Month: June 2018

How to get a free Starbucks eGift card for your next bestie coffee date

Posted on by Kick Writers

I must admit that I am a creature of habit. I know, it sounds so boring! But that’s just the way I’m wired. Anyway, because of this, I have a standing monthly coffee date with one of my oldest and dearest friends. Her name is Jeanette and we’ve actually known one another since grade school! Can you believe that? I pride myself on keeping in touch with my besties.

Anyway, Jeanette and I both just so happen to love Starbucks, from a plain cup of the blonde roast right on down to fancier things like mochas and—my personal favorite—flat whites. We’re also both in fun places in our lives now where we’re raising our families…while also managing the complicated budgets that go along with that. Long story short, the last time we met up, one of the main topics of conversation was whether or not we could find a way to earn a free Starbucks eGift card for our next bestie coffee date. And I’m happy to report that yes, I have found a great way to do just that!

In fact, this discovery has been so great for me, that I’m now using it to earn free Starbucks eGift cards, as well as gift cards to many of my other favorite stores. It’s been so great that I just have to share my discovery with all of you! So, get ready to be caffeinated, because I’m about to tell you about a fantastic and foolproof way that you can earn a free Starbucks eGift card for your next bestie coffee date, too!

How to Get a Free Starbucks eGift Card Through Shopping Rewards Apps

how to earn a free starbucks egift cardI haven’t even told my old friend Jeanette about this yet (I’m going to surprise her!), but I’m happy to share it with all of you because that’s how helpful it’s been for me. My secret for how to earn a free Starbucks eGift card is this simple new concept called a shopping rewards app, and how it works is that it gives you rewards for shopping. What kind of shopping? Basically, all of them! From clothes shopping to shopping for groceries!

There are a few different ways these apps work. Some of them are what I like to call coupon apps, and what they do is re-create the old clipping paper coupons experience, either by offering you a number of coupons to pick from online or letting you use the app to scan and store actual paper coupons that you come across on your own. The other type is a lot more fun because it rewards you for real-life activities that you do anyway when you’re shopping. I’ll go into more detail later, but essentially you just download the app, shop, and collect points that you can trade for free Starbucks eGift cards. Yes, it really is that easy!

The Best Shopping Rewards App to Earn Free Starbucks eGift Card

While there are quite a few shopping rewards apps to pick from, my absolute favorite one to use to earn free Starbucks eGift cards is Shopkick. How it works is that Shopkick gives you points for things like going into certain stores, scanning barcodes to learn more about certain products, and scanning your receipt once you’ve made your purchases. If it sounds like it turns all of your shopping trips to the store into a super fun scavenger hunt for points, that’s because it really does!

One other reason that Shopkick is my absolute favorite of all the various shopping rewards apps is that Shopkick also lets you earn points toward more free Starbucks eGift cards when you do your shopping online. I don’t know about you, but these days my shopping routine has turned into a hybrid between actual old-school, physical shopping and shopping online. What’s great about Shopkick is that it also rewards you for things like making purchases online, visiting certain online stores, and watching videos about certain products. I just love that kind of versatility!

Jeanette and I have been old friends for so long that we always have a million things to talk about when we see each other for coffee, but this time I have our first conversation topic all planned out. I’m going to smoothly and slyly offer to pay for the coffee with my eGift card, and then I’m going to mention how I earned it. That should get us off to the races and talking about shopping rewards apps.

And when it comes to shopping rewards apps, I just can’t stress enough that I highly recommend Shopkick. It’s super versatile, it works at almost all of my favorite stores that I frequent, and it turns every trip down those aisles into a super fun scavenger hunt for points. In fact, I’ve started to like my time with Shopkick so much that I can barely remember what life was like before I had it, much like my long-time friendship with Jeanette! I really hope that you heed my advice here and give Shopkick a spin for yourself. I just know that you’re going to love it as much as I do!

Get to know one of the best shopping rewards apps that you can use to get a free Starbucks eGift card for your next coffee date, as well as one of the best shopping apps, period. Download Shopkick’s free app today and join a community of loyal Shopkickers who’ve already discovered how much you can earn with the help of a free shopping sidekick.

And, if you’re on social media catching up with friends, be sure to also join Shopkick on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for a little daily fun and inspiration.

