The story: Albertsons’ recent push to elevate their loyalty program has delivered impressive results, with membership soaring by nearly 63% since the end of 2020. This significant growth is largely driven by strategic efforts to enhance their loyalty rewards, including the introduction of a revamped loyalty program in mid-2021. This update featured a new mobile app and the FreshPass subscription offering. By Q1 2024, Albertsons’ loyalty program had reached 41.4M members, maintaining a steady 15% to 17% growth in new members each quarter since 2022.
CEO Vivek Sankaran highlighted Albertsons’ shift towards a loyalty-focused business model, aiming to engage customers beyond “just transactions.” “We want our customers to interact with us daily,” Sankaran shared with GroceryDive, “Not only to shop but sometimes to simply consume relevant content about food or plan meals or find information to inspire their wellbeing.” Albertsons also experimented with gamification last summer through its Flavor Adventure game, which allowed loyalty members to unlock recipes, coupons, sweepstakes entries, and prizes by playing on desktop and mobile. The grocery giant is continuing to innovate, having announced a new points-based system in April.
The takeaway: Albertsons’ impressive loyalty program growth is a testament to the effectiveness of putting customers first and delivering value-driven experiences. Enhanced rewards, a user-friendly mobile app, omnichannel customer engagement, and the rollout of loyalty points all signal efforts to enhance the user experience -- efforts which have clearly paid off.
PUBLISHED: Kevel Blog “What Is An Open Source Ad Server? The Definitive Guide”
In 2021, the ad server market was valued at $231M, highlighting their critical role in digital advertising operations. To effectively monetize your site or app, it’s essential to understand the different types of ad servers and how they function. This guide defines open-source ad servers -- what they are, examples of open source ad servers, and when it makes sense to use one.
Check out the full blog here.
WATCH → Group General Manager at Nielson, Tina Wilson, joins the AdTech Forum in Series 3 Episode 5 to discuss the future of traditional advertising in the era of e-commerce and social commerce; including how commerce data optimizes online media campaigns to her vision on integrating commerce data into online platforms.
READ → Data clean rooms may be the key to unlocking retail media standardization and seamless data collaboration for retailers and advertisers alike, experts said during a Wednesday roundtable on retail media hosted by the IAB. Read all about it in this Grocery Dive piece by Peyton Bigora.
LISTEN → This episode, the Middlemen interviewed Xavier Facon in his role as SVP of Retail Products at NielsenIQ and he declared that all the tech required to run Retail Media has been built -- but the relationship between the retailer and the brand needs to change to maintain a sustainable business. Facon offers more warnings and advice in this podcast episode. (Listening time: 51:13).
