There are various trends that are shaping customer loyalty in 2025. On the macro level, there is inflation and looming recession in multiple countries. Loyalty programs are seen as a rescue for consumers, and sentiment is positive. As for the consumers, they would like to be seen and treated as people and benefit from great deals in exchange for their data. These are just a couple of takeaways from the Global Customer Loyalty Report 2025 — THE loyalty report of the industry.
Looking to find out the global, regional and age-specific loyalty trends of 2025? Grab your copy of our report before going on, to check the context after finishing this article!
Introducing the Global Customer Loyalty Report 2025, Which Has Over 600 Loyalty Statistics
The goal of Antavo’s Global Customer Loyalty Report 2025 (GCLR 2025 for short) is to help decision-makers better navigate the world of loyalty programs and to provide statistics, charts and actionable insights on how to evolve loyalty programs in the age of AI.
The data in this report comes from three sources (all global) leading to the most comprehensive report on the market today – with over 600 loyalty statistics:
- 2,600 survey responses from CMOs, Marketing, IT and Loyalty experts (vs. last year’s 600)
- 230 million member actions tracked via Antavo’s AI Loyalty Cloud platform (vs. last year’s 30 million)
- New: A consumer panel filled out by 10,000 loyalty program members globally
The Current Loyalty Landscape Is at an All-Time High
Our findings indicate that loyalty programs are performing better than ever, and companies are seeing great results using them:
- Satisfaction: 7 out of 10 loyalty program owners are satisfied with their loyalty program. 25.4% reported being neutral, and 5.4% were dissatisfied
- ROI: 83.0% of program owners who measure ROI reported a positive return on investment. They said that their loyalty program generates 5.2 times more revenue than what it costs. Last year it was 4.8X
- Budget: Loyalty program owners allocate 31.4% of their total marketing budget to consumer loyalty and CRM. This is a 4.4% increase from last year
- Tech: 28.8% of companies identified “ease of managing the loyalty program” as the most valuable aspect of third-party loyalty technology
The Big Consumer Wishlist – Motivation, Features & Favorite Channels
For the first time in our annual report series, we also included insights through the lens of the consumer:
- Reason for joining a loyalty program: 69.8% of people join loyalty programs to earn rewards, discounts, or cash back (69.8%)
- Missing feature: 40.7% of consumers would like to see no expiration of points, while 40.0% want more ways to earn points
- Favorite channels: 59.0% of respondents prefer to interact with loyalty programs via mobile apps
AI Is Transforming Loyalty
AI is the new frontier, expected to break ground in many areas for both consumers and companies, from customer support to personalization and data analysis—and even acting as a subject matter expert.
- Consumers: 39.6% of consumers would be more likely to join a loyalty program if it had AI. 49.4% are undecided
- Companies: 37.1% of program owners use AI to manage their loyalty programs. Of those companies, 44.9% claimed AI enhances team productivity by saving time, and 31.1% said that AI helps save money through increased efficiency
- AI-driven use case: 44.5% of program owners are interested in using AI for loyalty scope planning
- Agentic AI: 67.4% of program owners said that they would feel comfortable using AI-powered agents
Potential Loyalty Program Trends
In the Global Customer Loyalty Report 2025, we identified three features that are highly desirable by members or brands: reward customization where members can pick their benefits, gamified data collection, and family accounts.
Reward customization
- Members who prefer to shop with brands that offer reward customization: 81.2%
- Program owners who currently offer reward customization: 49.2%
- Future program owners who want to offer reward customization: 79.9%
Gamified data collection:
- Consumers who would be more likely to share information if it was collected through games or quizzes: 55.1%
- Program owners who currently offer gamified data collection: 42.0%
- Future program owners who want to offer gamified data collection: 75.7%
Family accounts, account sharing, clubs:
- Members who would rather shop with brands that offer account sharing or point pooling: 76.0%
- Program owners that currently offer account sharing or point pooling 43.7%
- Future program owners that want to offer account sharing or point pooling: 63.5%
The Age of AI in Loyalty Is Here
The 2025 edition of the Global Customer Loyalty Report is packed with even more statistics, along with deeper context and key takeaways. It also includes case studies, expert panel insights, and direct quotes from the industry leaders we interviewed.
If you feel ready to take the next step and push your company’s loyalty strategy to the next level, the experts at Antavo are more than happy to showcase how our technology can help. Just book a demo or send us an RFP.
And if you haven’t already, be sure to download our Global Customer Loyalty Report 2025.
