A look at the state of loyalty marketing in Ireland

1. The Loyalty Market
An Amárach Research Report
© Copyright Amárach Research, 2018

2. Irish businesses and brands have invested
millions of euro in loyalty programmes and
benefits in recent years. But is it money well
spent – or would they be better off spending
it on, say, innovation or price reductions?
This Amárach report takes a look at the
current state of loyalty marketing in Ireland,
showcasing the best performers and
quantifying the key trends.
The data in this report draws on Amárach’s
proprietary PlanR business intelligence
dashboard and database.
Every month we poll 1,000 different adults
for PlanR, adding up to 12,000 interviews
every year.
The Economics of Loyalty
2

3. 3
Membership of loyalty schemes tends to be quite stable over time: once you
recruit a customer to the scheme then they are likely to remain a member so
long as they are customers.
While Irish supermarkets still dominate the loyalty scene in Ireland, other sectors such as pharmacies and fuel court operators have
also performed well.
Only 1 in 10 Irish adults does not belong to a loyalty programme. But this points to a major challenge for marketers: how do you
grow participation in your loyalty programme when there are so many others doing the same?
Loyalty Trends
Source: Amárach Research PlanR database 2015-2017
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
%ofIrishAdults
70% 67% 66% 51% 49% 49% 46% 46% 45% 40% 39% 42% 20% 20% 20% 16% 17% 17% 17% 16% 16% 15% 15% 14% 8% 14% 15% 11% 11% 11%
Tesco Dunnes Boots Supervalu Applegreen Debenhams Eason Topaz Holland
& Barrett
Subway
2015 2016 2017Ireland’s Top 10 Retail Loyalty Programmes

4. 4
There is a ‘wear in’ effect for loyalty programmes, if you run the scheme for long
enough then eventually you will grow its share of your customer base – other
things being equal.
So some of the older schemes and programmes have the highest penetration of their customer base – as seen in the chart.
But even within the same sector – say, supermarkets and fuel forecourts – we see very significant differences between brands in
terms of their success at recruiting customers. If you’re already behind, how feasible is it to close the gap on your competitors?
Loyal Customers
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
85% 83% 79% 63% 55% 33% 20%
% of brand
customers who
are members of
their scheme,
2017
ApplegreenBootsSupervaluDunnesTesco Topaz Eason
Source: Amárach Research PlanR database 2017
% of brand
customers who
are members of
their scheme,
2017

5. 5
Not surprisingly, loyalty programmes appeal to very different audiences,
depending on the brand.
Young women are drawn to the Brown Thomas loyalty programme; young men to Subways programme.
Skews like this are usually inevitable and often desirable – but sometimes they are not. Is your loyalty scheme reaching the right
audience, or just the most convenient audience?
Demographic profiles of members of each loyalty programme
Loyalty Profiles
Tesco Dunnes Supervalu Subway Boots Arnotts Debenhams
Brown
Thomas
Eason Applegreen Topaz Costa
Male 46% 42% 43% 45% 29% 32% 26% 23% 34% 48% 51% 33%
Female 54% 58% 57% 55% 71% 68% 74% 77% 66% 52% 49% 67%
16-24 11% 9% 8% 25% 15% 13% 11% 23% 15% 6% 8% 17%
25-34 18% 17% 15% 22% 15% 13% 17% 25% 15% 15% 19% 18%
35-44 20% 20% 20% 25% 20% 17% 21% 17% 20% 22% 26% 21%
45-54 18% 19% 20% 16% 17% 15% 18% 12% 20% 21% 19% 16%
55+ 32% 36% 38% 12% 28% 41% 32% 24% 30% 36% 28% 28%
ABC1F50+ 47% 47% 48% 47% 48% 64% 51% 63% 54% 50% 51% 51%
C2DEF50- 53% 53% 52% 53% 52% 36% 49% 37% 46% 50% 49% 49%
Dublin 27% 28% 25% 26% 28% 59% 31% 32% 31% 26% 27% 25%
ROL 28% 26% 27% 27% 26% 26% 20% 19% 23% 34% 29% 35%
Munster 28% 30% 28% 32% 28% 7% 39% 37% 29% 24% 28% 24%
Connaught/
Ulster
17% 16% 19% 16% 18% 8% 10% 12% 17% 16% 17% 16%
Source: Amárach Research PlanR database 2017

6. All Customers Loyalty Scheme Customers
-20
-15
-10
-5
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Tesco Dunnes Supervalu Boots Applegreen Topaz
9 26 8 26 10 28 13 23 -5 2 -18 1
NPS2017
6
What is the return on investment in loyalty programmes? The short answer is
‘loyalty’, obviously, but we can go further.
Most companies measure their customer experience using
metrics such as Net Promoter Score (NPS). One possible
measure of loyalty programmes’ impact would be to test
if customers who are in the programme are more likely to
recommend a brand than those who are not.
Sure enough, our PlanR data for 2017 shows a huge impact
from loyalty programmes on NPS. But that’s only for starters:
we know more loyal customers spend more and do actually
recommend brands more than other customers. How do you
measure the return on loyalty?
Loyalty Impact
Source: Amárach Research PlanR database 2017
Impact of loyalty programmes on Net Promoter Score

7. 7
Increasing customer loyalty is a top 5 priority for Irish marketers in 2018*.
There are real and measurable returns to investment in loyalty programmes –
but the key thing is to know what impact you want to have before you start.
Many schemes in Ireland have matured with their customers,
but that might mean they are no longer serving the purpose of
reaching wider audiences.
Amárach works with its customers to improve the performance
of their loyalty programmes, supporting them on the difficult
path of maximising impact while minimising cost.
Loyalty Futures
* http://mii.ie/blogpost/1316142/293446/Marketing-Sentiment-Survey-2018

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https://amarach.com/
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& grow through a better understanding of
their customers’ needs.”
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