Consumers Want Their Personalized Loyalty Offers Delivered via Email

As brands push communication through their mobile apps, consumers maintain that they would rather get their personalized offers through good, old-fashioned email.

By the Numbers

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “Personalized Offers Are Powerful — but Too Often Off-Base” drew on responses from more than 2,500 U.S. consumers to understand how they view the personalized offers they receive from merchants and what drives them to consider switching merchants.

The study found that across generations, email is the top way that consumers want to receive these kinds of offers. Sixty-five percent of baby boomers and seniors, 68% of Generation X consumers, 63% of millennials and 52% of Generation Z consumers said they prefer receiving personalized offers via email — greater shares than said the same of any other method of delivering these offers.

The Data in Context

Personalized offers are on retailers’ lists of priorities this earnings season as they look to meet customer demand for targeted discounts.

“As we enter the third year since the move to a point-based rewards program, our members can expect more personalized offers, new tiers and more meaningful rewards,” Tractor Supply Company CEO Hal Lawton told analysts on a call Thursday (Feb. 1) discussing the retail chain’s fourth-quarter 2023 earnings results. “These compelling enhancements are designed to drive transactions and engagement, all while migrating customers upwards.”

Similarly, Starbucks, the world’s largest restaurant company by revenue, is pushing personalized offers to keep consumers coming back.

“[We’re] increasing personalized communication in the app, both to drive tickets for those routinized customers, but also frequency for the less frequent customers is a capability that we continue to build,” Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Brady Brewer told analysts on the chain’s earnings call Tuesday (Jan. 30). “We talk a lot about our personalization capabilities at Starbucks, but truly that job is never done because as new technologies and capabilities come online, we are grabbing those and integrating them into our system to use that as a business accelerator.