Author: Sarah Jarvis, Communications and Propositions Director, Eagle Eye
The promise of a personalised loyalty program is enticing, but bringing it to life is a big challenge. While large brands use advanced technology to offer tailored experiences, how can smaller brands replicate this success?
Forrester’s 2025 report Use Personalisation To Activate Loyalty Program Value outlines best practices for personalising loyalty strategies. While the report is comprehensive, it raises key questions: How can brands implement these practices? Are there real-world examples of companies already personalising their loyalty programs?
Many brands across the globe are using advanced loyalty technology and adopting Forrester’s best practices to deliver personalisation at the scale. Here are examples that showcase how these brands’ approaches align with the critical elements of a successful personalised loyalty strategy. Let’s dive in!
Delivering the Four Types of Customer Value
Forrester defines four types of “value” that brands can deliver to customers, which are essential for creating a personalised loyalty program:
- Economic: Financial incentives like points, discounts or cashback.
- Functional: Tailored product and service recommendations.
- Experiential: Personalised program experiences that cater to individual needs.
- Symbolic: Exclusive rewards or status recognition.
Loblaw’s PC Optimum program exemplifies how personalisation can enhance all facets of the customer value exchange. Its PC Health program rewards members with PC Optimum points for building healthy habits, completing tailored programs and participating in special offers. This approach combines economic value (earning points) with experiential value (access to relevant health-related services and support), supercharging the customer value exchange.
Meanwhile, the subscription-based PC Insiders program – which is growing at an impressive 11% per quarter – adds an element of exclusivity that reflects symbolic value. Across the PC Optimum ecosystem, personalised offers and recommendations cater to members’ everyday needs, delivering the functional value that keeps 16 million members engaged and returning.
Data is Currency: Tesco UK
Tesco in the UK has shown the power of data by purchasing a stake in data analytics company Dunnhumby to strengthen its data capabilities. Tesco has integrated its point-of-sale systems with its Clubcard loyalty program in real time, enabling personalised offers.
This data-driven approach allows Tesco to deploy AI-powered personalisation at scale, with research showing customers are five times more likely to make a purchase after a personalised interaction. By addressing its data needs, Tesco provides timely, contextual offers that ensure a consistent, enjoyable experience for members, whether in-store or via the loyalty app.
Gamification and Loyalty Integration: Tesco and Carrefour
Forrester highlights the importance of omnichannel loyalty experiences, noting that personalisation should be integrated across the “four depths”: segmentation, discrete interactions, customer journeys and anticipatory or contextual moments.
Loyalty-integrated gamification, such as Carrefour’s Challenges or Tesco’s Clubcard Challenges, showcases two of the personalisation “depths” identified by Forrester: customer-determined journeys and discrete interactions. Customers shape their own journey as they progress through the game, while customised thresholds act as the critical moments of interaction that nudge them towards a desired action or specific behaviour – in this case, additional purchases.
The outcome is a highly personalised and scalable form of customer engagement, delivering strong results for European retail leader Carrefour and UK mainstay Tesco.
Contextual Engagement: Marketing in the Moment
As the Forrester report describes, contextual understanding and anticipating customer needs represent the “deepest and most challenging depth of program personalisation.” At Eagle Eye, we call this approach “Marketing in the Moment”; a concept that will achieve for marketing what “near me” did for search. This approach allows retailers to influence customer behaviour as it happens in real-time – during the discovery phase of shopping.
However, to successfully implement “Marketing in the Moment”, retailers need the technical infrastructure to analyse contextual triggers, such as external factors like weather or location. This capability must extend across all shopping environments – whether the customer is in a physical, digital, or hybrid (for example: online shopping with in-store pick-up) setting. Though challenging to achieve, it becomes possible with the right technology partner.
The Right Partner for Personalised Loyalty
The Forrester report acknowledges that while most loyalty platforms offer basic data collection and analytics, only some support advanced features like next-best-offer decisioning and journey orchestration. These capabilities are essential for consistently engaging loyal customers in meaningful ways.
Retailers need more than just commitment to implement personalised loyalty strategies. They need a technology platform and a trusted partner that can deliver personalised loyalty at scale, ensuring that the full potential of their loyalty programs is realised.
