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Where to find this: Shopify admin → Apps → Yuko Loyalty → Loyalty → Settings → Backfill points for past orders

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Overview

Backfill Points solves the “we just installed Yuko — what about all our existing customers’ order history?” problem. In one run, it awards points to every customer for the orders they placed before loyalty was enabled, so day-one balances reflect real historical loyalty instead of starting at zero. Under the hood it’s a specialized One-time Campaign with audience_type = past_orders — it reuses the same participants tab, CSV export, and status tracking. But because backfilling can only be done responsibly once, it lives in the loyalty Settings tab and is deliberately locked to a single run per store.

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Why you need it

Every loyalty program has a cold-start moment. On the day you turn Yuko on, every customer has a 0 balance — including a customer who has spent $10,000 with you over the last three years. That 0 balance is a bad first impression. Your best customers open your loyalty page, see zero points, and conclude the program doesn’t recognize them. They either don’t engage, or worse, they mentally file loyalty as “another thing this brand does that doesn’t apply to me.” Backfilling fixes that in one shot: every existing customer walks into the program with a balance that reflects what they’ve already given you.

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When to use it

  • You just installed Yuko and you have historical Shopify orders you want to honour.
  • You migrated to Yuko from another loyalty platform and you want to seed balances based on Shopify order history rather than trying to match the old provider’s points balances exactly.
  • You relaunched loyalty after having it disabled for a stretch and want to bring customers back with a “we’ve credited you for orders in the meantime” gesture.
If your goal instead is a targeted gift to a specific segment, use One-time Campaigns — those aren’t locked and can run any number of times.

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Before you start

Yuko app is installed on your Shopify store — see Install Yuko on Shopify.
The Yuko Theme App Embed is enabled in your active theme — see Theme App Embed.
Your loyalty program is enabled under Loyalty Program Status at Shopify admin → Apps → Yuko Loyalty → Loyalty → Programs.
Your point labels are set in Loyalty Settings.
Your Place an order Way to Earn is configured the way you want it — if you’ll use “campaign-based” mode, this is the rule that drives the math.
You’ve decided whether points should expire (recommended — backfilled points should feel like a welcome, not a permanent liability on your books).
Past-order backfill is available on your plan (it’s available on select plans).
You understand that this is a one-shot operation — you get one backfill per store and then need to contact support to run another.

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How to configure a backfill

1

Open Settings

Go to Apps → Yuko Loyalty → Loyalty, open the Settings tab, scroll to Backfill points for past orders, and click Configure.
2

Pick the points calculation

  • Fixed points per customer — a flat amount, entered in Points per customer (e.g., 100 pts). With Award points for all orders, the amount is awarded for each eligible order; with First order only, each customer gets it once.
  • Based on Place-an-order campaign — Yuko computes points per customer using your active Place-an-order earning rule (e.g., 1 pt per $1 spent), summed across all their eligible orders.
3

Pick the order scope

If a customer has multiple past orders, choose:
  • Award points for all orders — accumulate across every eligible order (the typical choice).
  • First order only — count each customer’s earliest order only.
4

(Optional) Set points expiry

Turn on Points expiry and set Expires after and a Period (Days, Weeks or Months), e.g. 60 days, after which backfilled points expire. This creates redemption urgency and keeps the liability off your books long-term.
5

Preview

Under Estimated reach, click Preview to see how many orders match and the total points to be awarded (for flat mode). Use this to sanity-check before you commit.
6

Run backfill

Click Run backfill. Yuko processes past orders in the background. Each run is listed under Recent backfills; click View to open its detail page with the progress, the per-customer participants log and the success/failure counts.

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Two points calculation modes

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Fixed points per customer

Every eligible order earns the same flat amount, regardless of order value. Combine it with First order only to give each customer the amount exactly once. Simplest and most predictable. Best for: goodwill gestures on program launch, migration greetings, situations where you want equal treatment. Example: 150 pts with First order only → 3,200 customers → 480,000 total points awarded. With Award points for all orders, a customer with 3 eligible orders gets 450 pts.

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Based on Place-an-order campaign

Points are computed per customer using your active Place-an-order earning rule and summed across all their eligible orders. If your rule is *1 pt per $1 spent*, a customer who spent $340 across 3 orders gets 340 pts. Best for: matching historical spend so your best customers land in the right point neighbourhood. Example: Place-an-order rule = 1 pt per $1. Customer A spent $50, customer B spent $2,300. Backfill awards A = 50 pts, B = 2,300 pts. VIP tier thresholds get realistic day-one populations.
Before using campaign-based mode, double-check your Place-an-order rule — that’s the exact rule the backfill uses. If your rule awards 2 pts per $1, backfill will too.

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Order scope: all orders vs first order only

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What gets counted

  • Paid, non-cancelled orders only. Pending/refunded/voided orders are excluded.
  • Only orders linked to a Shopify customer profile. Guest orders without a linked customer are skipped and don’t appear in the participants list.
  • Excluded customers are skipped. Customers excluded from the loyalty program don’t receive backfilled points.
  • All time, by default. The backfill runs across your entire historical order history. If you need a specific date range instead, contact support.

