Card-Linked Offers (CLO) Explained

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Card-Linked Offers (CLO) allow consumers to register their credit or debit cards with a rewards or loyalty program to access discounts, cashback, and other offers. Unlike traditional affiliate marketing, CLO doesn't use link tracking or third-party cookies, therefore it is not tracked by impact.com. Instead, the CLO partner receives transaction data directly from the bank or financial institution through secure APIs. With impact.com's CLO integration, the CLO partner can then upload the transaction data to you allowing you to manage your CLO activities alongside your traditional affiliate data, like reporting and automated partner payments.

Check out the Implementation Guide for specific instructions on how to get started with CLO.

The benefits of CLO

• Increased sales and conversions

  CLOs have been proven to boost Return on Investment, conversion rates, and Average Order Value. Visit our blog post for more information.

• New customer acquisition

  CLO can be a great way to find new customers by exposing you and your offers to hundreds of millions of cardholders, many of which may not be shopping through traditional affiliate channels.

• Hyper-targetable

  CLO partners have a ton of useful data about their users allowing them to offer targeting capabilities, such as new/existing customer targeting, geo-targeting and more. They can also run incrementality testing to ensure that they are driving incremental performance.

  Note: Targeting and incrementality reporting capabilities can vary depending on which bank or financial institution is running the offer and what targeting options they provide. In some instances, targeting and/or incrementality reporting may not be available.

• Capture in-store sales

  Since all that’s needed for tracking is a linked card, it’s just as easy to track in-store purchases as online. If you have brick-and-mortar stores, you can use CLO to drive customers in-store, and even to specific locations.

• Eliminate Fraud

  With CLO, the transaction data comes directly from the banks or financial institutions, which ensures 99% accuracy and minimizes fraud, which is still an issue in traditional affiliate channels.

• Lower perception of discounting

  Consumers receive rewards for completing purchases, yet they generally pay the full price at the point of sale. CLO is a good way for you to incentivize sales without needing to constantly offer discounts.

Discover CLO partners

impact.com offers a curated list of partners within the marketplace that make use of CLO.