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The holiday season is the biggest consumer spending event of the year, making it a critical time for retailers to boost their annual bottom line. While Black Friday used to be the primary marketing event for capturing holiday spend, when and where consumers spend for the holidays is changing. To ensure their cash registers stay ringing all season long, retailers need to align their marketing efforts with evolving buying behaviors.

The good news is that holiday spend is on the rise. Cardlytics recently analyzed year-over-year holiday spend from 2015 to 2016. Holiday sales increased by 1.9%. This is a nice change from 2014 to 2015, where spend had decreased. But, as you can imagine, this increase in spend is not equally spread across every channel throughout the holiday season.

Online is growing, but brick & mortar captures the majority of spend

It’s easy to imagine that most of holiday retail spend comes from online channels. However, in 2016, we saw that online-only retailers accounted for only 10% of holiday spend. While small, this percentage is growing year over year. Online brick & mortar (the online channel for retailers with a physical store) accounted for 8% of spend. And, while in-store spend is declining year over year, it still made up 82% of holiday spend in 2016. Because of this, engaging audiences across channels, both online and in-store, is imperative for a successful holiday season.

Online-only retailers and online brick & mortars should offer early and late shipping deals that are shareable via email or social to capture the increased online spend. Making the deals shareable allows retailers to reach consumers not on their mailing lists. Online brick & mortar stores should consider free ship-to-store deals, which encourages online shopping, but also gets foot traffic in the store. And, brick & mortars without an online presence should consider online marketing campaigns, like cash-back deals that reach consumers in their online and mobile banking accounts while they’re already thinking about spending and saving money.

Black Friday is losing relevance

But, which shopping channel consumers are opting for isn’t the only thing marketers should understand when building their holiday marketing campaigns. When consumers are shopping is critical, too. As retailers are offering earlier November deals and consumers are increasing their confidence in last-minute holiday shipping, Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are continuing to decline in importance. A whopping ~ 40% of spend occurs in the first 4 weeks before Black Friday. And, 14% of total holiday sales occur the week before Christmas. To generate the greatest holiday revenue, marketers should not center marketing around Black Friday only. Targeted, well-timed campaigns will enable retailers to capture spend throughout the season.

Consumers are choosing alternative categories

As big box/general merchandise retailers offer more children’s clothes and toy gifts, we’ve seen traditional retailers, like department stores, experience a decline in holiday spend, and less traditional retailers, like pet stores, experience an increase. In 2016, we saw big box/general merchandise store spend increase by 5% and pet store spend increase by 4%. Both children’s toys & apparel and department stores saw a decrease in spend of 7%, respectively. Retailers who execute multi-pronged marketing campaigns that highlight specific gifts and gift variety will be more likely to capture consumers with specific gift needs.

With holiday spending on the rise, retailers have an opportunity to capture more spend than last year. But, that also means retailers will be competing harder to get their share of the increased spend. Aligning holiday marketing campaigns with the purchase behaviors of holiday shoppers will be imperative for retailers who want to increase their bottom line this season.

At one point in time, consumers relegated most of their holiday shopping to Black Friday. Every year, holiday shoppers would line up in droves for those coveted Black Friday deals. But, in Cardlytics' holiday purchase analytics, we see that Black Friday is losing relevance. In 2016, there were 15% fewer Black Friday shoppers than the previous year.

But, retailers need not fret. From our purchase intelligence, we see that there are four distinct shopper timing segments that contribute to overall holiday spend. And, for the most profitable holiday season, retailers must market to each one.

Steady Shoppers

Instead of one big shopping event, Steady Shoppers prefer to distribute their holiday spend throughout the season. This shopper segment will likely buy from several retailers, online and in-store, picking out gifts as they come across them. Steady Shoppers accounted for the majority of spend, 46%, in 2016, and that spend is growing year over year. In 2015, Steady Shoppers accounted for 44% of spend.

How to engage Steady Shoppers: To keep Steady Shoppers engaged throughout the season, offer them cash-back deals for return trips. A multi-pronged marketing campaign, for online and offline channels, is also key. Whether on their computer, in their mobile banking app, or walking past a store, this segment purchases gifts as the mood strikes. Retailers who keep their brand top of mind will win this shopper segment’s spend.

