Cardlytics, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDLX), a digital advertising platform, releases findings from a new survey conducted in collaboration with Industry Dive’s studioID. Survey results reveal that, while most retail leaders believe they employ a strong set of customer acquisition and retention strategies, they wish they had more data to guide these approaches.

Most notably, retailers lack information about who their competitors really are. As a result, they may not understand what true customer loyalty looks like.

The survey uncovers how retail leaders think about and prioritize customer acquisition and retention and identifies areas of opportunity and improvement within retail organizations.

Four significant survey findings:

1. Retailers rely on similar strategies for customer acquisition and retention. Retail leaders build little variation into the strategies they use to build acquisition and improve retention. To build customer acquisition, roughly two in three retailers rely on a combination of advertising/marketing campaigns, partnerships with influencers, general coupons/discount programs, and customer referrals. For customer retention, eight in ten retail leaders use targeted, custom offers—but they also rely on advertising/marketing campaigns, customer referrals, and general coupons/discount programs.
2. Four forms of measurement are used to assess shopper behavior. Nearly all retail leaders (96%) track how often customers return to their stores, as well as the amount those customers spend during return trips. Also tracked frequently — but not quite as often — are data points about when and why customers return to retail locations.
3. Most retail leaders lack one critical data point in measuring customer acquisition and retention. When it comes to data about prospective and current customers, there is a disconnect between the information retail leaders have—and what they wish they knew. Only 12% of retailers have information from prospective customers about the other merchants they patronize. Only 15% of retailers have information from their current customers about the other merchants they purchase from. Although this data may be difficult to capture, it’s also a critical piece of improving acquisition and retention. “Without it, how do you know who you compete against or how well you perform in comparison?” points out Nate Bucholz, Vice President of Partnerships at Cardlytics.
4. Participation in loyalty programs is the most-used metric to assess customer loyalty—but it shouldn’t be. For 63% of retail leaders, participation in loyalty programs is the metric they rely on most to gauge customer loyalty, followed closely by customer satisfaction scores (62%). Instead of relying on these metrics, however, Bucholz recommends thinking about loyalty as it relates to share of wallet. Most retailers can rattle off a list of their biggest rivals, but too many tend to think in terms of isolated buckets when considering their competition. Understanding a customer’s share of wallet allows you to shift share away from retailers that you may overlook because you didn’t consider them competitors.

Download the full research report and explore additional information and details about the survey results here.

Survey Methodology

The survey, conducted by Industry Dive’s studioID in collaboration with Cardlytics, was taken by 154 retail leaders in the United States in May/June 2023. Respondents were asked about customer acquisition and retention strategies, shopper analytics, and loyalty programs.