Image courtesy photoCD

3 ways to earn free Fandango tickets for a summer blockbuster bonanza

Posted on by Kick Writers

I have a secret to share today: I was kind of a nerd growing up. I was really into Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel comics—you name it. If it had capes or spaceships or crazy sci-fi ideas in it, I was a big fan. I remember back then my friends and I used to read a lot of comic books, and one thing we always talked about was how cool it would be if Hollywood started turning these stories and characters into movies. Well, as I’m sure you’ve probably noticed, that dream of ours has come true.

This summer has been a crazy one for blockbuster movies based on the nerdy stuff that I used to like as a kid. It started in the spring with Black Panther (which I loved!), and then it kept going with Avengers: Infinity War, Deadpool 2, and Solo: A Star Wars Story. In fact, there were so many cool comic book movies early this year, that I started to get a little behind. I’m not even ready for the next movie Ant-Man and the Wasp, but you know what would help me keep up a little better with all of this? Free Fandango tickets to the movies so I could see all these nerdy summer blockbusters without having to worry about my budget.

Thankfully, I’ve found some great ways to earn free Fandango tickets—three of them to be exact—and that’s what I want to share with all of you. Another thing that’s really surprised me about all these comic book movies is how much mainstream success they’ve had. I love that I can talk about Iron Man with my aunt, my neighbors, and my co-workers when 12 years ago none of them would have known Tony Stark from Adam. So, let’s get you all some free tickets so you can join me at the movies!

Earn Free Fandango Tickets by Signing Up for Fandango VIP+

free fandango tickets for the summerMy first suggestion for earning free Fandango tickets is to sign up for the Fandango VIP+ program, which you can do right on Fandango’s website. This is a pretty simple, tried-and-true customer loyalty points program. For every ticket you buy to a movie like Deadpool 2, you get 150 VIP+ points. Once you earn 600 points, you can unlock a new reward from Fandango.

My favorite reward for summers that are as full of blockbuster comic book movies as this one is, of course, free tickets, but there are other prizes too. Some of the other things that you can earn from Fandango VIP+ include movie gear, movies that you can stream at home, and other discounts on tickets through Fandango. If you use Fandango as often as I do (which is a lot), you’ll be earning these rewards in no time!

Earn Free Fandango Tickets by Finding Promotions

This one takes a little bit more effort, but it’s still very much worth it. You know when you’re out shopping at Target and they have all those movies for $12 or less near checkout? Well, keep an eye on the label of those because a lot of them have feature stickers advertising promotions that allow you to earn free Fandango tickets or discounted movies.

And it’s not just with the movies at Target. In fact, recently I’ve been keeping an eye out when I go grocery shopping and I’ve noticed chances to earn free Fandango tickets through promotions that come along with the purchase of different products. Some of the ones I’ve seen as of late include cereal, freezer bags, and yogurt. Just make sure to keep an eye out for them the next time you go shopping.

Earn Free Fandango Tickets With Shopkick

This last one, though, is my favorite way to earn free Fandango tickets. It’s called Shopkick, and how it works is that it’s an app that gives you points for things you do whenever you go out shopping, things like walking into the store, scanning barcodes to get more information about certain products, and scanning your receipts once you’ve made your purchases. There are also tons of ways that Shopkickers can earn rewards right from the app—no need to go anywhere. These include kicks for watching videos and instant surprise kicks from going on Easter egg hunts in the app. Users can also get amazing deals where you can earn big points and rewards by shopping on your phone at stores like Amazon, Walmart, and more!

Now, instead of dreading my trips, I get excited about hunting through the aisles to maximize my points. It’s really cool!

Once you get enough of these points—which the app calls kicks—you can then trade them in for Fandango gift cards, or for gift cards to plenty of other stores. It’s entirely your choice. There are two main things that I like most about Shopkick. The first is versatility. Shopkick works at so many of my favorite stores, including my all-time favorite, Best Buy. The second is that Shopkick turns going into the store—something that used to feel like a total chore—into a fun scavenger hunt for points. Now, instead of dreading my trips, I get excited about hunting through the aisles to maximize my points. It’s really cool!     

So there you have it. Based on the success of these movies, I don’t think this trend of summer comic book blockbusters and old sci-fi is going anywhere soon, which means we’re all going to have to keep looking for new ways to score tickets. Unless we want to start missing some of them instead, which for me isn’t really an option.

While there are a few different ways to score free Fandango tickets I would highly recommend using Shopkick. It really is a great way to not only earn free Fandango tickets but to turn shopping into something that you actually look forward to, which in itself is totally worth it!

