With the role the right piece of advertising can play in a customer’s buying journey, it’s safe to say retailers will need to have a great understanding of how incentive networks work. By adjusting their advertising needs, they can take advantage of a consumer’s intent to purchase – and ultimately, influence their shopping behaviour.
Incentive Networks provides an end-to-end loyalty shopping solution that includes merchant funded incentives from top brand retailers, merchandised coupons & offers, and browser extensions to remind members that they can earn benefits on their everyday shopping.
Last week, Webloyalty’s Affiliate Marketing Manager, Dhruve Patel joined Robert Davinson, host of Awin Talks to discuss how Webloyalty positions itself in the world of incentive networks.
Loyalty plays a major part of Webloyalty’s infrastructure, allowing businesses to address a need to improve customer retention and in turn, we incentivise the loyalty these customers have shown with a subscription-based model. Our clients are able to offer an exclusive scheme to their customers that promotes repeat purchases as well as allows a brand to stand out from the crowd
“From a subscription-based model, we look to offer our consumers rates and exclusive rights that they wouldn’t receive anywhere else,” Dhruve states. “One way we can do that compared to say other cashback or loyalty providers is being able to top up the rates slightly higher than the norm.
“We have highly engaged users who are always looking to make the most out of their membership, but also, we’re trying to improve that loyalty towards a particular brand by giving those higher rates and making those consumers go back to those particular brands. We offer a minimum of 10%, however look to top these up towards key shopping periods or double cashback events. So there’s really great ways for our users to make those savings and for advertisers, it’s engaging with members who actively want to buy.”
It’s essential for retailers to explore opportunities to improve their customer retention. By building a base of loyal customers, these users will actively choose to purchase from a specific retailer as opposed to shop around, looking for an alternative option. In order to build loyalty, Webloyalty brings a unique approach to its clients.
“The way we target consumers and the way that we build loyalty is slightly different. If you were a user and you were signing up through Argos, we would incentivise you by saying if you were to shop through Argos again, you will get a monthly bonus as well. So again, we’re trying to incentivise that lifetime value and trying to get that user to go back to Argos and build that loyalty with them through incentivising them even further.”
Yet, even with a loyalty scheme in place, the factors of the current economic crisis cannot be ignored. With the cost of living crisis, consumers now are understandably less prone to splurge online and will be more conscious about finding the right kind of savings. This will spark a debate in the retail space as to how to keep customers returning to a business without losing out to declining economic factors.
“Users are seeing the rate of inflation increase, along with household bills and everyday purchases increasing. We were conscious to make sure they didn’t see their monthly membership increase but rather they see their discounts & savings increase. We’re seeing strong growth in our number of joiners as we partner with top UK brands. For us, it’s more about just acquiring the users, it’s about what more can we give them because the users are at the forefront. That’s who are important to us. What more can we give them on the website, how can we improve their experience of the site and easily find the incentives and brands they are searching for.
“The perception of value of a customer has changed. Before the pandemic it was very much brand lead and I think they had a little more power in that conversation with a user, whereas now I think it’s changed and brands have to think about how we can help.”
Webloyalty’s unique way of pushing retailers and brands to users will play an important role in building loyalty in a year where consumers will be focusing on discounts more than ever. With the drive to improve retention rates of retailers and put the consumer at the forefront, there is a real focus on building lifetime value.
If you’re interested in learning more about how incentive networks work for us, or are looking at ways to partner with Webloyalty, click here and contact us today.