Loyalty Programs: Year-Over-Year Insights, 2024-2025

The loyalty program is a classic strategy for giving customers incentives to stick with a brand. Loyalty programs span businesses of all sizes and types and range significantly in membership, structure, and value. A gas station may run a transactional cents-per-gallon reward, an online e-commerce website may offer free shipping, and a pizza shop may present a paper punch-out ticket that earns a customer a free pizza after a certain number of orders. 

Loyalty programs are an expense line for businesses that run them. Dependent on the program's level of sophistication, these can range from hundreds of dollars to millions, as in some credit card loyalty programs. Although customer retention is a primary goal of a loyalty program, other benefits include gathering data on customer behavior and metrics and funneling consumers toward a lower-cost payment method, such as when gas stations run pay-by-bank programs in their mobile apps. Loyalty programs work, and that’s why we see so many of them.

Companies Mentioned:

Brightline, Cincinnati Metro, Mastercard, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority