Theme App Embeds
Optional storefront blocks for Gift Card Factory — what they do, and why most stores don't need them
Gift Card Factory ships a few storefront blocks you can add to your Online Store theme. They surface gift-card features directly on your shop — a balance checker, the "send a gift card to a friend" fields, and a rewards banner.
You don't need these in general. Gift Card Factory's core features — bulk operations, campaigns, Flow automations, rewards, reminders, and refunds — all run from the app admin and work without touching your theme. The storefront blocks below are only required for a couple of specific, storefront-facing features. If you're not using those features, you can safely ignore this page.
When do I actually need a block?
Gift Card Postman
You run a Gift Card Postman campaign and want shoppers to enter the recipient's details, a message, and a send date on the product page.
Not needed.
Gift Card Balance Lookup
You want customers to check their own gift card balance on your storefront.
Optional — purely a convenience.
Gift Card Reward Banner
You want shoppers to see the gift card reward they'll earn — calculated from your active Gift Card Rewards campaign — in the cart.
Optional — the rewards still apply without it.
In short: only the Gift Card Postman block is ever "required", and only while a Postman campaign is active. Everything else is optional.
What does NOT need a theme block
These features work entirely from the admin and never touch your theme:
Bulk operations — creating, updating, and sending gift cards, store credit, and discount codes.
Gift Card Rewards — issuing rewards after orders (the reward is applied automatically; the banner only shows the shopper what they'll earn).
Gift Card Reminders, Scheduled Gift Cards, and Scheduled Store Credit.
Gift Card Refunds.
Shopify Flow triggers and actions.
If your use case is on this list, you're done — no theme changes required.
Checking status from the dashboard
The Theme app embeds card in your dashboard (right rail) shows, per theme, which blocks are installed:
Pick a theme from the selector — status is re-checked for that theme.
Each block shows a Required / Optional tag and an Installed / Not installed tag.
If a required block is missing on the selected theme, the card shows a red alert and an Install button.
Optional blocks show an Add to theme button; installed blocks show Manage.
"Required" is decided server-side: the Gift Card Postman block is only marked required while you have an active Gift Card Postman campaign. With no active Postman campaign, every block reads as Optional.
Adding a block to your theme
All three are theme app blocks — you add them to a section from the theme editor (they are not global "app embed" toggles).
In the Shopify admin, go to Online Store → Themes → Customize (or use the Install / Add to theme button on the dashboard card, which opens the editor on the right template).
Navigate to the page or section where the block belongs:
Gift Card Postman → your gift card product page.
Gift Card Reward Banner → the cart page.
Gift Card Balance Lookup → any page that fits (a dedicated "Check your balance" page, the footer, etc.).
Click Add block → Apps and choose the block.
Position it, then Save.
If you don't see the block under Apps, make sure Gift Card Factory is installed and its theme app extension is enabled for the theme you're editing. Some older themes don't support app blocks — if that's the case, contact us at [email protected] and we'll help you set it up.
Related pages
Gift Card Postman — the campaign that uses the Postman block.
Gift Card Balance Lookup — full settings reference for the lookup block.
Gift Card Rewards — the campaign the reward banner promotes.
Last updated