Fintech Gamification: 5 Examples of Product Adoption Campaigns

Customers can use your app every week and still ignore half its features. They may not know where to start or feel ready to move money through something unfamiliar.

A lesson, guided task or progress map can make that first attempt easier. These five examples show how fintechs connect games and rewards to product use.

1. Coinbase: reward short lessons and quizzes

Offer a small reward for learning how a product works. Keep the lesson short enough to finish while the customer is interested.

Coinbase Learning rewards gave eligible customers crypto for completing educational content and quizzes. They could learn about an asset and receive a small balance without making an initial purchase.

Use this approach when understanding is the main obstacle. Give customers an obvious next step after the lesson, while the explanation is fresh.

2. Coinbase Wallet: reward hands-on wallet tasks

Guide customers through the feature itself when reading about it leaves too much unexplained.

Coinbase Wallet Quests rewarded activities such as swapping, delegating, staking and minting NFTs with tokens or NFTs. Customers learned by using the wallet.

For a task involving money, show fees and explain what happens to the funds before the customer commits. A reward can make the first attempt appealing while leaving the underlying transaction risks unchanged.

3. Crypto.com: offer missions for setup and feature use

Turn setup and discovery into a short list of tasks. Keep each task's purpose clear.

Crypto.com Missions included daily check-ins, trading thresholds and one-time tasks such as enabling passkeys, setting alerts, making a first card purchase and funding a wallet. Rewards were Diamonds, which had no cash value and could be redeemed in a rewards store. Daily tasks reset; eligibility varied by task and market.

A separate Crypto.com University campaign connected courses and assessments with app missions. The useful choice is how much explanation each task needs. Enabling an alert and making a trade deserve different guidance, even if both earn points.

4. Google Pay: turn payment tasks into a festival map

Use a map when you want customers to discover several features. Let each area introduce a task and show what remains.

Google Pay's Festival City used a Diwali map with building challenges. Customers collected 501 shaguns, the campaign's collectibles, through transfers, bills, QR purchases and other tasks. One building required seven payments to a friend, limited to one per day. Another required seven QR purchases. Cashback rewards varied.

The daily limit spread one task across several days. For your own map, choose tasks with a use beyond completing the collection; otherwise customers may make token payments just to finish.

5. Optimism: guide customers through 18 apps with NFT rewards

Build a guided route when customers need help exploring several connected products. Give each stop one clear task.

Optimism's first-season Quests covered 18 apps on its network. Customers earned NFTs while learning about and trying the apps. The campaign promised NFTs; it did not promise an OP token airdrop.

Choose a useful follow-up for each app. Someone who returns to make another transaction has shown more interest than someone who visited once to collect the reward.

Choose gamification that helps customers use a feature

Use lessons when customers need understanding, hands-on tasks when they need practice and maps when they need help finding features.

Keep the task small and explain any cost before it starts. Then check whether customers use the feature again after the reward. If you can, leave a randomly selected group outside the campaign to estimate how much extra use it brings.

For the reward itself, see fintech reward program design. For other campaign formats, explore 24 fintech incentive ideas.