The Australia Loyalty Solutions Market Map
The Australian loyalty market is growing
Australia’s loyalty market is worth US$4bn and it’s growing at 13% annually. With a GDP similar to Canada’s, it’s also highly concentrated with two grocers, 2 airlines and 4 banks each dominating their respective categories.
A raft of new loyalty programs have launched in the last 2 years (mainly in retail) but the big existing players haven’t stood still either and are ramping up the sophistication of their offerings. Australia’s largest bank, Commonwealth Bank, has this month launched a whole of bank loyalty program. Australia’s largest supermarket, Woolworths, is deploying parts of Tesco’s successful playbook and has launched member-based pricing.
The Australian Loyalty Manager community is growing
The growing population of loyalty programs is creating demand for talent. The growing Loyalty Manager community gathered at this year’s Australian Loyalty Association’s conference made it the biggest in the history of the conference and the biggest loyalty conference in the world this year.
Demand for loyalty solutions is also up
These launches and upgrades have delivered the highest demand Australia has ever seen for loyalty solutions. That demand is being served less by the long-term incumbent providers in Australia and more by new entrant loyalty providers from offshore. UK-based Eagle Eye delivers loyalty for Woolworths, USA-based Marigold delivers for Bakers Delight, Datamine for Freedom and Antavo for Kathmandu).
Selecting loyalty platforms is now complex and confusing
Five years ago Loyalty Managers had only a few loyalty providers to choose from with the market dominated by Aimia and MasterCard. They now have access to over 100 different specialist loyalty solutions and providers.
Not only is the current portfolio of potential loyalty providers large but it also keeps changing. Some providers changed their names (Cheetah became Marigold, Aimia has become Kognitiv) while others have pivoted their offers (Elevate added Elevate Pay, Super-Rewards became Grow My Money and Loyalty Boomerang became Covalent). Some are aggregating (Gratiffi bought Hachiko, Neat Ideas and Spend Less, Liven bought OrderUp, Abacus, Zeemart and Copper while me&u and Mr Yum merged). Some providers are exiting (TrueLayer), some are in trading halts (MyRewards) and some are closing (Upstreet).
The Australian Loyalty Solutions Market Map
Navigating this increasingly complex set of choices is hard. Ellipsis, the loyalty experts, are producing the inaugural Australia Loyalty Solutions Market Map to make this complex landscape simple. The map is one comprehensive and categorised reference of all loyalty solutions available to Loyalty Managers in Australia.
Ellipsis has already documented 120 loyalty solutions across 30 categories (and counting). The map will be published by Ellipsis’s Loyalty Central unit which helps Loyalty Managers understand, find and engage with the loyalty solutions that will give their programs a step change in performance.
Four major categories
The map divides all available loyalty solutions into one of four categories.
- Loyalty Foundation: Core technology to identify and score customers and their behaviour and accrue benefits, points or status and retire or exchange these. These are either generalists who work in almost any category (such as Salesforce), deep loyalty specialists (such as Annex Cloud) or sector specialists who have deep and unique capabilities for a particular sector (such as Simplicity Loyalty and Task).
- Loyalty Extension: These are emerging and differentiating capabilities that build on a foundational solution’s capabilities. They’re generally smaller and growing providers (such as Bink). Some may be available from foundational providers and some may also perform as foundational loyalty solutions (such as Datamine).
- Rewards Foundation: These are the most common reward types used in all industry categories with scaled specialists delivering the execution (such as Loyalty Now and Pokitpal).
- Reward Extension: These are emerging and differentiating rewards and experience capabilities (such as Grow My Money). Generally, these are smaller, niche specialist offerings.
33 subcategories in the four major categories
The sub-categories help Loyalty Managers find all the loyalty solutions serving a specific category (such as retail, bank, travel or hospitality) or delivering a particular service (such as card-linking, Web3, health incentives, gift cards or receipt marketing).
Verified Vendors and the 5 key decision criteria that lead to an initial discussion with a provider
Listed in the subcategories is every provider currently in or targeting Australian loyalty programs in that category. While providers may deliver in multiple areas, for simplicity they’re listed only in the category they’re primarily known for.
Providers are either standard or Verified Vendors who have shared key details across the six key decision criteria important to Loyalty Managers in developing their short list of potential loyalty providers. This information supports Loyalty Managers wanting to find and swiftly shortcut to a handful of preferred partners to contact.
They want to know;
- Which clients: Loyalty Managers are interested in contacting Loyalty Providers delivering the loyalty programs they know and respect. They’re most interested in recently launched programs with a contemporary design. It’s not critical to have Australian clients.
- Locations and support: Loyalty Managers want clarity about where a provider’s team is based and how they’ll be supported. Australian-based resources don’t necessarily sway a decision but knowing support is available on Australian timezones does.
- Categories served: they’re interested in what other categories outside of their own are supported by the Loyalty Provider.
- Awards, recognition, partnerships, acquisitions and launches: External recognition (Kobie’s rated a leader by Forrester) or awards (Loyalty Status Co is the 2022 Global Aviation Startup of the Year) support credibility and leadership. Partnerships (Amperity has partnered with SessionM and Currency Alliance has partnered with Kognitiv) provide context for future options. Launches (Traxactor launched PayZe) are indicators of strengths and product roadmaps.
- Trust and security: Given the hacks and breaches in Australia over the last two years, Loyalty Managers won’t initiate discussions with any provider who won’t pass their security team’s protocols. Here credentials and certifications such as ISO 27001, GDPR, CPA and PCI DSS are the key tests.
Download your report here (there’s a free summary version and a paid version for the full report).
We have verified vendors to help, as a short cut. The Loyalty Central Verified Vendor tick ensures you have all the right information to make the best technology decisions.
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