What are card-linked offers (CLO's)?
Basically, Card-linked offers (CLO) are a marketing technique that allows you to offer discounts or rewards like cash back to your customers every time they use their card (no matter if it is a credit or debit card) at your store. Card-Linked Offers (CLOs) come in handy when you want to give cash back or other loyalty offers to your customer because with card-linked offers they will receive them automatically, without any extra hassle for the consumer or especially for the cashier.
In conclusion, we could say that Card-linked offers, or CLOs, are a way for businesses to offer automated rewards to their customers in exchange for a purchase.
How do card-linked offers work?
Card-linked offers may seem complicated but when they have been sliced into a few simple steps they are not that complicated anymore. Let’s get through them:
Step 1 - Publishing Card-Linked Offer
The card-linked offers campaign has been published on some online platforms or apps like American Express, Current, Rakuten, or Benjamin. Then customers / consumers have linked their card to one of these platforms (see where the name card-linked offers came from).
Step 2 - Customer Using Card-Linked Offer
The customer makes a purchase at the merchant's location and uses the same card she has linked to the app where the card-linked offer campaign has been published.
Step 3 - Tracking the Card-Linked Offer
CLO technology tracks the purchase automatically and gives the customer the cash back or another reward she deserves through the campaign (what the merchant has set). CLOs use technology that matches the consumer's card numbers with merchants' POS transactions. That means that merchants don't have to get any additional equipment to track CLO’s which is a huge plus for CLO’s overall.
Step 4 - Funding the Card-Linked Offer
This is a place where are few differences. This depends a lot on the publisher (app / website) where the CLO campaign has been published. Usually, it goes the way that the publisher will pay the cash back amount first to the customer and after that, they create monthly invoices for the merchant that has issued the campaign. Some publishers work the way where merchants have to top up their accounts with a certain amount before they can start to run the campaigns and the cash back will be paid from those.
The third way to do it is that the merchant will add the card to the publisher's app, and the cash back will be paid straight from that card to consumers.
Why you should use card-linked offers for your business?
As we already covered, card-linked offers are a pretty easy and hassle-free way to do marketing for any industry.
Traditional digital marketing campaigns charge merchants for impressions or clicks, but they can't tell how many in-store visits or, more significantly, purchases were influenced by their online advertisements. Card-Linked Offers are distinct in that they tie online advertising efforts with in-store transactions. Traditional digital marketing campaigns charge merchants for impressions or clicks, but they can't tell how many in-store visits or, more significantly, purchases were influenced by their online advertisements. Card-linked offers are wholly different. With CLO’s every transaction can be traced directly to the customer, and businesses can now see the direct impact of their online advertising expenditure. So if you really want to track how many purchased something from your store after a marketing campaign - CLOs are a way to go.
Card-linked offers are a hassle-free way to give discounts
The days of "I forgot my coupon" are long gone with the introduction of Card-Linked Offers. We all have been there and we know how frustrating that is. Especially if you are in a hurry and behind someone who is looking for her coupon.
When a consumer links her credit card, she will automatically receive cash back or a discount at participating businesses whenever she makes a purchase. Merchants can also require customers to click on their offer in order for it to be activated, which increases engagement. Customers are not required to submit a physical coupon or display the offer on their mobile devices. That once again reduces the hassle on the cashier.
The Benefits of CLOs for Businesses
So why would you want to use CLOs? The answer is simple: They're easy and cost-effective! You don't have to worry about getting customers' information or gathering payment information—all you need is their email address! Plus, because there's no risk involved with offering rewards via CLOs (since it's not considered "payment").
How to create card-linked offers for your business?
Card-linked offers are one of the fastest growing ways to do marketing and for a good reason. They are easy, fast and cheap to set up.
When you want to create card-linked offers for your business we are here to help you. When you create CLO's with companies like us, you would not have to pay any upfront costs or get any additional equipment.
The only thing you would have to do is to sign-up for free for our app on our website, create your campaign (with just a few clicks), publish it to our consumer app and then your campaign is live. All that process from idea to campaign creation takes only a few minutes - and once again what is the best thing about it, is that you only have to pay for the results you get through the campaign.
- Sign up for our free app for businesses
- Create your card-linked offer campaign
- Publish the campaign to Benjamin app or other cash back network
- Benjamin will automatically track the purchases
- Enjoy the results
- Repeat
So would it be time to start your first card-linked offers campaign for your business?
Sign-up now - we have some great special offers, especially for small businesses.
