Gamification Reward Delivery

This drill builds the notification and celebration layer for your gamification system. When a user earns a badge, levels up, hits a streak milestone, or climbs the leaderboard, they need to know immediately and feel rewarded. This drill connects gamification events to delivery channels.

Input

• Gamification system designed (from gamification-system-design drill)
• Gamification events instrumented in PostHog (from gamification-event-tracking drill)
• Intercom configured with Messenger on your product
• Loops configured for transactional email
• n8n instance for orchestration

Steps

1. Configure real-time in-app celebrations

Using intercom-in-app-messages, create messages triggered by gamification events. For each reward type:

Badge Earned: Create an Intercom post (banner-style) triggered when gamification_badge_awarded fires:

• Title: "Badge Unlocked: {badge_name}"
• Body: "{badge_description}. You've earned {badges_total} badges so far."
• CTA: "View your badges" -> deep link to profile/badges page
• Display: show_once per badge, dismiss after 10 seconds
• Audience: user where badge_id = {specific badge} AND badge_celebrated != true

Streak Milestone: Create an Intercom tooltip or post triggered on gamification_streak_updated where is_milestone = true:

• 3-day streak: "3 days in a row. Keep it going!"
• 7-day streak: "A full week. You're building a habit."
• 14-day streak: "Two weeks strong. Only 2% of users reach this."
• 30-day streak: "30-day streak. You're in the top 1%."
• Display: show_once per milestone

Level Up: Create an Intercom post triggered on gamification_level_up:

• Title: "Level Up: {level_name}"
• Body: "You unlocked {unlock_description}. Your next milestone is {next_level_points - current_points} points away."
• CTA: "See what's new" -> deep link to unlocked feature or rewards page
• Display: show_once per level

Leaderboard Climb: Using n8n-triggers, detect when a user's rank improves by 5+ positions and trigger an Intercom message:

• Body: "You moved up to #{new_rank} on the leaderboard this week."
• CTA: "View leaderboard"

2. Configure email reward notifications

Using loops-transactional, set up email notifications for high-value gamification moments:

Weekly Streak Summary (for active streak holders): Trigger: weekly on Monday via n8n for users with gamification_current_streak >= 3

• Subject: "Your {streak_count}-day streak is alive"
• Body: Points earned this week, badges close to earning, streak milestone approaching, leaderboard position
• CTA: "Keep your streak" -> deep link to the product action that extends the streak

Badge Earned Email: Trigger: on gamification_badge_awarded for silver and gold tier badges (skip bronze to avoid email fatigue)

• Subject: "You earned the {badge_name} badge"
• Body: What the badge means, how many users have it, what badge to aim for next
• CTA: "See your collection"

Streak Recovery Nudge: Trigger: on gamification_streak_broken where streak_count_at_break >= 7 (only nudge for meaningful streaks)

• Subject: "Your {streak_count}-day streak ended yesterday"
• Body: Acknowledge the achievement (not the failure), mention streak recovery if available, show how close they are to their next milestone
• CTA: "Start a new streak today"
• Send timing: 24 hours after the break (gives time for organic return)

Monthly Progress Digest: Trigger: first of month via n8n

• Subject: "Your {month_name} progress: {points_earned} points, {badges_earned} badges"
• Body: Monthly stats, level progression, best streak, leaderboard highlights, comparison to previous month
• CTA: "See your full profile"

3. Build the orchestration workflow

Using n8n-triggers, create an n8n workflow that listens for PostHog gamification events via webhook and routes them to the appropriate delivery channel:

1. Webhook trigger: PostHog sends events via webhook to n8n
2. Event router: Switch node based on event name
3. Deduplication: Check if this reward was already delivered (query Intercom user attributes)
4. Channel selection: In-app for all events; email only for high-value events (silver/gold badges, streak milestones >= 7, level ups)
5. Delivery: Send Intercom message via API, send Loops email via API
6. Logging: Track delivery in PostHog via posthog-custom-events:

posthog.capture('gamification_reward_delivered', {
  reward_type: 'badge_earned',
  channel: 'intercom_in_app',
  badge_id: 'first_collaboration',
  delivered_at: timestamp
});

4. Implement progressive notification rules

Prevent notification fatigue with these rules:

• Maximum 3 gamification notifications per user per day (in-app)
• Maximum 2 gamification emails per user per week
• If a user earns multiple badges in one session, batch them into a single "You earned 3 badges today" message
• Streak notifications only at milestones (3, 7, 14, 30, 60, 90), not every day
• Suppress gamification emails for users who have not opened the last 3 gamification emails (use Loops engagement data)

5. Track delivery effectiveness

Using posthog-custom-events, measure the impact of each notification:

• Click-through rate: % of notifications where the user clicked the CTA
• Return rate: % of streak recovery nudges that resulted in a new streak starting within 48 hours
• Engagement lift: Compare weekly active days for users who received notifications vs those who did not
• Unsubscribe rate: Monitor Loops unsubscribe events for gamification emails -- if above 1% per send, reduce frequency

Output

• In-app celebration messages for badges, streaks, levels, and leaderboard moves via Intercom
• Email notifications for weekly summaries, high-value badges, streak recovery, and monthly digests via Loops
• n8n orchestration workflow routing gamification events to delivery channels
• Notification fatigue prevention rules
• Delivery effectiveness tracking in PostHog

Triggers

The n8n orchestration workflow runs continuously, triggered by PostHog webhook events. Weekly streak summaries fire Monday mornings. Monthly digests fire on the 1st. Re-run the full drill setup when adding new gamification mechanics or notification channels.