Teardowns
The score, all five dimensions and the finding are public. The full read is for members.
Amazon Prime
Prime isn't loyalty — it's an identity toll booth that ad margin pays back.
Starbucks Rewards
The global benchmark: an app that captures everything, a streak mechanic that builds habit, and a stored-value balance that funds the program.
PC Optimum
A first-party data trove resolved at scale, monetized by a media network that comfortably outearns the cost of the reward.
Tesco Clubcard
Clubcard is the original data program — and it just turned thirty years of history into an ad network.
Sephora Beauty Insider
An aspirational status mechanic that brings members back by desire, funded by a product margin that absorbs the reward.
Marriott Bonvoy
Bonvoy sells currency: the margin isn't in the stay, it's in the points sold to the banks.
Costco membership
Costco made paid membership the moat: a 92% renewal rate and the most disciplined margin in retail — with almost no personalization.
Target Circle
Target rebuilt Circle to feed Roundel: loyalty became the ad network's audience unit.
Triangle Rewards
Canadian Tire’s declared ‘linchpin’: an in-house credit card, a retail-media arm and 9.8M active accounts at the center of the strategy.
Scene+
A coalition that works where most fail: data spans grocery, banking, and entertainment under a single currency.
Aeroplan
Aeroplan sells bank data, not seats: $1.8B in third-party billings and a shift to revenue-based earning that tightens margin.
Metro & Moi
High-quality grocery data held back by a media monetization that’s nowhere near its potential.
MyMcDonald's Rewards
McDonald’s turned loyalty into an app-data machine: the reward is the bait, the digital profile is the product.
Tim Rewards
Daily frequency that generates rare habit data, paid for by a reward that weighs heavily on margin.
CVS ExtraCare
ExtraCare owns one of America's best health datasets — and buries it under a coupon experience.
Inner Circle
Fuel buys the sign-up; Couche-Tard hasn’t yet turned the forecourt visit into durable identity.
SAQ Inspire
Exceptional category data, capped by a public mandate that limits both monetization and the aggressiveness of the mechanic.
Lidl Plus
Lidl Plus captures a lot and personalizes little: a mass identifier serving coupon mechanics, not a profile.
Nectar
A vast legacy base whose value stays locked: coalition heritage and a modest activity rate hold activation back.
Desjardins
Desjardins holds the deepest financial relationship in Québec but treats loyalty as a card rebate, not member activation.
Air Miles
A legacy coalition whose data sleeps and whose margin leaks: dented trust, high redemption friction, weak relevance.