Social media is word of mouth - we buy from friends recommendations. Research has repeatedly shown that while normal consumers have smaller audiences, their authentic posts convert 9x - 11x better than professional influencers.
Plush enables you to cost effectively activate hundreds or thousands of customers, driving sustained organic exposure for your products and brand.
Instead of one large influencer purchase that feels like rolling the dice, incentivise thousands of real customers with real friends.

Why offer rebates to customers instead of paying influencers?

Your customers won't see an offer to post online until after they've purchased from you. By limiting incentives to fixed rebates on purchases, Plush ensures that only genuine customers can participate. Customers cannot profit from the transaction, the maximum they can receive is a refund on what they've already paid.

How does Plush reduce influencer fraud?

Rebates approved by you are processed through Shopify as a partial refund of the original purchase.
When customers' opt-in to your offer, they are sent your instructions to make a qualifying post. These customers appear as ‘pending' in your dashboard.
When they make a qualifying post, these posts will appear as ‘waiting for approval'. Once you approve a post, the customer receives the rebate as a partial refund via Shopify.
The rebate is sent on the same payment method that was used to make the initial purchase, and takes 1 to 3 days to process. It will appear as a ‘partial refund' on your accounts in Shopify.
If you approve a rebate, you have 5 minutes to reverse your choice before it is finalized by Shopify. Once the refund is finalized by Shopify, we notify the customer of the approval via email. Plush cannot reverse rebates once they are finalized by Shopify.

How does the customer rebate process work?

It's up to you how strict you want to make your post rules. We suggest a relaxed approach, because organic posts are more effective at building trust, and customers are going to be more likely to participate.
You have the ability to describe your requirements for a valid post, and we'll provide these to the customer when they opt-in. We suggest light guidelines that reflect your brand or market to encourage customer participation.
Plush requires all posts to be public, but you can control how long the post must remain online. We suggest 1 to 3 days. The maximum time a post can be tracked by Plush is 30 days.
Some criteria you can apply:
<ul>
<li>
Photo/Video Content: Specify how you want your customer to display your product, or a feature you want them to shout out. For example, you might require that the product be clearly shown in the photo, or that the photo include the product in use. Plush provides you with a copy of photos in your dashboard.
</li>
<li>
Hashtags: You can specify what hashtags you'd like applied. We suggest limiting this to 3 or 4. Hashtags need to be typed by your customer, requesting a large number of hashtags will make it harder for customers to successfully make the post and reduce the number of posts you receive. Plush will show you in your dashboard which tags were applied.
</li>
<li>
Comments: You can ask customers to include information in their comments to the post. Be careful with this as it's a ‘big ask', and may result in fewer posts. Note that Plush does not automatically monitor comments at this time.
</li>
</ul>

What makes a valid post?

Ask yourself what would you be comfortable posting on your personal Instagram? Some common types of post to consider:
<ul>
<li>Reviews: the customer talks briefly about their experience or shows the product in action.</li>
<li>Product Feature: takes a short photo or video of the product, but doesn't offer an opinion.</li>
<li>Promotion: Ask customers to include information or links about other deals or promotions you are offering (be careful with this one!).</li>
</ul>
Consider how these relate to your business objectives and also the nature of the products or services you sell.

What kind of posts can I ask for?

Plush requires all posts to be public, but you can control how long the post must remain online. We suggest 1 to 3 days. The maximum time a post can be tracked by Plush is 30 days.

How long will the post stay on social media?

You can like or reshare a customer's post on your own social channels, but you cannot use it to create a brand new post without the customer's permission.
For example:
<ul>
<li>
Not OK: Downloading a copy of a photo, and incorporating it into your website design.
</li>
<li>
OK: You can reference the original unmodified post in its entirety (for example, using an image carousel on your website of your favorite Instagram posts).
</li>
</ul>
During the Plush beta period (now) we have not included content licensing in the customer agreement. We will soon incorporate content licensing into Plush to simplify this process.
If you'd like to use a customer's image in your own campaign or website, we recommend you reach out to them and receive written permission to do so. If in doubt, consult a qualified attorney or wait until Plush offers inline content licensing.

Can I use a customers post on my own Social Media?