Early Birds

Early Bird Shoppers aim for efficiency, getting their shopping done early and usually at fewer stores. While Early Birds made up only 10% of holiday spend last year, it’s still imperative retailers reach this segment to capture the initial holiday spend that is critical to reaching overall holiday sales goals.

How to engage Early Birds: Retailers that want to reach Early Birds should cater to this segment’s “power shopping” behavior. Marketing campaigns should emphasize gift variety, indicating that shopping can be done quickly and efficiently with their brand.

Black Friday Shoppers

While Black Friday Shoppers are declining year over year, these shoppers still accounted for 16% of spend in 2016. In addition to standing in line for in-store sales, this segment also likes to get their holiday deals online. We see that this segment’s spend with online brick & mortars (the online channel for retailers with a physical store) increased by 3% from 2015 to 2016. Within the same time frame, Black Friday Shoppers’ spend at online-only retailers increased 7%.

How to engage Black Friday Shoppers: Black Friday Shoppers want to get the best price for the best product. They also like to feel like they’re getting deals other shoppers aren’t. Retailers can engage this shopper segment with “secret” deals, like deeper discounts for email subscribers. For an added bonus, making the deals shareable, e.g. friends and family discounts, enables retailers to reach shoppers who are not on the mailing list.

Last-Minute Shoppers

With spend growing 8% year over year, the fastest growing shopper segment is the Last-Minute Shoppers. This segment accounted for 28% of all holiday spend last year. Unsurprisingly, Last-Minute Shoppers really like to get their gifts online. This segment’s spend with online brick & mortars and online-only retailers increased by 4% and 12%, respectively, from 2015 to 2016.

How to engage Last-Minute Shoppers: Pressed for time, Last-Minute Shoppers are more likely to buy from retailers that make it easy for them to purchase their gifts, fast. Brick & mortars should emphasize extended store hours, as well as expedited online-to-in-store pick up. Online-only retailers should highlight expedited shipping discounts and late shipping guarantees in their marketing campaigns.

Each shopper segment contributes to the overall holiday spend. It’s critical for retailers to execute marketing campaigns that uniquely target each shopper timing segment to generate revenue all season long.

A battle for share of stomach among big chain restaurants has been going on since the dawn of restaurant dining. But, over recent years, the battle has shifted with chain restaurants needing to compete more heavily with independent restaurants vs. other big chains.

We recently wrote an article for Nation’s Restaurant News, “Independent vs. Chain Restaurants: The Battle for Share of Stomach,” discussing how restaurant diners are shifting their dining out spend. We’re seeing that during key spend seasons, diners are opting for local.

• During the 2016 holiday shopping season, indepen­dent restaurant trips grew 8.3 percent year-over-year, while national chains witnessed a 2.4 percent year-over-year decline.
• Early 2017 summer restaurant traffic shows year-over-year trip growth of 8.1% for independents and 1.6% for national chains.

Across the country, we’re seeing that hyper-local and regional brands are quickly gaining steam, either matching the amount of spend at chains or surpassing. And, this trend is replicated across restaurant categories. From June 2016 – July 2017, we saw consumers spending heavily at independents restaurants in key categories, including: casual dining, pizza, and seafood.

That’s not to say that chains aren’t still seeing considerable spend/winning in some categories. We see that, in that same time period, when it came to American cuisine, consumers still opted for chains with independent restaurant spend only accounting for about 1% of the pie.

As you can see, independent spend is taking up a very large slice of the pie. And, these consumers are spending a nice chunk of change on each visit, too. The average check for consumers that spend with independent seafood restaurants is $43.52, with the average casual dining and pizza tickets hovering around $25. In the sandwich category, consumers spend an average of $12.37 with chain restaurants, but an average of $16.23 with independent sandwich shops.

Check out the full article in July 24 edition of NRN to see what may be causing this shift to local, available now.

Are you a restaurant interested in capturing more share of stomach? Contact us, here.

At Cardlytics, the trusted relationships that we have built with financial institutions are part of what makes us unique. And, we’re proud to announce our new partnership with SunTrust.

