Card Linking Technology: A Loyalty Program's Best Friend

Thanks to its ease of use and the increased need for convenience, card linking technology is becoming a crucial component for a loyalty solution. 

This article will explain how card linking works and the reasons why you should add it to your loyalty offering. If there any terms that you don’t recognise here, take a look at our loyalty tech terms blog post for more information. 

What is card linking? 

Card linking technology is a way for consumers to link their payment card to a loyalty program. 

Card linking technology minimises all the unnecessary steps, including loyalty program registration and offers, that stand between a successful loyalty scheme and a happy customer.

It offers fast checkout and a seamless customer experience, and at the same time, it gives your brand the opportunity to collect valuable data, such as location, time, and customer purchase history.

According to research from the 2021 Digital Commerce Annual Industry Study, 35% of the respondents indicated that their card-linking programs grew by more than 100%.

Card-linking technology essentially turns the customer’s credit card into a loyalty card. Card linking loyalty also means customers never miss out on earning loyalty points, regardless of whether they have a physical loyalty card with them during the purchase.

What are the benefits of card-linked offers?

The pandemic increased the use of payment cards in place of cash, furthering the already substantial number of people who use a credit or debit card for payments. Card linking provides the ability to link a payment card with a loyalty program instead of needing a separate loyalty card, code or coupon at checkout. 

This is a no-brainer for both companies and customers.  Ease of use is a crucial component of why card linking is so important and creates a better shopping experience for the customer.

Customers are more likely to engage with a loyalty program if it is easy to use. Card linking technology and rewards can help you increase customer acquisition, retention and engagement. 

Payment-linked loyalty provides a seamless experience for the customer. This leads to the removal of any potential barrier for the customer to be engaging with a loyalty program. This ease of use increases trust with a customer which is one of the key components of relationship marketing.

How does card linking work?

Card linking is basically the way in which you can transform your bank card into a loyalty card. At White Label Loyalty, our system integrates directly with Visa, MasterCard and American Express. 

This means it’s already compatible with your existing payment terminals. In terms of ease of use, all you need is your merchant identification number (MID). Then, you just combine customer payment with your loyalty card app. 

Our card linking system works with mobile payment apps, such as Apple Pay or Google Pay, in order to create maximum convenience. 

Find out more about our card linked offers API.

What can card linking do for your business? 

Card-linked loyalty programs are about providing benefits to your loyal customers. This is even easier with card linking. At White Label Loyalty, our system is used to power a variety of loyalty solutions. This includes rewarding customers with points, gifts, personalised offers or sending cash back directly into their accounts.
 

Security is another key component of card linking and is crucial when working with payment cards. This is because the ability to work when a network is offline increases its resilience. 
 

Importantly, card linking provides valuable transaction data that's captured when a customer uses their normal payment card. This data collected includes payment methods, transaction times and locations. 

As a result, it helps companies to understand exactly how customers are interacting with it. What's more, it allows for personalised marketing, which in turn increases ROI (return on investment). 

Payment-linked loyalty is a great feature to collect customer data whilst creating a frictionless customer experience - you can use this data to build an insightful and accurate database of your customer's activity. 

Then, you can use those insights to inform your marketing and sales strategies.

How can you deliver card linked offers

Dubai Holding, a UAE-based global investment company with operations across retail, hospitality, leisure, and entertainment, wanted to create a rewards program to offer members instant rewards for shopping at virtually any destination across the UAE.

White Label Loyalty provided a program bringing user-friendly card-linking technology which allows members to earn and redeem points by connecting a payment card to the app and then shopping as normal.