Ready to start having fun with your shopping while at the same time earning free Fandango tickets for your own summer blockbuster bonanza? Download Shopkick for free and join a community of loyal Shopkickers who’ve already discovered how rewarding—and fun—shopping can be!

And, if you love using your smartphone to stay up on social media, join us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for daily shopping inspiration.

Image courtesy LightField Studios

An app-based product launch: How to successfully leverage digital marketing

Posted on by Kick Writers

An app-based product launch: How to successfully leverage digital marketing

Get In Touch

There are three critical issues brands should focus on with a product launch: how to reach consumers; how to get them to share the brand’s message; and finally, how to get them to the store to buy their product. Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. About 30,000 new products launch every year and every year, 80-95% of those new products fail to gain a following. The CPG sector is a particularly challenging space to launch a new product, but with a robust digital presence, success is more likely.

It’s not enough that consumers know about a product. They must also have a favorable impression of the brand and know where to find that product in the shopping aisle. By learning from consumer behavior, building awareness on multiple platforms, and creating campaigns that resonate, brands can grow enough of a following to help establish new products. It’s also possible to boost sales in the shopping aisle by making marketing efforts mobile. By reaching out to consumers through mobile apps, brands can target moving consumers and improve product launch results.

Spreading the Word About Your Product Launch: How to Reach Consumers

When you’re doing a digital product launch, you’ll want to choose a primary platform to share the launch and you’ll also need secondary routes to get those consumers to that place. This could include targeting a wide variety of sites where consumers congregate, to include the following.

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Social Media

Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are excellent places to connect with consumers socially as well as encourage user-generated content.

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Niche Communities

Niche communities: Reddit is a site where a brand can find niche communities that may be interested in their products. Focusing on these smaller communities within larger ones improves brand awareness.

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Independent Websites

Check any comment section of a popular website and you may find that there is another community within a community. Consumers who comment in on CNN articles, as an example, tend to be frequent commenters who spend a lot of time on the site.

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Video Platforms

YouTube and Vimeo allow users to both watch content and create and upload their own, making these sites ideal for branded content and advertisements.

A brand shouldn’t have to create multiple campaigns for each of these platforms. Instead, the goal should be to create a consistent, compelling conversation that translates across multiple platforms. It’s a matter of recognizing that many social media sites overlap, so a campaign should be able to do the same.

To understand this, you can look at the evolution of the hashtag. Initially, the hashtag trend started with Twitter. In 2007, the social media platform rolled out an option to categorize conversations by tagging it with “#.” While this was a very simplistic way to organize content databases, it was by no means in mainstream use. Today, we can see the hashtag on virtually all social media channels. Social media marketing mimics the evolution of the hashtag. Users discover a brand in one place but begin to follow it on other platforms if they become invested enough. This multi-media approach allows a brand to leverage that traffic to build buzz during a new product launch.

Tidy Cats, a Nestlé Purina Petcare brand, showed an excellent example of one of these multi-platform campaigns with its Kitten Week promotion. Tidy Cats is known for its parody content and decided to go with a fun parody on The Discovery Channel’s Shark Week. The award-winning campaign began on Twitter, where the brand shared kitten memes, gifs, images, and videos and encouraged viewers to share their own kitten content. That Twitter campaign also drove engagement on the brand’s YouTube and Facebook channels by tying in hashtags and user-generated content. Altogether, total views across social media channels reached 1.5 million in just a week and a half.

As evidenced through the Tidy Cats campaign, launching a campaign across multiple platforms can lead to increased engagement. Through a multi-platform campaign, a brand can significantly boost its following across channels and ensure they have the audience needed to spread awareness for a new product.

Connecting With and Inspiring Influencers on Social Media

In Internet culture, there’s a phenomenon called the 1% rule which brands should consider when establishing a digital campaign. This rule states that on websites where users can both create and edit content, only 1% of the users actively create new content, while the other 99% of the participants only observe. A variant of this rule, known as the 90-9-1 rule, breaks down participation as follows.

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1%

On websites where users can both create and edit content, the minority will actually create this content. These creators will act as the most influential users of the site they’re on.

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9%

On those same websites, there will be individuals who edit or modify content. This editing could include commenting, sharing, and voting on polls. These individuals contribute to existing content without creating their own.