There's no one size fits all - it varies based on the kinds of products or services you sell and the incentives needed to activate your customers. We recommend you start with a small budget and experiment with different offers sizes.
There are 2 strategies - lower rebate offered to more people, or a higher rebate offered to fewer. You'll need to discover which works best for you.
Example 1, lower rebate, higher volume:
<ul>
<li>You set a $500 budget with 10% rebate. Your offer will be made to the first $5000 in gross sales ($500 divided by 10%).</li>
<li>Your average purchase is $200, which means you can expect a maximum of 25 Instagram posts. Each customer will be entitled to a $20 rebate for approved posts.</li>
</ul>
Example 2, higher rebate, lower volume:
<ul>
<li>You set a $500 budget with 20% rebate. Your offer will be made to the first $2500 in gross sales ($500 divided by 20%).</li>
<li>Your average purchase is $200, which means you can expect a maximum of 12 Instagram posts. Each customer will be entitled to a $40 rebate for approved posts.</li>
</ul>
Depending on your product and audience, you can experiment to find the right balance of incentives and engagement for your business.

What size rebate should I offer?

There's no minimum, and you can set any max budget that makes sense to you. Setting the maximum monthly budget helps you limit the total dollar value of rebates offered in a month. You can change your budget at any time, but note that customers who have already opted-in will still be able to claim those rebates if you later lower your budget.
Once your rebate budget is reached Plush will automatically stop offering new customers the opportunity to opt-in.
For example:
<ul>
<li>You offer customers a 15% rebate for qualifying posts on Instagram, with a maximum monthly budget of $500.</li>
<li>Plush will continue to allow customers to opt-in to your offer until at least $3333.00 transactions have opted-in.</li>
<li>This is calculated $3333 x 15% = $500 (your budget).</li>
<li>Once $3333 in purchasers have opted-in, the offer will no longer be available to future customers for the remainder of the month.</li>
</ul>
The budget is the total value of rebates if all customers who opt-in complete their claim (not the dollar value of approved rebates).
It's likely that not all customers who opt-in will claim their rebate. This may result in actual rebates being below your budget. Our dashboard will help you track your customer participation to help you manage your expected budget versus actual rebates issued.

Is there a minimum or maximum monthly budget?

Rebates are set as a percentage of the cart purchase. It's up to you to set values that are likely to incentivize your customers, whilst managing your spend. Set a rebate offer too low, and you may have low participation from your customers.
Note: Rebates offered to customers cannot exceed the initial purchase price. 100% of the purchase value is the maximum you can offer on Plush.

What is the minimum or maximum rebate I can offer?

If a customer makes a non-qualifying post (e.g. no hashtags, bad photo or video, not posted long enough), you can decline the rebate. If this occurs, the customer is notified via email. You will receive the email too.
We suggest you let the customer know what you would like fixed - and ask them to email you with a link to their corrected post. Once you're happy with the new post, you can later approve the original rebate offer in Plush.
NOTE: at this time, Plush can't monitor corrections to posts, only the original post. If the customer would like to fix errors, we suggest they delete the original and create a new post. You'll need to work directly with the customer to negotiate corrections, but you can still process the rebate in Plush via their original post on your dashboard.
We will support a dispute resolution workflow in future.

What happens if an offer is declined?

Once you approve a rebate, you have 5 minutes to reverse your choice before it is processed by Shopify. Once the refund is processed by Shopify, it is final and cannot be reversed by Plush.

Can I reverse a refund issued to a customer?

If a customer returns a product for a full or partial refund after receiving a Plush rebate, the refund issued by you cannot exceed the original purchase value minus the rebate already paid. The rebate is granted to the customer as a percentage of the final price paid. If the final price paid is $0, they are entitled to a $0 rebate. If they cancel the purchase at any time, they are not entitled to a rebate regardless of whether they have already posted on social media.
For example:
<ul>
<li>
Customer buys a $500 handbag, and accepts a 10% rebate offer. They post on Instagram, it's approved by the business owner, and they receive a $50 rebate.
</li>
<li>
Later, they return the handbag. The business owner processes the refund, and provides the customer with a $450 refund.
</li>
</ul>
The refund cannot exceed the total price actually paid, regardless of the offer being made and accepted.

How do rebates on Product Returns work?

Not at this time. We are working hard on more platform support! If you'd like to get notified or suggest a feature, send us an email at support@plush.gg

Get in touch

Frequently asked questions

Get in touch