Watch & Earn: Collecting Coins by Watching Store Ads
Watch & Earn lets Kaminarigo users collect coins by watching short ads from local stores. Each ad says how long it runs and how many coins it pays. The only rule: keep the ad on screen until the countdown ends. This article explains how it works so you can answer customer questions.
Where it is
- On the home screen, a gold Watch & Earn card sits beside the daily check-in card (or on its own when the user is signed out or no check-in is featured).
- On the Coins screen (menu → Coins), under the check-in card.
- The user has to be signed in; tapping the card while signed out opens the sign-in screen first.
- The list depends on the shopping area chosen at the top of the home screen: some stores target their ad to specific areas, so changing area can change which ads appear.
Watching an ad
- The list shows every ad the user can watch right now: the image, the store, the watch time in seconds, and the coins on offer. The header shows how many ads they have watched today and the coins earned from them.
- Tapping an ad opens it full screen with a countdown ring in the corner and the text "Keep watching to earn +X coins".
- When the countdown reaches zero the app confirms the view with the server. On success the coins appear with the usual coin celebration and the card turns green: "+X coins added to your wallet!" A Learn more button appears if the store added a link.
- Tap Done to go back. The list refreshes: an ad the user has already earned from today stays listed with a green Earned today badge. It can be opened and watched again any time, but it pays nothing more until tomorrow.
Why a view can pay nothing
Coins are awarded by the server, not by the phone's timer. While the ad plays the app sends a short "still watching" signal every few seconds. The server pays only when the full time really passed and the signals never stopped. A view is cancelled — no coins — when the user:
- presses back or closes the ad before the countdown ends (the app asks "Leave the ad?" first);
- switches to another app, pulls down the notification shade for long, or locks the phone;
- loses connection long enough that the signals stop reaching the server;
- tries to finish early with a clock change or similar.
The ad shows "The ad was interrupted — no coins this time" and can simply be watched again if the store still has budget and the user has not hit the daily limit. Nothing is deducted from the user for a cancelled view.
Hearts, the store badge and messaging
Every ad card (and the full-screen ad) has a small rail on the right, like a social post: the store's logo on top, a heart with its count under it, and — when the store accepts messages on that ad — a Message button.
- Tap the heart to like the ad; tap again to unlike. One heart per person per ad. Hearts never affect coins.
- Tap Message to ask the store something about the ad. It opens a chat just like the order chat, except it is about the ad, not an order. The store replies from its portal and the reply arrives as a push notification; the button shows a red unread count until the chat is opened. Messaging is free for the user.
- The Message button only appears while the store is accepting messages on that ad and still has budget for it; an existing conversation stays reachable from the card (labelled Chat) until the ad ends.
- While the countdown is running the full-screen ad hides the Message button, because leaving the ad mid-countdown cancels the reward. It reappears once the view is finished.
Limits
- Daily limit. Only a set number of ads per day count toward coins across all stores. When the limit is reached the header says so, the remaining ads show a Limit reached badge and can still be watched without pay, and everything resets at midnight Philippine time.
- Per ad. Each store decides how many times the same person can earn from its ad in a day (usually once) and, optionally, in total. After the daily cap the ad shows Earned today; after the lifetime cap it shows Max earned and will not pay that user again.
- One at a time. Opening a new ad cancels any other view still in progress.
- An ad disappears from the list when the store pauses or ends it or its budget runs out. A view already in progress on an ad that ran out of budget in the meantime is not paid; the app says so.
Coins earned this way
They are ordinary Kaminarigo coins: they show in the coin history as "Watched: ad title", expire like other coins, and can be spent at checkout like coins from check-ins and purchases. The store running the ad pays for every completed view, so this is not a promotion that costs the user anything.
For store owners
Stores create and fund these ads from the partner portal under Marketing & Content → Ad Rewards. See Ad Rewards: Run Watch & Earn Ads in the Kaminarigo App.