The goal

A gift campaign isn't just a free-shipping form. It's the whole loop: a creator opens a link, picks a real product, gives you an address, you approve it, Shopify ships it, and (ideally), they post about it. Your first campaign should prove that whole loop works end to end, on a small enough scale that a mistake costs you one hoodie, not fifty.

How most brands do it

The common first move is to open the entire catalog to every field they can turn on, require nothing, approve automatically, and blast the link out to a big creator list before anyone has ever actually clicked through it. What goes wrong: creators pick expensive items for personal use, sizes and variants get mismatched because nobody checked what a gift order looks like on the other end, and because there was no approval step, none of it can be caught before it ships. Weeks later, there's a pile of shipped product and no way to tell who actually posted.

How experienced teams do it

Start narrow. One campaign, one or two hero products (ideally the ones you most want content of), a real approval step so a human looks at every request before it becomes a Shopify order, and a small first batch of creators (5 to 10 people), before you open it wider. Walk through the gift form yourself first, as a creator would, so you catch a confusing question or a missing size before a real creator does. Only after the first batch clears the whole loop cleanly (approved, shipped, posted), does it make sense to widen the product list or increase your batch size.

Do it in Seed

  1. Open Campaigns in the nav, then click Create campaign.
  2. On Step 1. Basics, give the campaign a name. This is required before you can continue.
  3. On Step 2. Products, pick one or two products you actually want content of, not your whole catalog. You need at least one to continue.
  4. On Step 3. Form fields, check what you're asking the creator for. Shipping address is on by default. Don't add fields you don't have a use for.
  5. On Step 4. Review, confirm Require approval before shipping is on, check the live preview on the right, then click Create Campaign.
  6. You land in the campaign editor. Copy the share link from the header and send it to a small first batch of creators, see how do I share the gift link.

Expert checklist

  • One or two products tied to a real content goal, not the whole catalog.
  • Approval turned on for a first campaign. Don't automate what you haven't watched happen once.
  • You've submitted a test order yourself through the preview before sending the link out.
  • A small first batch of creators, not a mass send, until the loop is proven.
  • Only the form fields you have an actual use for. Every extra field is a reason to abandon.