Card-Linked Offers (CLO) are a form of promotion in which you incentivize a consumer to buy your products or services. What makes this different from a regular coupon or deal is the way it works. With CLO offers, the consumer links their credit or debit card to the CLO partner and activates the deal. Once the consumer makes a purchase, you pay the partner, and the partner pays the consumer the cash or rewards points they promised in the original offer.
Check out the Implementation Guide for specific instructions on how to get started with CLO.
New customer acquisition
CLO can be a great way to find new customers. CLO partners can tell whether a consumer has recently bought anything from you. If they’re already a regular customer, they can show a small deal or nothing at all. If not, they can target that user with special offers.
Hyper-targetable
CLO partners have a ton of useful data about their users — such as age, gender, and shopping habits. For example, they can tell if a user has recently purchased from your competitors. If so, they can drive a strong “first purchase” offer to lure that customer away from the competitor.
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 specify locations.
Little perception of discounting
Even though the consumer may be getting a reward for completing a purchase, they’re still paying full price at the point of sale. CLO is a good way for you to incentivize sales without needing to constantly offer discounts.
impact.com offers a curated list of partners within the marketplace that make use of CLO.