Acxiom’s Elizabeth Donovan: Why Some Loyalty Programs Miss the Mark
Loyalty programs are built around the idea that customers keep coming back. Elizabeth Donovan thinks brands have the causality backward. The customer doesn’t owe the brand loyalty. The brand has to earn it first.
“You have to, in fact, as the brand, be loyal back to your customer. Your customer will always come back to you, especially if you’re providing them value,” Donovan, EVP and Head of Commerce and Retail Media Networks and Growth Monetization at Omnicom’s Acxiom, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan. “We should stop thinking about our customers as a way to make monetization. It’s more about how you enhance your customer experience.”
That reorientation has direct implications for how brands think about first-party data, loyalty programs, and the growing commerce media ecosystem they’re being asked to navigate simultaneously.
Data works in three layers
Donovan walked through the data taxonomy her team works with across Acxiom and Omnicom. First-party data covers what a brand knows about its own customers through loyalty programs and high-value audience segments. Second-party data involves co-mingling that data with another brand’s for joint targeting or offsite activation. Third-party data brings in external expertise to enhance first-party signals or power publisher-side activations.
“It’s a way of thinking about the data and how you’re utilizing that for your messaging and your storytelling,” Donovan said.
Data sharing as a loyalty signal
The willingness of a customer to opt in and share their data is itself a measure of trust — and a more meaningful loyalty indicator than transaction frequency alone.
“When you think about your customer and if they’re loyal, it’s do they feel comfortable sharing their data with you? By them opting in and permissioning, especially as commerce media networks are created, I think that shows loyalty beyond transactions,” Donovan said.
Brand collaboration as customer experience
One trend Donovan is watching is brands using shared first-party data not just for targeting but for experiential activations that surprise customers in moments they don’t expect. A hotel brand partnering with a champagne company based on social listening is one example — connecting two brand relationships a customer already has into a single moment of delight.
“As a consumer and a loyal member, knowing that they’re going to be additive and provide a value back to that brand makes me want to engage more,” Donovan said.
Stop showing customers what they already have
The most common failure Donovan sees in loyalty-driven advertising is brands ignoring what they already know. A customer who has held a co-branded credit card for years doesn’t need to see another ad for that credit card.
“If you have that data and you know that about that person, you don’t want to continuously show them the co-brand ad. What you’ll want to do is say, ‘We know you already have our credit card. Here’s 500 points or $10 back,’” Donovan said. “If you’re opting into the loyalty program, it has to be mutually beneficial.”
Loyalty programs are built around the idea that customers keep coming back. Elizabeth Donovan thinks brands have the causality backward. The customer doesn’t owe the brand loyalty. The brand has to earn it first.
“You have to, in fact, as the brand, be loyal back to your customer. Your customer will always come back to you, especially if you’re providing them value,” Donovan, EVP and Head of Commerce and Retail Media Networks and Growth Monetization at Omnicom’s Acxiom, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan. “We should stop thinking about our customers as a way to make monetization. It’s more about how you enhance your customer experience.”
That reorientation has direct implications for how brands think about first-party data, loyalty programs, and the growing commerce media ecosystem they’re being asked to navigate simultaneously.
Data works in three layers
Donovan walked through the data taxonomy her team works with across Acxiom and Omnicom. First-party data covers what a brand knows about its own customers through loyalty programs and high-value audience segments. Second-party data involves co-mingling that data with another brand’s for joint targeting or offsite activation. Third-party data brings in external expertise to enhance first-party signals or power publisher-side activations.
“It’s a way of thinking about the data and how you’re utilizing that for your messaging and your storytelling,” Donovan said.
Data sharing as a loyalty signal
The willingness of a customer to opt in and share their data is itself a measure of trust — and a more meaningful loyalty indicator than transaction frequency alone.
“When you think about your customer and if they’re loyal, it’s do they feel comfortable sharing their data with you? By them opting in and permissioning, especially as commerce media networks are created, I think that shows loyalty beyond transactions,” Donovan said.
Brand collaboration as customer experience
One trend Donovan is watching is brands using shared first-party data not just for targeting but for experiential activations that surprise customers in moments they don’t expect. A hotel brand partnering with a champagne company based on social listening is one example — connecting two brand relationships a customer already has into a single moment of delight.
“As a consumer and a loyal member, knowing that they’re going to be additive and provide a value back to that brand makes me want to engage more,” Donovan said.
Stop showing customers what they already have
The most common failure Donovan sees in loyalty-driven advertising is brands ignoring what they already know. A customer who has held a co-branded credit card for years doesn’t need to see another ad for that credit card.
“If you have that data and you know that about that person, you don’t want to continuously show them the co-brand ad. What you’ll want to do is say, ‘We know you already have our credit card. Here’s 500 points or $10 back,’” Donovan said. “If you’re opting into the loyalty program, it has to be mutually beneficial.”
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