New customer acquisition is critical to scale a program and is often a key performance indicator for success, but retaining the customers you already have matters just as much, especially when price sensitivity keeps climbing. According to EY’s 2025 Future Consumer Index, 73% of US consumers have changed their buying habits in response to price increases over the past year, and 65% say they would switch to a different brand entirely for a better price. With affordability driving so much of the decision-making, brand loyalty is under real pressure. How can you retain existing customers if you don’t always have the lowest price? The answer is simple: by leveraging loyalty affiliate partners.
Key Takeaways
- Loyalty programs measurably change spending behavior, with most members saying the program makes them more likely to stick with their preferred brand.
- Multi-brand and cashback loyalty partners remain the single largest publisher category in affiliate marketing, ahead of every other partner type.
- Loyalty partners can offer your brand both personalization and simplicity at a moment when both matter more to consumers than ever.
- Pairing loyalty partners with a pay-per-performance model keeps your acquisition spend low-risk while still rewarding your best, highest-value customers.
Loyalty partners drive impressive outcomes for the brands that use them
Consumers want loyalty programs, and the data backs up just how much. Deloitte’s 2025 Consumer Loyalty Program Survey found that 72% of consumers say loyalty programs make them more likely to spend with their preferred brand, and 56% say the program actually increases how much they spend. Eighty percent say they feel they get more value from a brand specifically because of its loyalty program. Consumers want to be rewarded for their loyalty and their purchases, and that desire is especially visible right now: many cardholders are leaning on points and cashback to help offset everyday costs as prices keep climbing across groceries, gas, and other essentials.
Multi-brand loyalty programs aren’t new, either. Loyalty partners have been part of the affiliate landscape for over two decades, and the PMA’s 2025 Performance Marketing Industry Study confirms just how central they remain: US affiliate marketing spending grew 49.8% from $9.1 billion in 2021 to $13.62 billion in 2024, and according to eMarketer’s analysis of that same PMA data, cashback, loyalty, and rewards publishers like Rakuten Rewards still claim the largest share of any affiliate category at 35% of total ad spend.
How AP clients are seeing performance growth through loyalty partners
At Acceleration Partners, we continue to see loyalty partners outperform as a category, even as the broader affiliate landscape shifts toward AI-driven discovery and content creators. Loyalty has historically been one of the strongest-performing partner groups across AP’s client base, consistently delivering reliable revenue and high-value repeat customers, year after year.
Major ecommerce moments like Amazon Prime Day continue to prove why this matters. According to Levanta’s Prime Day Affiliate Benchmark Report, affiliate ROAS across a cohort of 390 Amazon brands climbed 5.3% year-over-year during Prime Day 2025, even as Amazon PPC efficiency dropped roughly 12.5% over the same period. Per-brand sales during the event grew 16.9% year-over-year, and the halo effect didn’t stop when the event ended: cohort sales stayed 57% above baseline in the week immediately following Prime Day before reverting. Loyalty, coupon, and content partners all contribute to that halo, with consumers continuing to engage across affiliate types and choosing to buy when the timing and incentive are right, especially when a reward helps offset the cost of an everyday purchase.
How can you reach new customers while retaining existing buyer loyalty?
With loyalty partners growing at this pace, it’s worth understanding both sides of the equation: how to reach a new customer and how to retain an existing one, since acquiring a new customer is consistently far more expensive than keeping one you already have. Consumers are prioritizing promotions and value-driven offers more than they have in years, and that behavior tends to intensify heading into the holiday season.
Here are the top three reasons to optimize or onboard loyalty partners before your next peak shopping period.
Consumers want multi-brand loyalty programs. Even if you already run your own loyalty program, it’s worth reaching the audience that prefers multi-brand options instead. If your competitors are working with loyalty partners, you need to be matching or beating the reward they’re offering the consumer. A 1% difference in cashback or points can be the reason you win or lose a sale. Working with loyalty partners is one of the most direct ways to expand your reach into that audience.
You can make sure every dollar you give away is acquiring or retaining a customer. Brand loyalty is genuinely weakening: across the loyalty statistics landscape, the share of consumers who say they remain loyal to their preferred brands and retailers has declined noticeably compared to a few years ago, which means brands have to simplify the experience to keep people engaged. Loyalty partners in the affiliate space can offer both tailored incentives and simplicity by letting consumers reward themselves with cashback or points instead of decoding a complicated points system. If you need an easy, effective, personalized way to reward your customers, a pay-per-performance loyalty program is a strong match.
Incrementality with loyalty partners can feel like a roadblock, but it doesn’t have to be. Consumer purchasing behavior has clearly shifted toward expecting an incentive or reward with every purchase. If your brand doesn’t already have its own loyalty program, you’re likely missing out on a savvy, profitable customer segment. Many of the loyalty partners that work with Acceleration Partners’ clients see some of their best customers shopping through those exact partnerships: customers with a higher average order value who repeat-purchase more often. With the partnership running on a pay-per-performance model, such as cost-per-action, the risk to your brand stays limited while your best customers stay incentivized to keep buying.
Frequently asked questions
Do loyalty partners actually help retain customers, or just attract one-time deal seekers?
They do both, but retention is where loyalty partners tend to outperform other affiliate types. Deloitte’s 2025 Consumer Loyalty Program Survey found that the majority of loyalty program members say the program makes them more likely to stick with their preferred brand specifically, not just buy once on a deal. Because loyalty partners reward repeat behavior rather than a single transaction, they tend to attract customers with a higher average order value and a stronger repeat-purchase pattern than one-time coupon shoppers.
How is a loyalty partner different from a coupon or deal partner?
Coupon and deal partners typically drive a one-time discount-motivated purchase, while loyalty partners build an ongoing relationship around cashback, points, or rewards that accumulate over multiple purchases. That structural difference is why loyalty partners tend to be associated with stronger customer lifetime value: the incentive compounds the more a customer shops with your brand through that channel, rather than resetting after each sale.
Is it expensive to add loyalty partners to an existing affiliate program?
Not inherently. Because loyalty partnerships typically run on a pay-per-performance model, such as cost-per-action, you only pay when a desired action actually happens. That keeps the financial risk limited compared to upfront marketing spend, and it means the cost scales naturally with the value the partnership is actually generating for your brand.
Why does multi-brand loyalty matter if I already have my own loyalty program?
A multi-brand loyalty partner reaches a different audience: shoppers who specifically prefer earning and redeeming rewards across several brands rather than committing to one program. Your own program and a multi-brand partner aren’t mutually exclusive; the partner extends your reach into a segment of value-driven shoppers who might not have joined your program directly.