In March 2017, we helped SunTrust launch their new SunTrust Deals program. Leveraging Cardlytics’ technology, SunTrust Deals provides customers with relevant cashback deals on the things they like to buy. The program is available to both credit and debit card users, both online and mobile. Since its kick-off in March, on average, nearly 80% of clients that visit the mobile application engaged with SunTrust Deals and activated a cashback offer.

Here’s an example of SunTrust Deals in action:

SunTrust is constantly thinking of innovative ways to elevate the consumer experience, and their partnership with us for SunTrust Deals is just another example of their vision.

This partnership is also particularly unique given that SunTrust is headquartered just a few miles from Cardlytics’ Atlanta office. Atlanta is becoming a globally recognized FinTech hub, and our work with SunTrust further solidifies the position of both Atlanta and Cardlytics’ role in Atlanta’s FinTech landscape.

Learn more about the SunTrust Deals launch, here.

Football fans in the UK are known for being many things. They’re fiercely loyal, tribal, and passionate. Equally, they’re opinionated connoisseurs of ‘the beautiful game’.

They’re also one of the UK’s biggest consumer groups. And, while many of the group’s defining characteristics will remain for years to come, it’s their spending habits which our data suggests may well be changing.

English football has, over the years, become synonymous with certain things. Fans are expected to indulge in pies and pints. Fashion-wise, with a few exceptions, there wasn’t much room for flair.

But, times are changing. As the Premier League has grown to become one of the world’s leading football leagues, and TV money has flooded in, prices (and player salaries) have in kind risen significantly. While die-hard supporters remain, this has led to a clear shift in the spending make-up of football fans, as more affluent consumers join the category. Our research showed the extent to which this played out in terms of their spending. The findings were telling.

The best-performing fashion brands among football fans are high-end, with Hugo Boss, Paul Smith, and Ralph Lauren being some of the most popular brands. Restaurant-wise, the winners are urban and expensive. The likes of Hawksmoor and Gaucho fare well.

Our data also suggests that modern football fans are more than just spectators. Compared to the average consumer, they are four times more likely to purchase sports goods from brands like Pro-Direct and Under Armour and twice as likely to visit other sportswear stores, such as Adidas, New Balance, and American Golf.

Clearly, the modern-day football fan is changing. But more importantly, this is a timely reminder that audience categories develop and evolve with time, even the most established. So there are wider lessons for brands. As a marketer, you must stay on top of consumer spending habits to make sure you understand your target audience.

This means not only knowing your own customers, but knowing those of your rivals, and the category more broadly. The brands that don’t have these insights risk being left on the sidelines.

Every year, Cardlytics hires a select class of interns to get hands-on work experience in our offices. And, this year was no exception, with six interns working across Analytics, People Operations, Implementations, Media Inventory Planning, and Accounting teams.

The Cardlytics internship program is not one filled with coffee runs and meaningless errands, but each intern is given the opportunity to work on actual projects within their teams. We also offer extra perks that give them tools for post-graduate success, including:

• Shadow Day: the opportunity to shadow an employee from a different department to explore what they do at the company and learn about a different role
• Resume Workshop: the recruiting team discusses the do’s and don’ts of resume writing and helped interns update their resumes and incorporate their new internship experience
• Recent Graduate Panel: interns met with a panel of Cardlytics employees that graduated within the past 2-3 years to learn about their job search experience and receive tips and advice on how to approach the job search and interviews.

And, of course, each intern was able to get the full energetic experience that is being a Cardlytian, including unlimited access to snacks and afternoon yoga sessions!

See how this year’s intern class describes their experience at Cardlytics.

Want to join the fun next year? Be sure to apply for our next summer internship, here. Applications open February 2018.

With consumers feeling the pinch, UK spending levels have been going through a rough patch of late. The falling value of the pound has made imports more expensive, while the uncertainty caused by the Brexit vote has left shoppers less likely to spend money.

Our UK Spend Index lays this bare. Retail (-28%), fashion (-31%) and grocery (-10%) all saw significant quarterly falls at the start of this year.

But, looking at the bigger picture, overall spending remained steady, edging up 3% year-over-year. Our data shows that we have two areas to thank for this: eating out and holidays.

