In today’s competitive landscape, many leading brands are already answering that question through complex and carefully curated partnership ecosystems.
One does not need to go far to find great examples of complex partnership strategies. Revolut (RevPoints), Deutsche Telekom (Magenta Moments), and almost all commercial banks in CEE have some form of partner offers supplementing their loyalty strategy. These partnerships support a diverse set of KPIs depending on organizational goals, such as brand presence and differentiation from competitors (measured by NPS), facilitating card usage and purchase frequency through cashback schemes, or simply offering a reward for continued use of the core product or service.
Needless to say, much deeper levels of engagement also exist on a more strategic, often global scale. For example, Starbucks and Delta (Delta Travel & Starbucks Rewards) not only promote one-off transactional benefits for their customers but also offer a shared loyalty incentive scheme. This allows both customer bases to enjoy continuous benefits when using either or both companies’ products and services.
We conducted detailed research on what customers expect from partnerships in loyalty. We were curious about their preferred products, services, and brands in the partnership landscape. Moreover, as our main focus with MOL MOVE at Digital Factory is to deliver digital solutions that drive real business impact—specifically for MOL Group Retail—our research also examined the potential influence of partnerships on retail behavior.
From a base management perspective,the insights become even more compelling.
Our data suggests that forhigh-value customers—those with high purchase frequency (often 2–3× the average), above-average app engagement, and strong margin per user metrics—engagement tends to decrease over time. These customers begin to seek more innovative and deeper experiences. They are the most painful to lose, which suggests that retention may be the most important success measure—and partnerships have strong potential to support this.
In partnerships, the key factors in boosting customer engagement include the relevance and brand value of the partner, the timeliness or uniqueness of the offer and personalization. Gamification may also add an extra dimension to the experience in a sea of similar partnership initiatives—perhaps a topic for another time.
At MOL, we have gathered extensive experience across a wide range of partnership formats. From Prize-Winning-Game (PWG) to in-store special discounts aligned with the retail commercial roadmap, we have established a dedicated internal squad to manage partner offers. This team oversees go-to-market strategies and maps product strategies through analytics, insights and expertise.
A key challenge in partnerships is maintaining focus—finding the right way to integrate partnerships into ourbroader business operations alongside other critical areas.
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Our next steps in partnership evolution are twofold: improving the product and finding the right way of working. The first involves developing a solid, insight-driven foundation that continuously refines and optimizes the customer experience. The second considers group-level potential—leveraging knowledge, markets and partners to create a truly unique value proposition for both our customers and our collaborators.
