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How to create Virtual Goods and reward them to users

Enhance user engagement in your app by rewarding them with Badges, Avatar pieces and Stickers

Raymond Gerardino avatar
Written by Raymond Gerardino
Updated over a year ago

Introduction

Virtual Goods are intangible assets that your app users can receive based on their interaction with your app. For example, you can reward users with badges after they've completed a series of Activities. This is a way to provide incentives to your users and promote engagement.

This article explains how you can reward users with Virtual Goods. There are various Virtual Goods available on Cogniss:

  • Badges: For users to feel a sense of achievement post-Activity completion

  • Profile Avatars: For users to add a graphical representation of themselves in your app

  • Stickers: For users to convey emotions or a specific response in a fun way on your app's Newsfeed

How to set it up

Pre-requisite: Show Virtual Goods

To display specific rewards using Cogniss, ensure you have enabled the following through your App settings within Creator:

  • For Badges:

    • Go to Settings>Footer section>Enable the Profile menu>Enable Use Badges

  • For Profile Avatars:

    • Go to Settings>Footer section>Enable the Use Edit Profile

    • In the same Settings menu and go to the User Profile Avatar section>Enable Show Profile Avatar

  • For Stickers:

    • Go to Settings>Footer section>Enable the News button menu (to use the stickers within the Newsfeed)

Step 1: Create the Virtual Good

You will first need to create the Virtual Good(s) to be rewarded.

  1. Navigate to the Virtual Goods section in Creator, then select Create new virtual good

  2. Virtual good name: [The name of the badge]

  3. Description: [What the badge is for]

  4. Type: Select the type of Virtual good from the dropdown list: BADGE, AVATAR_PIECE, or STICKER

  5. Maximum Quantity: 1

  6. File: [Select or upload an image for the Virtual Good]

  7. Locked image (optional): [Select the image shown when the Virtual Good is not rewarded yet]

Step 2. Set up Behaviors

After creating Virtual Goods, the next step is to display them to your users. One way of doing so is through Behaviors.
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This feature relies on defining a Trigger, which corresponds to a user's action, leading to a rewarding outcome. In this instance, the reward will consist of a Virtual Good and a message.
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Users will see the Virtual Good and message on your app's Dashboard/ Home screen after they complete the corresponding Activity.

  1. Go to Creator>Behaviors tab and click Create a new behavior:

    1. Name: Reward Badge after [activity name] completion

  2. Add Trigger:
    ​

    1. Type: REQUEST

    2. Model: ActivityResponse

    3. Operation: UPDATE

    4. Subject, Topic, Activity: Select the specific Activity

    5. Tick Complete, Complete state = COMPLETE

  3. Add Criteria (Legacy)* (optional)

    Criteria serve as an additional tier of specific conditions or rules that your users must fulfill in order to earn a Virtual Good. In our example scenario above, if we want to implement criteria stating that users must complete the activity five times before receiving a badge reward, we can configure this section.

    While optional, this section proves to be a powerful tool for customizing rules within the behaviors.

    1. Type: COUNT

    2. Model: ActivityRepsonse

    3. Subject, Topic, Activity: Select the specific Activity from the Trigger step

    4. Leave Score and Percent Correct empty

    5. Tick Complete, Complete state: COMPLETE

    6. Count: 5 (no. of times they have to complete the Activity)

    Remove Criteria (Legacy) to reward the user if they only need to complete the Activity once.

  4. Add Results:

    This is where you'll set the Virtual Good you want to reward your users with.

    1. Result: Transaction

    2. Type: VIRTUAL_GOOD

    3. Virtual Good: Select the Virtual Good from Step 1

    4. Quantity: 1

    Next, let's display a message to your users.

    1. Click Add another result

    2. Result: Notification

    3. Type: VIRTUAL_GOOD

    4. Title and Text: [Type a relevant message to go with the Badge]

    5. Count: 1

    6. Virtual Good: Select from the list of Virtual Good

    7. Email/push notification/in-app pop-up: Leave them unticked

Ensure only the Open option is ticked.
Enable the Recurring option to ensure consistent rewards for the user whenever the behavior occurs.

Save changes to complete this step. You should see the results as an in-app pop-up.

Step 3. Set up Feedback (optional)


Another method of displaying Virtual Goods is through Feedback.
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While Behaviors (see step 2) allow you to display Virtual Goods on your app's Dashboard/ Home screen, Feedback allows you to display them immediately to your user after an Activity completion. They won't have to return to the Dashboard/ Home screen to view their Virtual Good(s).
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  1. Navigate to the Feedback tab in Creator>Content, then click Create new feedback

  2. Add a Feedback name and a Description (optional).

  3. Page Type: Virtual Good

  4. For the title and text, follow the same Title and Text you created from the Results in Step 2

  5. Set up the Button label and Save changes

  6. Navigate to the Activity settings where you want this Feedback to appear.

    Note that Feedback will always appear after the completion of an Activity.

  7. Scroll down to Feedback and search for the Feedback you just created.

  8. Save changes, preview and test your app to see the results!

Related Articles
Cogniss key terms
How to use vouchers to reward points such as in-app currency and xp
Dashboard Widgets: Badges
Behaviors overview
Tracking user retention rates in Cogniss Insights
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