Card-linked Offers: The Ultimate Guide

Shopping habits have changed substantially over the years, leading to customer demand for deeper brand relationships and seamless experiences. In response, businesses are seeking innovative ways to connect with their audiences and deliver superior value over their competitors. Marketers continue to lean into card-linked marketing, which leverages purchase data to create effective targeting and relevant advertising through consumers’ mobile devices and online banking applications. According to a Digital Commerce Alliance survey conducted last year, 35% of respondents reported growth of over 100% for their card-linking programs during that year alone!

What Is Card-linked Marketing?

Card-linked marketing is a digital strategy that links offers directly to payment methods like debit or credit cards to give consumers instantaneous benefits for purchases at omni-channel points of sale. Retailers and merchants offer various perks, like cash-back rewards or statement credits, that customers can earn through website orders, app purchases, or spend at brick & mortar stores. Card-linked marketing allows consumers to earn these rewards immediately when purchasing with cards linked to incentive programs.

How Does Card-linking Technology Work?

Card-linking technology operates across various channels but primarily apps, websites, and email. These channels display card-linked offers wherever consumers shop or search online. The Drop app rewards consumers when they spend with a debit or credit card linked to the app. Members seamlessly earn Drop points on spend across hundreds of participating merchants like Nike, Walmart, and Lyft, and then redeem those Drop Points for gift cards and other rewards. 

Benefits of Card-linked Marketing

Advertisers & Brands:

Easy to Track: Card-linked offers provide an effortless redemption process at the point of sale, eliminating extra steps and making it simpler for brands to measure the success of their offers quickly and easily.

Access to Consumer Behavior Data: Card-linked offers provide advertisers with unparalleled access to consumer behavior data, before, during and after a marketing campaign. These invaluable insights enable brands to target and understand consumer purchasing behavior better and make smarter marketing decisions.

Direct Impact Measurement: Every dollar spent through a card-linked offer is directly attributed to an actual sale, allowing brands to track the direct impact of their marketing initiatives and advertising investments.

Cost-Effective: Card-linked offers are performance-based, meaning merchants and retailers only pay for qualified sales. This pay-for-performance model ensures that advertisers reach their return-on-ad-spend goals.

Consumer Benefits:

Relevance and Personalization: Card-linked offers are personalized to individual consumers based on their purchase history which leads to better offers being available.

Easy Redemption: Card-linked offers are designed for easy redemption, eliminating consumer friction, like searching for promo codes or coupons. Any discounts, loyalty points, or cash-back rewards are automatically applied to their linked cards, making redemption quick and simple.

Privacy Protection: Card-linked offers prioritize privacy protection to give consumers peace of mind. Transparent platforms help to educate users on what data they are sharing and how it is being used to create a two-way value proposition. Users can then enjoy all the advantages offered without fear of invading their privacy.

Cost Savings: Card-linked offers typically come in the form of cashback rewards, giving consumers back some of their hard-earned money. This can be especially valuable when consumers become more budget conscious during trying economic times.

Implementing Card-linked Offers as Part of an Omni-channel Strategy

Card-linked offers can be a powerful component of an omni-channel marketing strategy, providing customers with a streamlined shopping experience across various points of sale. By adopting card-linked offers, merchants and retailers can connect online offers with in-store purchases for a consistent customer experience. Loyalty programs enable merchants to track every transaction made within an omni-channel environment. Being able to quantify consumer engagement and valuable purchase data is crucial for informing future marketing plans.

How to Measure Success with Card-linked Offers

Measuring the success of card-linked offers requires thorough reporting and analysis. Brands can use detailed reports to track key metrics like transaction amounts, average order value, repeat purchase rate, and average spend per customer to gain invaluable insight into customer behavior and incentivize repeat purchases while rewarding loyal customers effectively.

In Summary… 

Card-linked offers are revolutionizing how brands connect with customers and deliver value. By leveraging past purchase data, card-linked marketing creates effective targeting and relevant advertising through consumer mobile devices. Card-linked offers provide advertisers with multiple advantages like ease of tracking, accessing consumer behavior data, and measuring impactful campaigns. Card-linked offers also benefit consumers through relevance, personalization, ease of redemption, privacy protection, and cost savings. Implementing card-linked offers as part of an omnichannel strategy can elevate customer experience and grow sales, with comprehensive reporting enabling businesses to optimize their marketing initiatives.

Drop for Business provides reliable solutions for implementing card-linked marketing strategies through card-linked technology and partnerships with major financial institutions. By using Drop for Business for targeting and measuring marketing campaigns, businesses can reach customers at just the right time. Historical purchase behavior allows companies to create tailored offers that maximize ad spend and ensure strong revenue returns.

Interested to learn more about our card-linked offers? Fill out the form below or reach out to sales@joindrop.com