Merkle Promotions builds digital activations around a specialty in gamification, treating games and contests as the core mechanism for earning attention rather than an add-on to a campaign. Past work includes a nostalgic 8-bit racing game built to drive sales and loyalty acquisition, an AR adventure experience created to re-engage kids and families with a brand during the post-COVID slowdown, and a gamified digital engagement hub built for CareCredit.
The service list covers the mechanics of promotion-driven marketing: sweepstakes and instant win games, trivia, personality tests, and days-of-giving campaigns, photo, video, and essay contests, mobile mini-games and custom-built games, social hashtag programs, and purchase validation through receipt upload and rebates. Tokenized loyalty and NFT programs sit alongside these, along with the administrative side of promotions — legal review and fulfillment. This work sits within broader digital marketing capabilities, including digital strategy, campaign management, creative concepting and production, brand campaigns, social strategy, content strategy, and website design.