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Since 2020, the Loyalty Trends Report delves into the dynamic world of loyalty marketing across diverse domains.
Now, we continue exploring critical obstacles, unfolding trends, investment focal points, and the loyalty marketing aspirations outlined by our participants by offering an unfiltered insight into the trajectory of loyalty in 2024 and beyond.
Our pool of respondents comprises 105 adept loyalty marketing professionals spanning the globe and representing myriad industries.
The 2024 report provides you with 40 easy-to-digest pages with answers to:
The report starts out by looking at the most common answers to the above questions, accompanied by a comparison between this year’s results and those obtained last year.
The second part shows commentary from loyalty experts, elaborating on their chosen goals, predictions and challenges for the future of the loyalty industry.
Additionally, we cover topics that were highlights in 2023 and are sure to keep disrupting the market:
Read the full report to learn more.
As with earlier editions of the report, we conducted thorough interviews with the loyalty industry’s top experts. As a result, the report boasts responses from 105 loyalty marketing professionals working in-house, independently, and at agencies all over the world.
The shared industry experience of our respondents covers companies such as McDonald’s, eBay, Nike, Microsoft, Starbucks, HSBC, KFC, Virgin Atlantic, adidas, Visa, Mastercard, British Airways, Disney, P&G, BP, Shell, IKEA, Vodafone, Sephora, P&G, Tesco, L'Oréal, Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Lego, Marriott, and many more.
Compared with previous years, we see that AI, automation, and personalization have everyone’s attention, no matter the industry.
The Big Recession didn’t come in 2023, but it’s still looming, shaping how stakeholders and customers act. For companies, keeping current becomes a priority. And loyalty members are not only more budget-conscious – they are also more data-conscious and increasingly resist sharing personal information.
How will loyalty managers address these challenges? We hear three approaches over and over from different professionals.
Compared to the previous year, the top 3 trends stay the same. The ROI of loyalty marketing becomes more pressing and takes over customer acquisition in the fourth place. Combined, these signs indicate that the loyalty experts’ focus is on keeping and maximizing the value of current customers.
Beyond that, experts noted three other challenges in open-ended questions, starting from reducing marketing budget and optimizing customer acquisition costs.
In 2024, experts plan to focus their investments in:
In the upcoming 2-3 years, experts consider these trends to have the biggest impact:
The full report includes context and commentary on each trend.
The graph shows the importance of the chosen trends from two angles: the biggest impact on customer loyalty marketing over the next 2-3 years, and trends with the biggest urgency in terms of investment in 2024.
Senior Loyalty & Personalisation Manager at Grill'd
Budget cuts, the need for new technology to collect data and activate customer experiences, standing out from the competition.
Companies with loyalty programmes need to move with the times or get left behind. The ones listening to their customers, preparing for a digital-first generation, and evolving away from one-size-fits-all rewards and discounts will thrive and become actual profit centres for their business. The rest will fall behind.
Director of Membership at LEGO Group
With cost pressures both on our customers and business, creating scalable value for members in a more competitive market will be a challenge.
Increasing gamification to provide salience and drive motivation to engage with the brand.
The full report includes 20 additional interviews.
Some brands were mentioned multiple times by the experts. What they have in common is well-established loyalty programs that cater exactly to what their customers want and sometimes go far beyond the run-of-the-mill discount coupon.
Some initiatives, like Sephora’s Beauty Insider, Marriot Bonvoy and adidas’ AdiClub, use gamification and combine hard and soft rewards to provide members with a feeling of belonging and uniqueness.
Others, like Amazon Prime, My McDonald’s, Tesco Clubcard Plus, My Lidl Rewards, Nike Membership, Starbucks Rewards, and IKEA Family take a more traditional approach but manage to offer their loyal members convenience and special offers across hundreds of different stores.
Industry experts emphasize that loyalty programs are poised to become crucial for navigating market slowdowns and recessions, presenting an essential strategy for companies aiming for success.
The anticipated growth of these programs aligns with the increasing customer demand for savings.
The meaning of the AI and practical use cases in the loyalty programs will be strongly related with predictive analytics and segmentation.
Its integration facilitates the creation of targeted segmentation and predictive models, enabling specialized offers and precise communication strategies. This AI-driven approach also plays a pivotal role in reducing customer churn while optimizing margins through enhanced data utilization.
The shift toward AI extends beyond segmentation, as explored in the full report.
As we find ourselves in a cookieless world with rising paid media costs, loyalty programs emerge as a pivotal survival tool.
Winning strategies hinge on adopting a data-driven approach to manage the digital ecosystem effectively, transcending traditional marketing methods.
A crucial aspect will be fostering the growth of the customer base, which requires prioritizing customer insights, automated promotions, and communication. But, considering third-party cookies are increasingly unreliable, first-party data will be the cornerstone of success.
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