5 loyalty program numbers to check every month
How to measure loyalty program success: five numbers to check every month, what a drop in each one means and one concrete step to take for each. No jargon.
You can measure the success of a loyalty program with five numbers that you only need to compare with last month, once a month. You do not need NPS or complex customer lifetime value models. For each number below, you will find where to get it, what a drop means and one concrete step to take.
Always compare yourself only with yourself. There are no universal "good" values: a café and a dry cleaner have completely different visit rhythms.
1. New members per month
Where to find it: in Rewardly analytics, as New members.
What a drop means: most often that staff stopped offering the card or the QR code disappeared behind the coffee machine.
What to do: put the QR code back where customers see it when they pay, and remind your team of the one sentence they use to offer the card.
2. How often members come back
Where to find it: analytics shows how often customers return, for example every few days or weeks.
What a drop means: the reward feels too far away, or customers forget about you between visits.
What to do: work out how long it takes a typical regular to fill the card. If it takes months, launch a shorter card, because the number of stamps cannot be changed on a live one. For tips on increasing visits, read how to increase customer retention in practice.
3. Average member purchase
Where to find it: analytics shows average spend per customer. Purchase data comes from a connected POS, for example Dotykačka. If your POS is not connected, work the number out from your till data for purchases where the card was scanned.
What a drop means: members keep coming but buy less, often only what earns them a stamp.
What to do: send members an offer on an extra item, such as a pastry with their coffee, and watch whether the number moves.
4. Redeemed rewards
Where to find it: in analytics, as Redeemed rewards.
What a drop means: customers are not reaching the reward or do not know about it. If redeemed rewards fall while new members keep growing, the card is probably too long.
What to do: remind customers who are a stamp or two away from the reward, and check that staff actually hand out the reward at the counter.
5. Members with no visit in over 30 days
Where to find it: analytics shows active customers out of the total. Count the exact number of people with no visit in 30 days from your visit history or your till. If the share of active customers is falling, that is the same signal.
What a rise means: you are losing customers faster than you win new ones.
What to do: message the people who have not come back. In Rewardly you can set it to go out on its own if a customer has not returned within 30 days of a visit. For more approaches, read 7 best ways to reactivate customers.
How to measure loyalty program success: a one page checklist
Copy it into your calendar for the first Monday of the month:
- New members: more or fewer than last month?
- Return frequency: faster or slower?
- Average member purchase: up or down?
- Redeemed rewards: keeping pace with the number of members?
- Members with no visit in 30 days: how many, and did they get a message?
More important than the numbers themselves is taking one step every time something drops, and checking a month later whether it worked.
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