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Preview before you commit

The preview shows two numbers:
  1. Order(s) matched — how many past orders match right now.
  2. Total points to award — for flat mode only (the flat amount × matched orders). Campaign-based mode depends on each customer’s order values, so exact totals appear on the detail page after the backfill runs.
Use preview freely — nothing is awarded until you click Run backfill.

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Tracking the backfill after it runs

Backfills open the same detail view as any one-time campaign:
  • Progress with processed / total counts.
  • Status: running → completed (or Completed with errors if some awards failed).
  • Participants tab with per-customer Awarded, Skipped and Failed entries.
  • CSV export of the entire recipient list.
  • Conversions tab showing the orders, revenue and points redeemed with coupons from the backfilled points.
The Recent backfills section on the Settings tab shows each run with its date, recipient count, points mode and status.

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The one-shot rule

After a backfill runs, the Configure button is replaced by a Past-order backfill already run banner:
You’ve already run a past-order backfill, so it can only be done once to avoid awarding points twice. Need to run it again or backfill a specific date range? Contact us.
This is a deliberate safety rail — backfilling twice is one of the fastest ways to accidentally award every customer double points. If you legitimately need to backfill again (e.g., you want a specific date range you missed, or you re-imported historical orders after fixing a data issue), contact support.

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How to communicate the backfill to customers

A silent backfill is a wasted backfill — the customer only feels the gesture if you tell them.

Klaviyo email announcement

Right after the backfill runs, Klaviyo profiles get the updated yuko_points_balance. Send a broadcast that leads with the actual number, using the yuko_points_balance profile property.

WhatsApp

For VIP customers with meaningful balances, a WhatsApp template message tends to land harder than email.

Loyalty Nudges

Surface the new balance on the storefront the next time the customer lands — the number right there on the page beats explaining it in copy.

Omnisend and other integrations

Any integration that reads Yuko customer data can gate the announcement on “has balance > 0” so only backfilled customers see it.

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Best practices

Preview first, always. The recipient count tells you whether your filters are right before you spend real awards.
Use a short expiry (30–60 days) on backfilled points — they’re a welcome gift, not a permanent liability. Short expiry also drives the redemption → next-order chain sooner.
Announce the backfill within an hour of running it. The point of a backfill is to greet customers with a balance; a silent backfill is invisible.
Match your Place-an-order rule to how you would have awarded historically before choosing campaign-based mode. If your rule today is 2× what it used to be, campaign-based mode will over-award.
Do the migration bump too — pair the backfill with a small flat one-time campaign so even customers who had zero past orders (e.g., newsletter-only subscribers) get a welcome touch.

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Limitations

  • One backfill per store. Contact support to run another.
  • All-time only in the self-serve UI. Date-range backfills go through support.
  • Only paid, non-cancelled orders. Refunds, cancellations, and pending orders are excluded from the count.
  • Guest orders skipped. No linked Shopify customer profile means no points target.
  • Shopify only. Backfill reads past orders from Shopify.
  • No mid-run edits. Once a backfill is running you can only cancel it, not tweak the math.

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FAQs

Same engine, different intent. A one-time campaign targets a segment and awards a fixed amount, and you can run as many as you want. A backfill targets past order history and can be run only once — the guardrail exists so you don’t accidentally double-credit historical orders.
Not from the settings UI, which defaults to all time. If you need a specific range (e.g., “orders from Jan 1 2024 onwards”), contact support — that path supports date-scoped backfills.
Common reasons: you imported additional historical orders after the first backfill, you want to add another date range, or you fixed a data-quality issue that had skipped some orders. All of those go through support.
They’re not touched by the backfill (there’s no order to base it on). If you also want to greet them, pair the backfill with a small flat one-time campaign to All customers.
Yes — backfilled points are real points transactions in the customer’s ledger, and tiers are re-evaluated when the points land. If your VIP tiers qualify on points earned, customers move into whatever tier the new total qualifies for.
Only if you set an expiry when configuring the backfill. Without expiry, they behave like any other awarded points.
No. Only paid, non-cancelled orders are counted.
Subscription orders are Shopify orders like any other, so yes — they’re counted as long as they’re paid and linked to a customer.
It depends on how many past orders your store has, because Yuko reads them from Shopify in pages. Small stores finish quickly; stores with a long order history take longer. The detail page shows the progress.

One-time Campaigns

Same engine — targeted, unlimited runs, use for gifts / apologies / launches / cohorts.

Place an order

The earning rule that powers campaign-based backfill mode.

Loyalty Settings

The Settings tab where backfill lives.

Loyalty Nudges

Surface the freshly backfilled balance on the storefront the moment customers return.

Ways to Earn

Configure how customers earn points across your store.

Ways to Redeem

Set up the rewards customers can redeem with their points.

Booster Campaigns

Run time-bound multipliers, bonuses and challenges on top of earning.

Loyalty Settings

Point labels, earning and revert statuses, exclusions and order tags.

Customers

View balances and activity, adjust points and assign tiers.

VIP Tiers

Reward your best customers with tier multipliers and benefits.

Book a Free Setup Call

Talk to our team for personalised setup help.Time: 30 minutes

Contact Support

Visit our support hub for help articles, live chat and ticket submission.

Browse the Guides

Documentation across loyalty, referrals, memberships and more.

Install Yuko

Add Yuko to your Shopify store from the Shopify App Store.