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90%

This percentage is where the vast majority of Internet users sit and represents the silent majority. These Internet lurkers will view content and read comments but will never actually interact with the content in any way.

What that means for you is that a small, vocal following will be responsible for sharing content about your brand. This is where influencers come in. While you may have heard the word “influencer” more than once, it’s important to note that there’s more than one type of influencer.

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Mega-Influencer

Mega-influencers are online celebrities with massive followings across multiple networks. There’s no set number of followers to qualify someone as a mega-influencer, though most brands target those with more than 10,000 followers across several sites. Usually, deals with mega-influencers are paid for rather than organic. While useful, mega-influencers can also be very expensive, reducing your overall marketing ROI.

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Macro Influencer

A macro-influencer will have a large following, but typically that following will be isolated to one specific social media site. This platform-specific fame usually results in an individual having a niche following. Consider the case of someone with a large following on a site like Twitch. As the site is populated by gamers, the followers of these macro-influencers will also be gamers.

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Micro-Influencers

Micro-influencers may not have massive followings on social media, but what they do have is consumer trust. These are the individuals who hold sway within their social circles and can influence their friends and family to buy your product. While their reach might not be quite as far, it can be much more impactful as they usually have an intimate connection to those they recommend your products.

These types of influencers will help spread the message about your brand and drive others to try your products. Target these individuals with messages that feel personalized, or that uniquely connect to them. Pringles doubled down on this CPG marketing strategy and created an Internet phenomenon with #NobodyAskedYouKevin.

In 2017, Pringles noticed a trend when reviewing available data regarding their product online. They noted that consumers were posting “food hacks” that combined Pringles flavors to create new flavors. The brand decided to create the Stackable campaign around that, kicking it off with their Super Bowl commercial. They centered an advertisement around “flavor stacking,” using Saturday Night Live personality Bill Hader as a spokesperson. At the end of the commercial, Hader screams the line “Nobody asked you, Kevin!” That line created a spin-off with #NobodyAskedYouKevin trending on Twitter. Pringles, in turn, used the hashtag as their banner.

This strategy humanized the brand and let others know they were in on the joke. That made those consumers more willing to share the message and expand the brand’s reach for its campaign. While this wasn’t a new product rollout, it was an opportunity to view the product in a new way. Pringles capitalized on this and was able to turn that interest into brand awareness and sales through the use of mega-, macro-, and micro-influencers.

 

Directing Consumers to Products in the Store Using Mobile Apps

The final part of a product launch lies in leading consumers to the product in the physical world. Unless the majority of your sales happen in the digital space, you will need to drive the consumers to physically visit a location that carries the product, get them to interact with the product in the aisle, and finally, purchase that product. This step is where location-based mobile apps can help.

Any mobile campaign can be targeted to reach consumers at the right time. While a social media campaign can improve brand awareness and brand affinity, mobile makes that even more impactful. For example, if a consumer is checking their Facebook while at a store to purchase kitty litter, they may have noticed the Tidy Cats campaign. As that message reaches them just as they’re about to buy a product in that category, it’s very likely they’ll be the brand to gain the sale.

It’s possible to improve on this even more through the use of shopping apps. Apps that reward consumers for interacting with products, like Shopkick, can incentivize engagement and get consumers to seek out a product in the store. Essentially, they can move a consumer from awareness to purchase in one shopping trip.

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Step #1 – Brand Awareness

When using Shopkick, a consumer will be able to check which brands are offering rewards points (aka kicks) in the store. This advertising primes the consumer with knowledge of the brand as they begin to shop.

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Step #2 – Brand Affinity

When a consumer uses Shopkick, they’re able to scan the UPC of participating products to gain rewards. This brief interaction creates a favorable impression of the brand, and it prepares the user for purchase.

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Step #3 – Brand Advocacy

A study on in-store consumer behavior found that 30% of products held in a potential consumer’s hand, for only moments, were purchased. When using Shopkick, consumers are incentivized to pick up the product, and can get more points for scanning the receipt of a purchased product, which boosts purchase likelihood.

Incorporating mobile into a new product launch campaign can significantly improve sales. Any brand that wishes to increase their market share through a digital campaign should find a way to engage with consumers in the store. Shopping apps like Shopkick create that connection, allowing your brand to travel the entire path to purchase with the consumer.

Using a shopping app to engage influencers while they’re in the shopping aisle can be part of your brand’s product launch how-to checklist. These influencers don’t have to have massive followings, as even micro-influences can help to create a stronger impact on your sales.

