The research behind loyalty, and how to run one
Cited industry data on digital loyalty programs in Australia and globally, alongside step-by-step guides for setting up and running your own.
The Australian loyalty market
Australia is one of the most loyalty-saturated markets in the world. Program membership is close to universal, which means an independent cafe, salon or retailer isn't competing on whether customers will join a program, only on whose program earns the tap. Every figure below links to its original source.
of Australians are in a loyalty program
Membership is effectively universal, so the question for a local business is no longer whether customers will join one, but whose program they join.
Source: For Love or Money™ 2025of Australian businesses are small businesses
Of 2,729,648 actively trading businesses at 30 June 2025, 97.3% employed fewer than 20 people, the segment least likely to have an enterprise loyalty budget.
Source: ABS 2025of members are active in all their programs
Being a member isn't the same as using it. Roughly half of memberships go unused at the counter, which is where a frictionless tap-to-stamp experience matters.
Source: For Love or Money™ 2025say loyalty programs have improved
Up from 51% in 2017, so expectations have risen alongside quality. A paper punch card now compares against a much better baseline.
Source: For Love or Money™ 2025shop more often at brands whose program they like
The same study found 69% spend more and 64% recommend the brand. Note the condition: this applies to programs customers actually like, not merely ones they joined.
Source: ALA 2025expect better offers once they've joined
Up from 77% in 2024. Alongside it, 72% expect better service and 72% expect personalised offers from a brand they're a member of.
Source: ALA 2025try to shop with Australian brands and retailers
A new question in 2025, tracking the rise of localism. Buying Australian is now a mainstream preference, which favours the independent shop over the multinational.
Source: ALA 2025birthday offers rank second for Gen Z
Of every loyalty benefit tested, Gen Z rank birthday gifts and offers second, behind only paying in full with points. Cync automates birthday rewards by default.
Source: ALA 2025Why loyalty programs keep growing
The economics have been measured for over three decades and they haven't changed: keeping a customer is dramatically cheaper than winning a new one. What has changed is the expectation of what a program should feel like: personalised, instant, and living in the customer's phone rather than their wallet.
profit lift from retaining 5% more customers
The foundational retention-economics finding, from Reichheld and Schefter's work on loyalty in Harvard Business Review. It is the reason retention outperforms acquisition spend.
Source: Reichheld & Schefter 2000profit rise in a bank branch system from cutting defections 5%
Reichheld and Sasser's earlier study measured the same mechanism across industries: 85% in retail banking, 50% in insurance brokerage, 30% in auto servicing.
Source: Reichheld & Sasser 1990of consumers expect personalised interactions
And 76% are frustrated when they don't get them. A paper card can't remember a customer's order, their last visit, or their birthday. A digital one does it by default.
Source: McKinsey 2021of Australian members are aware of AI in loyalty
Awareness of AI-driven personalisation and service inside loyalty programs is now mainstream among Australian members, not a niche early-adopter view.
Source: For Love or Money™ 2025Research deep dives
Longer reads on retention, personalisation and repeat customers, and what each finding actually means for a business with one location and no marketing team.
How-to guides
Short, practical walkthroughs for setting up your program, and for customers getting started with the app.
For businesses
For customers
From the blog
Straightforward advice on building a loyalty program that customers actually use.
References
Every statistic on this page traces to one of the sources below. Where a figure is commonly misattributed, the correct original is noted.
- 1
Australian Bureau of Statistics (2025). Counts of Australian Businesses, including Entries and Exits, July 2021 – June 2025. Australian Bureau of Statistics.
2,729,648 actively trading businesses in Australia at 30 June 2025. 97.3% were small businesses (fewer than 20 employees): 64% non-employing, 25% employing 1–4 people, 9% employing 5–19.
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/business-indicators/counts-australian-businesses-including-entries-and-exits/latest-release - 2
Posner, A., The Point of Loyalty (2025). For Love or Money™ 2025: Australian consumer loyalty research (13th edition). The Point of Loyalty; fieldwork by First Point Research and Consulting. National online panel, n = 1,010 Australians aged 18+ who belong to at least one loyalty program, fielded Q1 2025.
93% of Australian consumers belong to at least one loyalty program. 51% are active in all of their programs. 73% believe loyalty programs have improved in recent years, up from 51% in 2017. 41% are loyal to both the brand and its program. 66% are aware of AI being used in their loyalty program experience.
https://thepointofloyalty.com.au/ - 3
The Wise Marketer (2025). New Research: For Love or Money 2025. The Wise Marketer, 27 May 2025.
Publicly available summary of the For Love or Money™ 2025 findings, including the AI-awareness and data-value-exchange figures.
https://thewisemarketer.com/new-research-for-the-love-of-money-2025/ - 4
Australian Loyalty Association (2025). ALA Annual Loyalty Insights Report 2025 (3rd edition). Australian Loyalty Association, supported by Mastercard, released November 2025. Nationally representative sample of 3,716 Australians, including 2,919 active loyalty program members (those who earned or used points in the last 12 months).
For brands whose loyalty program they like, 74% of consumers shop more frequently, 69% spend more and 64% recommend the brand (p.23). 80% expect better offers, 72% expect better service and 72% expect personalised offers if they are part of a brand's loyalty program (pp.25, 26, 28). 76% try to shop with Australian brands or retailers (p.18). Gen Z rank birthday gifts and offers as their second most preferred loyalty benefit (p.52).
https://australianloyaltyassociation.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/2025-Loyalty-Insights-Report.pdf - 5
Reichheld, F. F., & Sasser, W. E. (1990). Zero Defections: Quality Comes to Services. Harvard Business Review, 68(5), 105–111.
Cutting the customer defection rate by 5% raised profits by 85% in one bank's branch system, 50% in an insurance brokerage, and 30% in an auto-service chain.
https://hbr.org/1990/09/zero-defections-quality-comes-to-services - 6
Reichheld, F. F., & Schefter, P. (2000). E-Loyalty: Your Secret Weapon on the Web. Harvard Business Review, 78(4), 105–113.
Original source of the widely-quoted finding that retaining just 5% more customers can lift profits by 25% to 95%. Frequently misattributed to other authors or to 'Harvard Business School'.
https://www.bain.com/insights/e-loyalty-your-secret-weapon-on-the-web/ - 7
McKinsey & Company (2021). The value of getting personalization right, or wrong, is multiplying. McKinsey & Company, Growth, Marketing & Sales practice.
71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalised interactions, and 76% get frustrated when this does not happen.
https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-value-of-getting-personalization-right-or-wrong-is-multiplying
Put the research to work in your shop
Cync turns the numbers on this page into a loyalty program you can launch this week. One flat monthly price, no hardware, no lock-in.
Meet the team behind Cync