Judgment Day in the Loyalty Programs Market
I’m awfully late. Last Friday, those utmost kind researchers from ARC Rynek i Opinia sent me this year’s “Loyalty Programs Monitor” and I’ve only sat to writing these few words today, that is on Wednesday. Not in the morning, to make matters even worse. So to all those of you who received the report file without as much as a single foreword: please don’t blame Sylwia or Marcin from ARC. It’s all on me.
Let’s get on with it! As you open this year’s research wave report, I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that we live in a time when most of the asset classes are growing rather dynamically. Gold, Bitcoin, main market indices in the US are all at their historical highs, just to name a few examples. Since the economy follows a cyclic development pattern, sooner or later the time for correction will come. The “Loyalty Programs Monitor 2025” reports that such a correction has just begun with the loyalty programs market.
Just so you know, my failure to meet the deadlines was caused by the fact that I had more on my plate than I could reasonably handle. Much like the “Monitor’s” respondents, who (I couldn’t help but notice, having read the report) are lost in the deluge of market communication and program offers. Over the last 12 months 12 new initiatives have emerged, addressed to end buyers, al of them boasting the phrase: “loyalty program” in the very headers of their Terms and Conditions (and only one of those has shut down during this period). This means that, as of October 2025, there are now 163 loyalty programs in the market. That’s despite the fact that the declared participation level decreased significantly from 72% a year before to just 66% today.
Over the years when reports from this study have been published – that is since 2010, this factor decreased year-over-year on five occasions[1]. The last time it dropped was in 2022, while only once there was a decrease of 6 or more percentage points (in 2016). Just as a reminder – at the time there were 47 consumer loyalty programs active in the market and the leader by the number of participants was… Tesco Clubcard.
Let the words of Nokia’s CEO, Stephen Elop, serve as a warning to you: “We didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost”[2]. May this phrase be your reason for reflection when you draft new loyalty program implementation strategies for 2026. As you can clearly see, consumers have grown quite tired with those. If you don’t believe me, just have a peek into the report: the percentage of those who have their favourite loyalty program has been continuously falling for the last four years and is now at only 66% (76% as recently as 2021).
Interestingly, both program mobile app use rates remained at a stable level of 93%, as well as the average number of programs Poles participate in – 3.3 programs. As far as spontaneous respondent declaration go, the ranking of the largest – in terms of declared participation – programs has remained the same. Other than the Lidl Plus program, which retained last year’s participation level, metrics for all programs have dropped. Only 6 programs reached a declared participation level of over 10% in 2024 – currently these are only 4 (likewise for the 5% and more threshold we can see a reduction from 10 down to only 8 programs).
At the supported level, this year the study’s methodology transitioned from CATI to CAWI, which means that it’s results are significantly higher and impossible to compare. Decreases are noted independently from the number of programs respondents participate in. Lower results were reported in groups participating in 1, 2 or 3, as well as in 4 or more programs.
The most tell-tale market event in the last 12 months was BP leaving Payback and launching BPme, go live of the Inpost InCoin program and the launch of Visa OFERTA – a program dedicated for ING bank clients. Each of the above introduced a new quality to the market.
Are we now at a turning point and headed towards a robust market correction? This remains to be seen. Anyone whose professional career weathered the crisis of 2000-2002 and 2007-2009 knows that products and trends not only spread exponentially, but they also are quick to shrink. Keep in mind that the avalanche effect, meaning enormous changes, described by Malcolm Gladwell in “The Tipping Point” may result from seemingly minor actions. Such as loyalty program participation rates dropping from 72% down to 66%.
Despite all this, I wish you all success in loyalty programs and encourage you to dig into the “Loyalty Programs Monitor”.
dr Tomasz Makaruk
i360 CEO
Tomasz Makaruk is a co-owner and a CEO of i360, at the same time the author of a blog dedicated to loyalty programs (www.marketingbusinessblog.pl). i360 is an entity specialized in organizing both B2B and B2C loyalty programs (www.i360.com.pl), as well as a vendor of software for managing such activities that has been implemented in 16 CEE and Eastern European markets (www.loyaltysoftware.eu).
- When did the declared participation rates drop? Here you go. In 2022 (65% down to 62%), in 2019 (62% down to 59%), in 2016 (47% down to 41%), in 2015 (51% down to 47%), and in 2012 (55% down to 48%) ↑
https://www.leadership-choices.com/blog/we-didnt-do-anything-wrong-but-somehow-we-lost ↑