Shopkick offers a powerful shopping app to our partners to help boost awareness and increase engagement with new products. For more information, contact us.

Posted in b2b

What are good coupon apps to share with my friends?

Posted on by Kick Writers

Ever since I became a mom, I’ve come to have a much stronger appreciation for the phrase: it takes a village. The main reason is that I don’t know how I could have made it through the early years of motherhood without advice from my friends who’d already been through everything I was experiencing. They were able to pass down baby clothes but more than that they also gave me invaluable advice about when to call a doctor, how to feed, what to do when my new baby started crying in the night, and so on.

I don’t even remember now all the exact recommendations they gave me, I just know that never in a million years will I ever be able to pay all of my good friends back. That, however, will not stop me from trying! One of the best ways I’ve found to payback this advice is by giving my friends tips about good coupon apps. I’m pretty good about finding as many great ways as I can to save money while I’m out shopping, and sharing them with my friends (plus also all of you) is the least I can do to express my appreciation for all that advice they gave me as a new mother.

And I’m happy to share my opinions about good coupon apps with all of you, too! Not only can these save you money, but, who knows, maybe someday you too will need to give some of your friends the best advice about shopping that you can muster. That’s why today I would like to talk about good coupon apps to share with friends. Just like with raising kids, maximizing our savings at the store truly takes a village.

What Are Good Coupon Apps in General?

what are good coupon apps to shareBefore we get into good coupon apps to share with friends, we must first make sure that we have a standard operating definition of a coupon app. It’s hard, after all, to talk about what makes something a good app if some of us are confused by the very concept. Luckily, this isn’t all that hard of a concept to grasp, since as the name implies it’s based on old-school coupon clipping that most of us have been familiar with for years!

Simply put, a coupon app digitizes the experience of saving money while you’re out shopping at the store. For some of these apps, it means that you are literally taking pictures of or scanning the physical copies of coupons that come in the junk mail all the time. For others, it means you can access and benefit from a larger database of digital coupons online and selecting some of the best deals for you. My favorite type of digital coupon app, however, is one that gives you reward points for shopping behaviors that you do already each time you go out to the store, but more on that below!

What Are Good Coupon Apps to Share with My Friends?

My absolutely favorite digital coupon app is called Shopkick, and how it works is exactly as I described above: you go to the store like normal and you earn points for doing what you usually do there, including making purchases, scanning barcodes to learn more about certain items, and just walking into the store. Then you can trade those points that you earn in for gift cards that you can use at your favorite stores in the future to help save on your costs. It’s such a great way to save money that I just can’t tell my friends about it enough. 

I also really like Shopkick because hunting for points through the app turns all my little trips to the store into a scavenger hunt for savings. Sharing it with my friends has been a lot of fun, too, because now it’s like we’re all on one big team, working together to help maximize all of your savings! It’s really brought us closer together than we have been since we all got so busy with our kids, and that in itself makes it all worthwhile! Another great thing about Shopkick is that you can use it together with one of the more traditional coupon apps that I mentioned above, driving your savings up even higher!

Shopkick works at such a wide variety of stores, that I’m truly amazed at how much I’ve been able to save in my budget.

So, there you have it. I would say that Shopkick is a good coupon app to share with friends because it delivers more than just savings. Yes, it actually gives you a way to bond over your trips to the store, turning you into a team of shoppers who share where they found the most points. Saving is great, but sharing your victorious savings stories with your friends is just so much better!

I remember one of the best pieces of advice I got as a new mother was to make the most of all the money I spend on the kids, to look for deals on things like diapers, formula, baby food, toys, and, most especially, clothes, since they grow out of them so quick. Shopkick works at such a wide variety of stores, that I’m truly amazed at how much I’ve been able to save in my budget. Having my friends with me for the ride is a wonderful bonus, too.

Looking for a good coupon app that you can share with any and all of your best friends? Download Shopkick for free and join a community of Shopkickers who love the rewards of shopping with us!

Or join us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and check in every day on your phone, no matter where you are, to learn about the hottest, newest deals.

