Local Badge Best Practices

It’s time to create your exclusive badge that your customers will have the privilege of unlocking and leveling up on Untappd! To get the most out of your badge, it’s important to be creative, but in short, have fun with it! The badge is meant to be fun and exciting for your customers, but it should be fun for you as well!

Naming the Badge

While you can certainly utilize just your business name as the name of the badge, users tend to get more excited and businesses have seen better results with a creative name. Since the badge is a loyalty program, you can model it after any loyalty/rewards program you already have in place! You could also utilize a catchy phrase or slogan of your business, or simply just something off the top of your head.

Creating the Description

This description is the text that an Untappd user will see when they unlock the badge, or anytime they level it up, so it’s important that this description provides key information in 250-300 characters or less. There are many different ways to approach this, but the first thing to note is that the text applies to everyone, regardless of level. You can go many different ways here, including offering rewards to encouraging more check-ins!

Don't

“Check-in a beer to unlock the badge” (the customer won't see the text until after the badge has been earned)
“Congrats on earning the badge”
“Congrats on reaching Level X” (the text does not change according to level)
Include links or emojis

Do

Express gratitude and/or welcome them to your exclusive club (if applicable)
Offer rewards for reaching various levels (ex: Notify your bartender when you reach Levels 5, 25 and 50 for some free swag!)
Encourage future check-ins
“Don’t forget to subscribe to our venue!”

Please avoid profanity, racial slurs and offensive text. Obviously.

High Quality Artwork

Crisp and clean images (400x400) with a transparent background make for an aesthetically pleasing badge that your customers will be excited to unlock and level up. You can certainly use your business’ logo as the image for the badge, but if you do have another image you’d rather use, or an image that was customized solely for the badge, you can certainly use that! Unique images are always fun and exciting for the Untappd user, as well as for the business, because it’s something unique that you have created.

Here are some examples of some custom images used for a local badge:

When deciding on artwork for the local badges, please refrain from using profanity, offensive text, racial slurs or pornographic material in the artwork. Additionally, the artwork for the badge should not include photographs (including photos run through a drawing/cartoon filter), memes, or trademarked images that the business doesn’t own.

Promoting the Badge

Now that you have created your badge and it’s active for your customers to unlock/level up, it’s time to promote it! There are various ways to do this, but some of the most effective we’ve seen in the past are as follows:

Post on Social Media
- Post on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and let your customers know they can earn an exclusive badge when checking in at your location. If they can win rewards or prizes, let them know that as well!
Create Events in Untappd for Business
- When creating events on Untappd for Business, be sure to mention that users can unlock and level up your exclusive badge! Nothing better than unlocking or leveling up a badge during a live music act or trivia night! (How to Create an Event)