How to create gift card recipient emails

The gift card recipient email is the email a digital gift card reaches its recipient in. You'll find it in your account's settings in the Giftcard recipient emails section, not under Marketing. Click the gear icon at the top right of the dashboard to open Settings, then click Giftcards under Functionalities. This isn't the Settings item in the sidebar of Store → Giftcards. That one holds a program's own settings, like its name and expiry, and no emails.

Put the gift card in the email

Open Settings with the gear icon at the top right and click Giftcards under Functionalities.
Under Giftcard recipient emails, click View details on the email, then Edit email.
On the Content step, find the Giftcard group in the Tags panel on the left and click Card number (hash). That copies {{giftcard.hash}}. Paste it into a text block where the card number should appear.
For a QR code, add a QR Code block and set its QR value to {{giftcard.qr_code_hash}}, which is the Card number (QR-code) tag in the same group. A new QR Code block points at google.com until you change its value, so don't skip this.
On the Information step, set the Subject and the Sender profile and click Submit. Publish doesn't save this step for you.
Click Publish to check the email.

Changes on the Content step are saved as you make them, and the next email that goes out already uses them. Publish doesn't hold them back: it only checks the email and tells you if something's missing. If you'd rather not change the live email while you work, Duplicate it, edit the copy and then make the copy the default.

Publish refuses an email that has neither the Card number (hash) tag nor the URL tag from the Giftcard group. The Card number (QR-code) tag in a QR Code block doesn't count. Your account also has to be approved before gift card emails can be sent.

To let the recipient check their balance, add a button that links to your contacts portal's address followed by /giftcard, with the balance checker turned on. See Finding gift card balances and transactions. The Giftcard group also has Download URL, for a PDF of the card (see Letting recipients download their digital gift card as a PDF), and Wallet pass URL.

When the email is sent

Contacts portal and widget orders get the email marked Default.
A gift card you create in the dashboard, from Cards or from the contact's page, gets the email chosen under Email to send. With 2 or more emails, that field starts on the first one in alphabetical order, which isn't always your default, so check it before you create the card. With only 1, that one is used. See How to create a gift card manually.
Re-sending from a card lets you pick the email. See How to re-send a digital gift card email.
An issuance lets you pick which email announces its cards. See Issuing gift cards to a group of contacts in one go.
A card created through the API gets no email on its own. It's only sent when the integration also calls the API's send-by-email endpoint, which uses the default unless it names another email.

More than one email

You can keep several gift card recipient emails, for example one per occasion. Click Add email and pick a template. The new email opens in the editor without a card number, so add the Card number (hash) tag before it's used.

The Default badge shows which email is used when nothing else is picked. To change it, open the ⋯ menu on another email in the list and choose Make default, or use the ⋮ button next to Edit email on that email's page. The ⋯ menu in the list also has Rename, Duplicate and Delete. Delete only shows when you have more than 1 email.

See who received it

Open the email with View details. The Recipients tab shows every send and its delivery status, and the Giftcards tab shows the cards that went out with it. See How to check if a recipient received their digital gift card.

What goes wrong

Publish shows an error. The email has neither the Card number (hash) nor the URL tag, or your account isn't approved yet. Your content changes are already saved and in use, so sends with this email fail until you fix it.
The subject or sender didn't change. The Information step was left without clicking Submit.
The QR code opens google.com. The block's QR value was never changed. Set it to {{giftcard.qr_code_hash}}. The change is saved straight away.
A portal or widget order sent no email. When the recipient email can't be sent, the order still goes through and your account admins get an email titled "Giftcard order recipient email failed" with the reason.