Image courtesy jovanmandic

The best money saving apps for shopping online and in-store

Posted on by Kick Writers

The best money saving apps for shopping online and in-store

One simple truth of shopping these days—at least in my humble opinion—is that overall it has become easier, and I think the reason for this is we now have more choices than we’ve ever had before. When I was a kid, for example, my mom basically had to spend almost her entire Sunday shopping, going to our local grocery store, and then running errands to other little shops where we lived to fill out the other things she needed, whether it was school supplies to help us with our homework or toiletries for the house.

These days, I have the luxury of being able to get so much of what I need online, and then filling out the rest of it with my trips to local stores, often at my leisure rather than as an all-day Sunday event every weekend. If you’re anything like me—and I suspect these days most people are—you use a nice mix of shopping online and in physical stores on a weekly or monthly basis. With all the options available to us now, it just makes good sense to do it this way. With that in mind, I think it’s time that we talk about the best money-saving apps for online and in-store shopping, some of which you can use for one type of shopping, some for the other, and, in rare cases, for both.

Shopping apps have become vital in terms of saving as much money as you can while you’re at the store and enhancing your experience when you’re in those aisles. If you find yourself regularly using a shopping app that only rewards you for one or the other—online shopping or in-person trips—well then, simply put, you’re losing out on half the benefits. So, to help you out, below you will find a great list of some of my personal favorite money-saving apps for shopping online and in-store. I highly recommend giving them a try. They will help you take your shopping game to new heights!

 

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Best Money Saving Apps for Shopping Online and In-Store

CamelCamelCamel

I suspect that like myself the online store that you frequent most is Amazon. Well, if that’s the case, I highly recommend familiarizing yourself with this app, which is called CamelCamelCamel. It doesn’t have much to do with riding through deserts, though. It’s a website and browser extension that shoppers can use to save money by tracking prices on Amazon. It’s really a pretty incredible resource, given the nature of prices on Amazon.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, prices on Amazon often fluctuate, sometimes jumping by a pretty significant amount. With CamelCamelCamel, you get access to charts and details for extensive price histories to almost every product listed for sale on Amazon. You can see the fluctuations and know when you should buy an item or when you should hold off until the price is reduced in the future. I’ve never tracked it enough to be able to tabulate an exact amount, but I know that extrapolated over a long enough timeline, I’ve saved quite a bit of money shopping online at Amazon with the help of information from CamelCamelCamel.

Online: YES
In-Store: NO

Ebates

Ebates is a shopping portal that offers its users as much as 40 percent cash back on the purchases they make at its partner stores, which includes a healthy list of more than 2,000 options of places to shop. There are no points or anything like this involved. The way Ebates works is that it takes a simple percentage off at the time of checkout and gives it back to you in the form of cash. It’s a pretty rapid way to save money, one that I know I certainly appreciate. What can I say, sometimes you need to stretch your budget fast.

Ebates offers a browser extension like some of the other choices on our list—including CamelCamelCamel and Honey—and it’s a very useful extension. It makes it easy to remember and keep track of all the stores where you can use Ebates to save money. However, I should point out that many stores will only let you use one of these money-saving apps at a time, so when it comes to whether you should go with Honey, Ebates, or even one of our digital coupon apps, it’s best to take your time, do the math (ugh, I know), and carefully determine which app is the best for maximizing your savings.

Online: YES
In-Store: NO

Honey

Like CamelCamelCamel, Honey is also an online only browser plugin app, albeit one with a sweeter name. Honey works with Chrome or Firefox, and it automatically saves you money on your online shopping by applying any available coupon codes at the checkout stage of your shopping process. If you’re anything like me, whether you have a coupon or not, you always spend a second staring at the redeem code section wondering if you’re missing out on available savings. Well, what Honey does is ensures that you get any deals that are readily available.

When you have Honey installed, you simply see a popup while you’re checking out. Once you click that popup, Honey takes it from there, trying out all known coupon codes before ultimately applying the best available option for your bill. Another feature that I’ve grown quite fond of with Honey is that it offers a rewards program for a wide range of stores—3,700 online stores, last time I checked—giving you Honey Gold points that you can later redeem for free gift cards, which, as I’m sure you are well aware, are as good as cash!

Online: YES
In-Store: NO

SavingStar

SavingStar is a digital coupon app that pays users to shop at grocery and drugstores. What’s a digital coupon app? Well, it’s probably exactly what you think it is based on the name: an app that re-creates the experience of shopping in-person with coupons. You remember coupons, right? Those paper things your parents used to hang on the fridge with magnets and keep in that one junk drawer in your house? Well, they’re back—this time in digital form. So, say goodbye to any fears over papercuts!

