How Employment Hero helped unlock $1.6M by turning gifting into a global revenue channel

Employment Hero is a fast-growing HR, payroll and hiring platform operating across the UK, APAC, and Canada. As the team scaled its go-to-market motion globally, Maisie Goss, VP of Marketing (UK), knew gifting had potential. The problem was that the process behind it was broken.

We sat down with Maisie to learn how Employment Hero went from spending hours per send on spreadsheets and vendor emails to running a fully integrated, attribution-tracked gifting program across three markets.

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The challenge: Manual gifting without visibility, attribution, or scale

Before Reachdesk, gifting at Employment Hero wasn't really a strategy. It was a fire drill. 

Every send meant coordinating across multiple vendors and regions, pulling in the Growth Marketing team, and burning through hours that a lean UK operation simply didn't have.

Globally, each gifting activity cost an estimated 2 to 3 hours per person. For the UK team, the overhead was so disproportionate that consistent gifting had effectively stopped happening.

And even when gifts did go out, there was no way to know if they worked:

• No attribution or ROI tracking: Gifting couldn't be tied to meetings booked, deals progressed, or revenue generated.
• No Salesforce integration: Gifting sat completely outside pipeline data, making spend impossible to justify.
• No verified address or redemption tracking: Teams couldn't confirm whether gifts were received or even opened.
• Limited regional relevance: UK-specific options required bespoke sourcing each time, slowing execution.
• Inconsistent execution: Manual coordination kept gifting to a monthly cadence at best.

The solution: A global, integrated gifting platform built for scalable revenue growth

Employment Hero's team had experienced Reachdesk firsthand before they ever evaluated it as a vendor. They had been on the receiving end of a gifting send as prospects, and it left an impression. It reframed how the team thought about gifting: not as a transactional tactic, but as a way to deliver moments that cut through in a noisy outbound environment.

When it came to a formal evaluation, Reachdesk was benchmarked against other gifting solutions. Three things made the difference:

• Global marketplace coverage: Regionally relevant options across the UK and APAC without building separate fulfillment infrastructure.
• Native integrations: Salesforce and Marketo connectivity to ensure gifting activity was visible in pipeline data from day one.
• Flexibility: Strong e-gift capabilities and the ability to run regional campaigns from a single platform.

The rollout was coordinated globally across Sales, Growth, Marketing Ops, CRM, and Partner teams, with clear roles and responsibilities defined from the start. Pilot campaigns were run first to test and refine the approach before full activation. A three-tier access model was then introduced to balance ease of use with proper oversight: admins manage budgets, SDR managers review and approve sends, and SDRs can execute quickly, especially when timing is tight ahead of meetings.

Outreach integration means SDRs can layer gifting into sequences without switching tools. Marketo triggers gifting based on campaign activity and funnel stage, removing the need for manual sends. And Salesforce ties it all together, tracking sends, redemptions, pipeline influence, and revenue impact in one place.

Results: Proven impact across revenue, pipeline, and engagement

Employment Hero's UK program is still earlier in its maturity than APAC, which launched at the same time but with greater team volume behind it. Even so, the data is clear. When the channel is activated well, it results in won revenue.

• $1.6M in revenue influenced globally with Reachdesk in year one.
• $24K influenced the UK pipeline so far in the program’s early stages.
• 98% redemption rate on partnership gifting (UK), highlighting strong engagement in relationship-driven use cases.
• 85% average redemption rate across UK campaigns, with 79% on outbound e-gift activity.
• Consistent pipeline impact, with ~2 SAOs per rep per month driven by Reachdesk in the APAC outbound team.
• One integrated platform to execute and measure gifting performance across the UK, APAC, and Canada, directly within Salesforce.

Gifting activity spans three core use cases. Outbound SDRs use gifts within sequences or ahead of meetings to warm cold prospects and re-engage stalled opportunities. Marketing teams target inbound prospects 30 to 60 days into the pipeline to push deals forward. And partnership gifting recognizes referral partners as part of ongoing relationship management.

Across all three use cases, e-gifts have performed strongly, particularly where speed and ease of redemption matter. They create a low-friction experience for recipients, complementing higher-value physical gifting used in more targeted moments.

Partnership gifting has been the standout category. A 98% redemption rate reflects the difference between gifting to start a conversation and gifting to recognize a relationship. When the intent is right, recipients engage.

Campaign spotlight: Using e-gifts to increase booked meetings and attendance

One of the UK team's most effective plays is also one of its simplest. Once a meeting is booked, the prospect receives a branded Reachdesk landing page with a UK-specific e-gift card. Redeeming it confirms their contact details and gives them a reason to show up.

For higher-value meetings, the team goes a step further with a hold-back mechanic. The gift stays in pending approval until the meeting is actually attended. The budget only moves when it earns a return.

• 79% redemption rate across this use case.
• Verified contact data captured automatically through the redemption flow.
• Improved sit rates, with the team actively testing gift values across funnel stages.
• Spend protected: budget is only released when the meeting takes place.

The same thinking extends to inbound pipeline acceleration. The APAC team used a seasonal Easter chocolate campaign to re-engage prospects 30 to 60 days into the pipeline, using a timely, low-friction gift to create a reason to reach out and move deals forward. It's a playbook the UK team is already planning to replicate around moments like International HR Day in May.

Looking ahead: From reactive sends to programmatic gifting at scale

The next step for Employment Hero is moving from reactive gifting to programmatic gifting. Rather than relying on SDR discretion alone, the team plans to embed gifting triggers directly into Marketo workflows and Salesforce processes at defined funnel stages.

Campaigns already in the pipeline include:

• Seasonal activations: Replicating APAC's inbound pipeline acceleration model in the UK, starting with a seasonal HR-focused campaign.
• Scaled pre-meeting gifting: Testing more creative e-gifts ahead of all booked calls to move show rates across the board.
• Partner milestone gifting: Recognizing key relationship moments like first referrals, anniversaries, and event participation.

Event-adjacent gifting: Integrating Reachdesk into Employment Hero's UK event series to create standout moments with senior prospects.