Becky Sherwin, Client Development Director at Go Inspire looks back at the past year in loyalty and offers a view of what’s to come in 2025.

Loyalty programs have been on the rise in recent years thanks to the clever ways brands are using the data they collect from customers. Moving away from the old points-based system, brands are harnessing the information they have on each user to deliver personalised experiences and transform their relationships with consumers.

According to YouGov, nearly nine in 10 Brits are members of loyalty programmes, and data shows that loyal customers generate 12-18% more revenue annually compared to non-members. Additionally, 83% of consumers report that a loyalty program directly influences their decision to repurchase from a brand.

The most significant shift in 2024 has been the move from generic rewards to hyper-personalised experiences. Loyalty is now about creating a rich data asset that enables your brand to have meaningful conversations with your customers. Research shows that 82% of brand-loyal consumers are willing to share personal data in exchange for a more tailored customer experience.

Recent data backs up this new approach. In 2023-24, Tesco leveraged its Clubcard to issue 289 million personalised digital coupons to nearly eight million customers, driving significant market share growth. McDonald’s also had an impressive period as it generated over $20 billion in sales through loyalty and personalised offers in 2023 – a 45% increase from the previous year.

A technological revolution in customer loyalty awaits in 2025

Loyalty is braced for an even bigger revolution in 2025 thanks to evolving tech. Artificial Intelligence is at the forefront of this transformation and it will reshape how brands engage with customers.

Moving away from a dependency on historical data and playing catch up, AI powered loyalty will capture and process customer interactions as they happen, evolving with each customer touchpoint. Your brand can now anticipate customer needs before they express them, allowing you to be predictive and incredibly personalised. Loyalty will become “always on”.

Compounding things further, brands can use their AI-driven systems to analyse customer interactions across multiple events from purchase history and browsing behaviour to social media engagement, and even external factors like what’s happening locally or the weather conditions. So, if your AI detects a tiny change in a customer’s typical shopping pattern, it can automatically adjust reward structures or send personalised offers to re-engage the customer before they consider switching to a competitor.

This evolution means reward structures need to be more dynamic and individualised. Instead of static tier-based rewards, brands need to develop multiple strategies tailored a customer’s profile and their current context, as well as their behaviour patterns. You can now automatically adjust reward values based on a customer’s location, time of day, or current activity within your brand’s ecosystem.

Real-time loyalty will need new ways to measure and optimise. Instead of waiting weeks or months to analyse a program’s performance, brand managers will have immediate insights into how customers respond to different rewards and experiences. This instant feedback loop allows for continuous optimisation of reward structures, ensuring programs remain relevant and valuable.

The success of any AI-driven innovation is dependent on how well you maintain transparency and trust. As programs become more sophisticated in their data usage and predictive capabilities, brands need to have clear communications about data use and protections. As a brand manager you need to strike a delicate balance between personalisation and privacy, ensuring customer data is used to create genuine value rather than for aggressive marketing. Making consumers aware of this and demonstrating the benefits is key.

The future of customer loyalty is about creating meaningful, personalised connections that anticipate and fulfil customer needs in real-time. As we move away from just collecting points and playing catch up, the most successful brands will be those that can transform data into genuine and empathetic customer experiences.