More than 60,000 stores are part of SavingStar and they represent more than 100 retail chains. It’s generally free to use, but beware. If an account is inactive for 180 straight days, they will charge a fee of $3.99. To take advantage of SavingStar, users either link their existing store loyalty cards to the app or submit receipts after they make purchases. Their savings add up until they can eventually cash out through PayPal, Upromise, or even in the form of Starbucks, iTunes, or AMC Theater gift codes. If you frequently use loyalty rewards cards, this may be a great app for you. If your commitment to them is less than stellar, however, SavingStar may end up costing you money via its service fee.

Online: NO
In-Store: YES

SnipSnap

SnipSnap is in the same digital coupon app family as SavingStar, and it even has a similarly alliterative name, which has at times led me to confuse the two. The way SnipSnap works, however, is actually quite different. It’s more similar to the old school way of coupon collecting that used to necessitate going over paper ads and flyers with scissors and literally cutting out the coupons. With SnipSnap, you still have to do that, but instead of cutting them out you take pictures of the printed coupons with your phone. The app then converts them into easy-to-access, mobile-ready digital versions.

You can also use SnipSnap to browse online directories of digital coupons, thereby taking advantage of coupons that your friends have “snipped” as well. This one saves you money exactly the same way as a traditional coupon does—by reducing the price of your purchases at the time of checkout. The idea behind it is simple and much appreciated (at least by me anyway): that it’s exactly like using coupons used to be except that SnipSnap gives you a much cleaner and more efficient means of storing and using them. Say goodbye, in other words, to the old billfold that used to overflow with the edges of printed coupons.

Online: NO
In-Store: YES

Shopkick

Of all of the money-saving apps for shopping that I use both in the store and online, I’d have to say that Shopkick is my absolute favorite. I first began using this app as an in-store app that I used to save money whenever I went grocery shopping. I used Shopkick to get points—which Shopkick calls kicks—for normal shopping activities that I did each time I went to the store anyway, activities such as making purchases, scanning the barcodes on certain items, and even just walking into the store. Then, when I’d earned enough points, I was able to trade them in for gift cards to some of my favorite stores.

I eventually began to branch out with my Shopkick usage, using the app to collect points and earn gift cards while shopping at other places, including Target or Walmart, Best Buy, and some of my absolute favorite stores at the mall. That’s when I became aware of another major game-changer: it’s also possible to use Shopkick to get points for shopping online. Just like the app awards you points for the activities I mentioned earlier, it also gives you points for things like visiting certain online stores, viewing online products, making purchases, and watching videos, usually about cool new products. It even helps me save money before I even visit an online store because I can use Shopkick to score free online Amazon gift cards! Very cool.

Online: YES
In-Store: YES

I really don’t know how my mother (or anyone else) used to do all of our household’s shopping by just driving out to get things at traditional brick-and-mortar stores. I know she didn’t have another choice back then, but I’ve just become so thoroughly acclimated to my own special system of shopping both in-store and online. Now with these great money-saving apps for shopping online and in-store, I can add extra value to my system. Of course, I highly recommend you do the same.

And if I had to pick only one app to start with, I’d pick Shopkick. As you may have noticed, one thing that sets Shopkick apart is that it’s the rare app you can use both online and in-store, but more than that, it’s also super intuitive and easy to use, and—in my experience anyway—it provides the most value when you’re shopping both online and in-person. It’s also a whole lot of fun to use because it turns all your shopping experiences into fun scavenger hunts for points. I often find myself setting points goals and trying to beat them, and, to be quite honest with you, I wouldn’t be surprised if you ended up finding yourself doing the same thing, too!

Get one of the best money-saving apps for shopping both online and in-store. Download Shopkick’s free app today and join a community of loyal Shopkickers who’ve already discovered how fun it is to shop with us!

And, if you love social media as much as you love shopping online, join Shopkick on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for a little daily shopping inspiration.

Get Starbucks gift cards for free to help fuel your next shopping spree

Posted on by Kick Writers

My shopping time is not as readily available as it once was, thanks to the many new pressures that have been brought into my life by adulting. When I was younger, I used to do all-day shopping sprees with my friends, basically any weekend we felt like it or when we came across a particularly excellent sale. These days, those sort of all-day marathons are limited by my busy schedule, and, if I’m being totally honest, by my energy level as well. I just don’t have the unlimited energy to shop all day long like I once did—not without caffeine anyway.

