Loyalty Marketing

Cambridge, Mass. – More than three-quarters of digital marketers say loyalty program success depends on how well they do personalization. According to “Refresh Your Approach to 1:1 Marketing,” a new survey of digital marketers from Forrester Consulting on behalf of ExactTarget Marketing Cloud, about half (48%) of digital marketers say they face challenges in personalizing individual consumer interactions.

Sterling, Va. - Social media demonstrated the best cost-efficiency of all major online advertising channels in second quarter 2014, coming in at 70% below the industry average for cost and showing a 32% cost decrease quarter over quarter. According to the Q2 2014 Media Intelligence Report from Neustar Inc., social’s reach-efficiency was 286% better than the next channel, portals, and its ability to reach exclusive users (not seen in other channels) improved by 65% quarter over quarter.

Boston - Nearly 80% of college students describe themselves as “more cost-conscious this year than a year ago.” However, according to a recent back-to-school survey of 1,420 U.S. college students by college marketing agency Fluent, students said they are willing to make an exception to the low-spending rule and anticipate spending “more than they should” in select categories, specifically clothing, technology and dorm room accessories.

Following are key highlights from the survey:

New York -- Walmart announced in a post on its corporate blog that its store-brand MasterCard holders can expect to receive a new chip-enabled card in the "next few weeks." The discounter said it is among the first retailers to implement chip technology as a more secure payment means for cardholders. It also noted in the post that Sam's CLub introduced a chip-enabled MasterCard in June. Both cards prompt customers not to swipe – but to insert and briefly leave the card in the payment terminal, so the card’s embedded chip can be accessed.

Walldorf, Germany – Retailers should consider waiting until August to launch back-to-school promotions and focus them heavily on online shoppers. According to new data from SAP, consumer sentiment toward back-to-school advertising doesn’t become positive till the end of July.

Columbus, Ohio – Express Inc. will be using Rich Media Messaging (RMM) technology from Iris Mobile to drive the fashion retailer’s seasonal “Back-to-Business” sweepstakes campaign with GQ Magazine. A combination of both a participant-based sweepstakes and a voting-based contest, this campaign will award one emerging startup entrepreneur with a grant from Express based on public votes.

Boston -- A retailer’s website is its most dominant channel for digital marketing, according to study done by A.T. Kearney done in conjunction with the National Association of Drug Stores. The survey findings were released on Monday, during the NACDS Total Store Expo Insight Session "Winning with Digital Marketing."

Hoffman Estates, Ill. – ShopYourWay, the digital loyalty, marketing and shopping platform of Sears and Kmart, is partnering with YouTube celebrities Ricky Dillon and Jenn McCallister. The two social media stars will serve as “curators of cool” on the Shop Your Way site.

Dillon and McCalister collaborated with Shop Your Way to deliver their first semester fashion picks, creating catalogs members can like, follow and share. They have nearly 10 million fans combined on social media networks such as YouTube, Instagram and Twitter.

New York -- Instagram is making itself more advertising-friendly, adding a new suite of business tools for its advertisers that will help the brands better control their campaigns and will allow them to gauge the success of their efforts.

The roll-out of the new features, which include an “account insights” tool that will allow marketers to track the performance of their ads in real-time using typical brand metrics such as impressions, reach, and engagement, will occur over the coming weeks and months, the photo-sharing giant said.

San Francisco -- Kenshoo, a provider of predictive media optimization technology, and RevTrak, a promotions platform that drives and measures in-store sales through digital coupons, announced the results of a partnership uniting offline conversions and paid search performance for omnichannel optimization for Staples Canada.