates, the backend typically maintains an accurate record.

Is the customer an active loyalty program member?

📝 Note:

Only active customers in your Marsello database can earn points and redeem rewards. Follow the steps below to confirm the customer’s status.

Guest customers can earn points from their orders unless you have disabled guest earning in your loyalty settings. However, they cannot view or redeem points until they create an account or log in through your Customer Portal.

Step 1: Search for the customer

In your Marsello Admin, go to Customers > All Customers

Select Including removed from the filter dropdown

Enter the customer’s name or email address
Click the search icon

Step 2: Check the customer’s status

Review the search results:

✅ No label: Customer is an active loyalty member
⚠️ (uncontactable): Customer is not an active loyalty member.

📝 Note: Customers who are not active may not be able to earn or redeem rewards.

How to fix

To make an uncontactable customer an active loyalty member again, follow How do I re-add a removed customer in Marsello?

Is the customer a guest account?

Guest customers can earn points on all orders, but only if the New customers who are added as guests can earn points setting is selected. If it isn't selected, customers without a full account won't earn points.

Marsello's loyalty program allows businesses to reward customers with signup points automatically. However, there are specific conditions and scenarios where customers may not receive these points. This section explains the reasons behind such issues and provides solutions to ensure customers receive their signup reward points.

Only active customers in your Marsello database can earn points and redeem loyalty rewards. If a customer is set up as a guest account in your sales platform, they may not earn points depending on your loyalty settings. Follow the steps below to confirm your configuration.

How to check

Step 1: Confirm the customer’s account type

In your connected sales platform (e.g. Shopify or POS):

Check whether the customer is listed as a guest.
Guest accounts may not qualify for points if guest earning is disabled in Marsello.
Customers syncing from platforms like Shopify as guest profiles (profile state = disabled) are not awarded points if the "award guest customers" setting is disabled in Marsello. Points will only be awarded once the customer is no longer considered a guest or their profile is completed through another source, such as a POS system.

Step 2: Review your points program settings in Marsello

In your Marsello dashboard, go to Loyalty > Points Program > Earning.
Locate the Creating an account earn option.
Find the checkbox for:
“New customers who are added as guests can earn points.”

How to fix

Make sure this checkbox is selected.

What this setting does

✔ If selected: Guest customers can earn points at checkout.
✖ If not selected: Customers without a full account will not earn points.

If customers are checking out as guests and the New customers who are added as guests can earn points setting is turned off, they will not receive points for their purchase.

📝 Note: If customers do not receive signup points automatically, you can manually award these points to ensure they are properly incentivized. For example: Identify the affected customers by reviewing their profile states or import settings.

Manually add the signup points to their accounts through the Marsello admin dashboard.
Regularly review your settings, such as the "award guest customers" option, to ensure they align with your loyalty program goals.

Does the order meet your loyalty program's points settings?

In your loyalty settings, certain conditions can prevent customers from earning points on an order. If points are not being awarded, check whether the order meets your current settings.

How to check

In your Marsello Admin, go to Loyalty > Points Program
Scroll down to Points Settings

Here, you can see which order conditions may exclude customers from earning points.

Common exclusion settings

Check if any of the following settings are enabled:

Exclude points for shipping
Exclude points for tax
Do not award points on discounted orders
Do not award points on gift card purchases (Shopify and Lightspeed only)
Exclude guest customers from loyalty (eCommerce only)
Exclude points for unverified or unpublished reviews (third-party integrations only)

Did the order reach your earning rule's spend threshold?

Loyalty programs often have specific earning rules, such as awarding points based on spending thresholds. For instance, if the rule is "1 point per $60 spent" and rounding is disabled, only whole increments of $60 will count toward points. A purchase that does not meet the next threshold will not earn additional points. Understanding these rules is crucial to interpreting point allocations.

Is the product excluded from your loyalty program?

If a product is excluded from your loyalty program, customers will not earn points when purchasing it.

Step 1: Check product exclusions in Marsello

In your Marsello Admin, go to Loyalty > Points Program
Scroll down to Store Settings

Step 2: Review exclusion rules

Check if the product is included in any of the following:

Do not award points on products that are tagged with one of
Do not award points on products that belong to one of these collections

What to look for

If the product has a matching tag or belongs to an excluded collection, it will not earn points.

For example:

Products tagged as “sale” may be excluded
Products in a specific collection (e.g. “Clearance”) may not earn points

How to fix

If you want the product to earn points, either:

Remove the product's tag from Do not award points on products that are tagged with one of, or remove the collection from Do not award points on products that belong to one of these collections, or
Remove the tag from the product, or move the product out of the excluded collection, in your sales platform.

Once the product is no longer excluded, customers earn points on it in their next purchase.

Is the customer excluded (blacklisted) from your loyalty program?

If a customer has previously been blacklisted in your system, the customer will not be eligible to earn points for purchases.

📝 Note: Customers excluded from loyalty (blacklisted) may still be eligible to receive marketing messages.

How to check

Confirm a customer's status in Marsello, go to Settings > Loyalty > Points program and scroll down to your store settings. Here you will see tagged category of customers who are blacklisted under Exclude customers who are tagged with one of.

How to fix

To make the customer eligible to earn points again, remove the blacklist tag from the customer's profile in your sales platform. The change syncs to Marsello.

For platform steps, see:

Does the customer have multiple accounts in Marsello?

A common issue arises when a customer has multiple profiles in the loyalty program. For example, one profile may be active while another is unsubscribed. If orders are intermittently linked to the unsubscribed profile, points will not be awarded for those purchases, making the customer appear excluded from the program. This behavior is not intentional and can be resolved by consolidating customer records.

How to check

Confirm the number of accounts for this specific customer in your Marsello dashboard, go to Customers > All customers and select Including removed from the drop down window.
Enter your customer's name or email address in the search box and click on the search icon.

How to fix

If you don't need multiple loyalty accounts for this customer:

Make sure the customer has the same email address on each account. If they don't, update the email address in your sales platform and let it sync to Marsello.
Move any points across from the account to be merged into the main account.
Once the points adjustment is made, remove the old account from Marsello.

This scenario can sometimes happen for Lightspeed merchants if the customer created a store account and provided an email. Then came back in store later on and created an account with a mobile number. The customer comes back in store a third time and adds an email to the account with the mobile number.

Still not working?

If customers still aren’t earning loyalty points after these checks, contact the support team through How to contact Marsello support.