I’m a coffee fiend when I’m out shopping now. In fact, if you run into me at the mall, no matter what time of year or whether it’s indoors or outdoors, I’m probably carrying a coffee—iced for the summer, steaming for the winter. It’s my shopping secret weapon most Saturdays, and just like I enjoy finding the best sales and deals on clothes and other things I’m out shopping for, I also enjoy finding ways to save money on my coffee. One of the most effective methods I’ve found for this is through using apps that help you earn Starbucks gift cards free.

Strange as it sounds, I think free coffee energizes me even more than the normal stuff does. I know, I know, it’s all in my head, right? Well, let me go ahead and share my secrets for how to get Starbucks gift cards for free with you today, and you can tell me if you notice some extra energy too!

How to Get Starbucks Gift Cards for Free With the Starbucks App

get starbucks gift cards freeOne of the most obvious ways to get Starbucks gift cards for free to help power you through your next all day shopping spree is by using the Starbucks app. The way this one works is super simple. Just download it, buy your Starbucks drinks like you usually do (I’m a vanilla almond milk latte drinker, myself), and earn free coffee.

Every time you make a purchase at Starbucks—which if you’re anything like me, it’s somewhat frequently—you earn a star, and once you get a certain amount of stars you can put them towards a free drink. Oh, and another nice little feature is that you also get a totally free Starbucks beverage on your birthday. All the gift cards you earn populate onto your app, too, so you don’t even have to carry around the actual plastic cards in your purse, which can be tough to remember sometimes when you head out shopping. Trust me.

How to Get Starbucks Gift Cards for Free by Taking Surveys

Taking free surveys through an app on your smartphone is another way to earn Starbucks gift cards for free. Groan. I know, but those type of survey apps actually do work, that’s why you hear so much about them. The survey app that I personally use is called MySurvey, which I like because it gives you both reward points as well as sweepstake entries. Basically, with MySurvey there’s always a chance you can win something bigger than a free cup of Joe.

Anyway, with most surveys, you’ll earn around 200 points, and you can also get an extra 150 points for each friend that you encourage to sign up, as long as they too go ahead and complete a certain number of surveys. You can redeem those points that you earn through taking surveys in the form of payouts via PayPal, Amazon, or—ding ding ding!—Starbucks gift cards. Last time I checked, it took 1,100 points to get a $10 Starbucks gift card.

How to Get Starbucks Gift Cards for Free by Shopping

I saved the best for last today. This app that helps you get Starbucks gift cards for free is my absolute favorite. It’s called Shopkick, and how it works is that it rewards you with gift cards for shopping. With Shopkick, you earn points for all the normal behaviors that you do each time you go to the store, behaviors like scanning barcodes on certain items to learn more about them, making purchases, and even just walking through the doors. And for those days when maybe you don’t have time or energy to go to the store, you can still get points from online shopping and video watching towards your next free Starbucks drink! You can then trade those points in for—that’s right—Starbucks gift cards, as well as other gift cards too.   

What I like about it the most though is that while earning you Starbucks to keep your energy levels up, it also turns the shopping experience into a game.

What I like about it the most though is that while earning you Starbucks to keep your energy levels up, it also turns the shopping experience into a game. Instead of thinking about how tired I sometimes get when I’m out in the aisles, I find myself consumed with getting as many points through Shopkick as I possibly can. Shopping basically turns from a draining activity into a really fun scavenger hunt for points. And, believe me, I want to find all the points that I possibly can!

So yes, while I don’t think science will ever back up my assertion that free coffee has a stronger kick to it than the stuff you pay for, I’d still like you to give my free recommendations for how to earn Starbucks gift cards for free a try. That way when you’re finished you can report back with your findings.

And hey, even if you don’t find free Starbucks to be any more energizing, the worst case scenario is that you still have a free beverage of your choice, and you could do much worse than that. After all, we are all getting older and keeping the energy up for a full day of shopping isn’t as easy as it used to be!

Start to get Starbucks gift cards for free so that you can have all the energy you need to fuel your next shopping spree. Download Shopkick’s free app today and join a community of loyal Shopkickers who’ve already discovered how much you can earn with the help of a free shopping sidekick.

And, if you’re on social media catching up with friends, be sure to also join Shopkick on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for a little daily fun and inspiration.

Image courtesy photosvit