There is a version of loyalty program gamification that works. It creates genuine engagement, pulls customers toward behaviors that are good for both the brand and the relationship and makes the program feel like something worth participating in beyond the discount it delivers. There is also a version that does not work. It adds points […]

Every loyalty program has a dashboard. Most of them tell a version of the same story: enrollment is up, redemption is active, members are engaging. The numbers look reasonable. Leadership nods. The program continues. What most loyalty dashboards do not tell you is whether any of that activity is translating into business outcomes. Enrollment is […]

Amazon Prime is the most studied paid loyalty program in the world. It has also become the most misunderstood template for brands trying to replicate its success. The core lesson most brands take from Prime is that customers will pay for access if the value is obvious enough. That is true. The lesson most brands […]

At some point in almost every loyalty program conversation, the loyalty platform decision comes up. Which platform should we use? Should we build something custom? What does everyone else in our category run on? These are reasonable questions. They are also almost always asked too early. The loyalty platform decision is one of the most […]

At the end of every quarter, someone in the room asks the question. What is the loyalty program actually returning? And in most brands, the answer comes back as a slide deck full of enrollment numbers, redemption rates and email open rates that look reasonable on the surface and say almost nothing about whether the […]

When loyalty program engagement drops, the first call most marketing teams make is to their platform vendor. Open a support ticket. Request a roadmap update. Start evaluating alternatives. The assumption is that the technology is underperforming and that a better platform will fix the problem. It almost never does. In over a decade of working […]