Eating out continues its relentless rise (the BBC has covered our data on this before, here). Though down slightly on the quarter, quick service restaurant (QSR) spending leapt by 18% year-over-year, while general restaurants were up 8%.

There were also signs of a Great British getaway. Airline spending saw an unprecedented spike as Brits rushed to book holidays (58% year-over-year, 8% on the quarter). There were suggestions of an increase in domestic breaks too, with hotels up 9% year-over-year and 10% on the quarter, and petrol down 1% on the year, but up 14% quarterly.

While brands will need to work hard across the board to attract new customers and keep existing ones, particularly with further uncertainty in the UK ahead, some sectors are seeing a bit of relief.

We shared these insights with the top restaurant and travel trades. Check out the coverage in MCA and Travel Weekly.

Data protection has quickly grown from being a buzz-word to a concern keeping board-level executives up at night.

As demonstrated by recent high-profile cyber attacks, the cost of a data breach now comes in all shapes and sizes – from significant financial repercussions to damaged reputation and loss of existing customers. Ensuring this is avoided while improving the customer experience is the real tightrope challenge.

Read more in this byline, which was featured on the IBS Intelligence Blog, and written by our UK Head of Bank Relationships, Campbell Shaw.

One of our retail clients presents two slides at every board meeting: the first shows all of their marketing initiatives that aren't measurable with ROI and the second shows all of the programs that are. He noted that his performance review is tied directly to the number of programs that he can move from the first slide to the second. Clearly, in an increasingly efficient and accountable economy, the old Wanamaker adage that ‘half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half’ is no longer acceptable.

So, how did we get here? And, how can we move toward deterministic measurement to ensure we are investing in channels, publishers, creatives, and placements that drive the highest return?

Art vs. Science

Twenty-five years ago, targeting and measurement were more art than science – with a considerable margin of error. We were doing the best we could with the data and analytics available, but it was challenging to find the right metrics and tools to demonstrate the impact of our marketing spend. Over time, more data sources flooded the market, presenting an overwhelming amount of options. Now we had a new challenge, sifting through the data sets to determine what had relevance.

Technologists stepped in with sophisticated, and fast, systems to help deliver data in more usable forms, and a shift in marketing began to take hold. Early loyalty and CRM systems launched. Many households got check cashing cards. Probabilistic mix models became the source of truth. Once a primarily creative process, targeting, and measurement now had a layer of science. Billions of operational dollars began flowing into data centers with the promise of precise targeting and measurement at scale. CFOs were no longer satisfied with measuring what might be true. They wanted certainty in the quantitative impact of their company’s marketing spend.

But, as marketers, we were challenged to provide this level of measurement. We have gained more insight for sure but getting to absolute measurement is still a challenge. New marketing technologies offer a more sophisticated view of consumer data with more robust analytics, but very few connect the data points in a way that provides us with accurate ROI. For example, geolocation helps us better understand brick-and-mortar sales by linking someone’s location with an assumed purchase. While driving foot traffic is an important part of marketing goals, it is still an ROI ‘guess’ at best. Online, clicks have long served as a proxy for consumer intent to buy, but causality remains a challenge, particularly offline. Both of these technologies got us closer to the end goal, but neither were truly deterministic.

The new currency is currency

Deterministic consumer spend data is becoming more readily available, allowing us to more precisely target consumers and, more importantly, measure campaign effectiveness. As an industry, we are at the early stages of integrating this insight into our digital marketing capabilities. The promise of CRM systems combined with bank transaction data provides us a full wallet picture of spend. This view provides the unique and exciting ability to target consumers and measure campaign effectiveness based on actual spend, not surveys, models, panels or proxies.

The path to deterministic targeting and measurement lies in integrating actual purchase data, with the ability to measure true incrementality. In many of the largest channels, we still measure campaign effectiveness with archaic metrics like effective CPMs, clicks, and ratings points, when we have the ability to measure effectiveness in what matters most to CFO’s…actual dollars.

This blog was adapted from a contributed piece I authored for MarTech Advisor. Visit http://bit.ly/1RLe5Zs to read the full article.