How to Elevate Your Receipt Verification Process

Receipt validation technology has revolutionized brand loyalty programs and promotions, making them more efficient, targeted, and scalable. It works tirelessly in the background, turning what were formerly inconspicuous slips of paper into gateways to engaging brand experiences.

But how does receipt verification technology work? And what are the biggest benefits for your brand?

What is Receipt Validation Technology?

Receipt validation technology refers to the digital tools brands and retailers use to authenticate paper and digital receipts. Powered by automated optical character recognition (OCR) software, it scans receipts to pinpoint key information to validate purchases.

As a by-product, receipt validation technology collects retailer-agnostic, first-party customer data without needing to connect to point of sale (POS) systems. You can then harness this data to support future marketing campaigns. Think interrogating your product portfolio to identify macro trends or creating personalized, customer-specific offers.

How Does it Work?

To better understand how receipt validation technology works, let’s take a closer look at our receipt processing platform, SnippCheck.

SnippCheck supports brand promotions and programs across the entire path to purchase. This includes everything from simple gift-with-purchase and instant-win promotions to giveaways and multi-tiered loyalty programs.

It follows a simple, six-stage process:

1. Purchase: The customer makes a qualifying purchase (any product that belongs to a specific promotion, campaign, or program).
2. Entry: The customer texts the promotion/campaign keyword or logs into your loyalty program.
3. Proof: The customer takes a picture of their receipt, invoice, or purchase order.
4. Activation. The customer submits the picture via their preferred engagement channel (e.g., text, email, web, app).
5. Validation: Our receipt validation technology analyzes the receipt to validate the transaction, collecting shopper data (e.g., date of purchase, store, basket share, and total spend) in the process.
6. Reward: Once our platform validates the purchase, the customer receives their reward from our extensive rewards catalog.

What are the Benefits of Receipt Validation Technology for Brands?

Receipt validation technology (or receipt OCR) is much more than a fast and efficient means of processing data. Today’s sophisticated tools offer a range of benefits, from helping you tackle receipt fraud to providing the shopper insights you need to deliver more targeted programs and promotions.

Prevent Receipt Fraud

Fraud is an ever-present threat when running a brand promotion. But by using a combination of manual and AI-enhanced detection methods, receipt validation technology can identify fraud at multiple stages of the consumer experience and at various points in your technology stack. For example:

• Activation Checks​: IP checks, login frequency checks, Captcha, and 2FA ​
• Behavioral Checks​: Pattern analysis to monitor user behavior across the entire user journey
• Image Checks​: Fingerprinting data elements and background scanning
• Data Checks​: Analyzing store receipt format vs submitted receipt and receipt barcodes vs meta data

It then uses this data to create unique digital signatures for each receipt transaction, enabling you to quickly spot fraudulent activity like double-dipping (when someone attempts to redeem the same receipt twice). Aside from creating a level playing field, this helps to minimize revenue loss due to cheating.

Enhance Any Promotion

Flexibility is one of the most attractive elements of receipt validation technology. The best solutions support almost any promotion or program, including:

• Cashback offers
• Gift-with-purchase
• Instant win
• Text-to-win
• Rebates
• Sweepstakes
• Brand loyalty programs

In addition, receipt validation technology enables you to accept entries from any store (versus a single chain or large stores) and supports multi-country campaigns. This versatility lets you fine-tune your promotions to suit your customer’s preferences, including their favorite stores or eCommerce sites, and support your marketing objectives.

Scale Your Campaigns

Adapting your sales promotions and programs to meet customer demand and expectations is essential to success. Receipt validation solutions are scalable by nature. You can tailor validation criteria, activation, reward structures, and more to meet your needs – whether that’s a small-scale product launch or an international, multi-language, multi-retailer marketing initiative. This ensures optimal results and maximum customer engagement.

Customize and Personalize

Receipt data is a marketing gold mine, revealing unique real-time insights into shopper behavior, purchasing habits, and market trends. For example:

• Purchase location (state, city, and zip code)
• Retailer
• Date and time of purchase
• Product quantities and combinations
• Total spend
• Brand share
• Competition data

Receipt validation technology lets you tap into these insights, giving you a deeper understanding of your shoppers and enabling you to capitalize on opportunities before your competitors. With this information at your disposal, you can build accurate user profiles based on live purchase data to create more personalized, targeted, and engaging campaigns.

Implement Your Way

To get the most out of receipt validation technology, it needs to fit seamlessly into your processes and tech stack. Solutions like SnippCheck offer multiple implementation options, so you can choose the approach that works best for you and your customers. This includes:

• App-based, API integration
• Widget and iFrame integration
• Snipp-hosted

Examples of Receipt Validation in Action

Nescafé Instant Win + Sweepstakes Promotion

Nescafe created an exciting, multi-layered program that rewarded participants for capturing the moments that matter. Customers who bought qualifying Nescafe products could upload a picture of their receipt to participate in a custom Polaroid game for the chance to win cash prizes and enter their name into a $50,000 grand prize sweepstakes draw.

The Get Rich Quick promotion helped to boost engagement and drive sales.

Hagen Multi-brand Digital Punch Card Program

We helped pet food manufacturer Hagen develop an intuitive punch card mobile app for six of its brands, replacing their outdated paper-based loyalty programs. The app allows customers to submit a picture of their receipt whenever they buy a participating product, earning them punches on their virtual loyalty card. Once they fill in a card, they can redeem it for a free bag of pet food.

The app has modernized Hagen’s punch card loyalty program and helped to increase brand loyalty.

Pringles Multi-country Receipt Campaign

Kellogg’s Pringles harnessed our receipt validation technology to power an innovative multi-national promotion. Available in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, the promotion leverages the brand’s partnership with La Liga, giving customers the chance to win a kick around with soccer superstar and former Spain striker David Villa. Customers simply purchase a qualifying product and submit a copy of their receipt to the promotion website for a chance to win.

The promotion is helping to drive Pringles sales across the MENAT region.

A Verified Success Story

Receipt verification technology elevates your brand to new heights and plays an essential role in creating the seamless shopping experiences customers crave. In addition to processing data and verifying purchases faster, it helps to reduce receipt fraud and provides customers with more personalized, rewarding experiences.

Contact us to learn more about our receipt processing.