Crowdfunding recently emerged as an alternative funding channel for start-ups, creative artists and social endeavors. On specialized web platforms, project creators ask the crowd for support and provide in return a set of rewards, modulated according to the amount of support pledged. We analyze the role played by the type of reward in mobilizing pledgers; specifically, we look at self- and social-image enhancing rewards and to what extent they determine project success. Our data consist of the pledges to 346 projects hosted by Startnext, the biggest crowdfunding platform in Germany. We show that higher shares of reward levels that let pledgers participate in and experience the project are correlated with project success. Our paper contributes to the literature on the motivation driving pledgers in reward crowdfunding. A practical implication for the managing of a successful campaign is to employ the reward levels as a tool to involve the crowd in the project.