Rivo Agency
BMO Media is a Rivo loyalty agency for Shopify brands. We model the program's economics, set up points, referrals and VIP tiers in Rivo, and wire every points event into your email and SMS flows. Rivo is the loyalty platform we recommend first for most Shopify brands. Step one: a free audit of your repeat-purchase data.
What we do
Why a Rivo specialist, not a generalist
Rivo is the loyalty platform we recommend first for most Shopify brands, and here is why. It is built for Shopify, with 11,000+ merchants and 4.7 stars from 1,440 reviews (Shopify App Store, October 2026). Loyalty, referrals, VIP tiers, customer accounts and POS integration sit in one app. And it leaves messaging to the email and SMS platform you already run, where it belongs.
The platform is rarely what fails. The design is. The average consumer belongs to 17.4 loyalty programs and sees only one third of them as delivering true value (Bond Loyalty Report 2025 with Visa, August 2025). A generalist installs Rivo, keeps a default earn rate and calls it launched. The program then rewards orders that were coming anyway, and the points liability grows without a price on it.
A Rivo specialist starts from your numbers: margin per order, AOV, time between orders and redemption at a realistic rate. In the YoungLA rewards program we launched across the US and EU (its messaging runs on Attentive; the case study does not name the loyalty app), the welcome series alone drove 60.6% of program revenue and 64.8% of conversions. Onboarding did the selling, not the widget.
What's included
What we do inside Rivo
A points liability model before setup, built with our loyalty program ROI method: what a point is worth, how many you will issue, how many get redeemed and how many expire as breakage.
VIP tier thresholds read off your actual spend distribution against AOV, not round numbers: the entry tier sits just above a typical second order, and the top tier a stretch above what your best customers spend now, so reaching it takes one more order.
A redemption ladder priced on purpose: flat point value for faster, predictable redemption, or rising value that rewards saving, with the liability of each option modeled before you pick.
Earn rules beyond orders, for reviews, birthdays, account creation and social follows, capped so non-purchase points never become the bulk of your liability.
Referrals with fraud controls from day one: no reward until the friend's first order is fulfilled, a minimum value on that order, and a monthly review of advocates whose friends share a shipping address. See our referral program ideas.
Rivo Accounts set up so members see balance, tier progress and available rewards in their customer account, the page they open when they are already thinking about the next order.
POS integration so store purchases earn and redeem in the same ledger, and store-only customers enter your email and SMS flows with their points attached.
Migration into Rivo from Smile.io, Yotpo or LoyaltyLion: balances and tier status carried over, members told before the switch, and old flows retired only after the new ones fire.
Rivo features we lean on
Loyalty: points for orders and chosen actions, with expiry. We set expiry long enough to feel fair and short enough to give members a reason to come back, and every expiry gets a warning first.
VIP Tiers: thresholds set from your real spend distribution, with tier status passed to your email platform as a segment, so customers close to the next tier get a reason to order now.
Referrals: two-sided rewards with the share link placed in the post-purchase sequence, timed for the days after delivery rather than the order confirmation.
Accounts: a member hub inside the customer account. We make it the landing page for every balance and expiry message, so the click goes straight to rewards members can redeem.
POS integration: one ledger across store and online. For brands with retail, points give store customers a reason to share an email address at the counter, which feeds every other flow.
Switch on first: Loyalty and VIP Tiers with modeled thresholds. Referrals follow once members are redeeming, and POS only if you have stores.
When Rivo is the right platform
Rivo is our default for Shopify, not our only answer, so here is where each option wins and loses.
Platform | Best fit | Where it falls short |
|---|---|---|
Rivo | Most Shopify brands: points, referrals, VIP tiers, Accounts and POS in one app, with messaging left to your email and SMS platform | No reviews product, so reviews sit in a separate app; Shopify only |
Yotpo | Brands that want reviews and loyalty under one contract and one customer record | Its email and SMS products were sunset, so every member message depends on a sync to another platform |
Smile.io | New programs on small catalogs that need basic points and referrals live this month | VIP tiers start on the Growth plan and API access on Smile Plus, so tier-led programs need a higher plan |
LoyaltyLion | Programs with complex earn rules, many tiers or custom data needs | More configuration than simpler apps, and no reviews product of its own |
We start most Shopify brands on Rivo because it covers what most programs actually use and keeps messaging in the tool you already trust. We pick Yotpo when reviews and loyalty must share a vendor (see our Yotpo agency work), and LoyaltyLion when the earn logic needs more custom rules than a simpler app holds.
Results
Results from our Shopify loyalty programs
Figures are from the linked case studies. They come from loyalty programs we run across platforms.
YoungLA rewards structure: three spend tiers from $150 to $1,500, a 1.25x point multiplier at the Legend tier, and redemption from 200 points for $5 up to 1,000 points for $25.
YoungLA's first 30 days: 118,831 program messages across the US and EU, with the welcome series driving 60.6% of program revenue and 64.8% of conversions.
YoungLA tier upgrade emails: 52.70% open rate and 15.18% click rate, so a tier change is worth its own flow, not a line in the newsletter.
Liquid Death, on Klaviyo: 15% of non-buyer profiles converted into customers in the first 3 months, the pool a loyalty program then turns into repeat buyers.
Process
How we work in a Rivo account
Audit, week one: we read your Shopify order data for repeat rate by cohort, AOV and time between orders, plus redemption rate and outstanding points if a program already runs. You get the three biggest gaps and the revenue each one is costing.
Model and scope: point value, earn rate, tier thresholds and expected liability, set against your margin. Scope is a new launch, a migration into Rivo or a redesign, and you approve the model before we build anything. If the model cannot pay back at your margin, we say so before launch.
Build in revenue order: Loyalty and the welcome series first, then balance and expiry reminders, then VIP Tiers with near-tier nudges, then Referrals, then Accounts and POS. Your most frequent buyers get the invitation before the public launch, so the first redemptions come from customers who will order again.
Report monthly: members against non-members on repeat rate, time between orders and AOV; redemption, breakage and outstanding liability; referral customers and their payback. Model the gap in member value with our CLV calculator.
Who it's for
Who our Rivo agency works best with
Shopify brands in repeat categories launching their first program, brands on Smile.io that have outgrown simple points, brands on Yotpo rethinking loyalty after the email and SMS sunset, and brands with stores that want one ledger online and off. Our wider loyalty program service covers the strategy around the platform.
We are a poor fit for stores not on Shopify, and for brands whose repeat rate is weak because the post-purchase experience is weak. Fix that first: a program rewards behavior, it does not create it. If you fit, book a free loyalty audit and we will model what a Rivo program could earn.
Frequently asked questions