Loyalty program operator Aimia Inc. has increased its presence in the United States with the $18-million purchase of Smart Button, a company that creates rewards programs for retailers based on customers’ buying habits.
Aimia, owner of Canadian-based travel and rewards program Aeroplan, has been expanding its use of data analytics through recent acquisitions.
“I think there’s a large market of retailers – regional retailers – that they would be targeting,” said Jay Lee, Aimia’s U.S. chief strategy officer. “There’s huge potential there.”
Delaware-based Smart Button has created rewards programs for teen clothing retailers Hot Topic and Aeropostale, campground operator KOA and Women’s National Basketball Association team, the Los Angeles Sparks.
Aimia now provides data analytics to global clients including Australian grocer Coles, U.S.-based drugstore chain CVS and Canada’s Sobeys grocery chain. The company’s U.K.-based data analytics business – Intelligent Shopper Solutions – analyzes shopping habits to allow businesses to provide relevant offers and discounts to their customers.
Smart Button has about 10 employees and creates software to do such things as track how much customers spend, how often they shop and what they like and dislike. The company develops loyalty programs that can offer an online rewards site, birthday promotions, targeted coupons and well as surveys and trivia, among other features.
“The vast majority of what Smart Button does is definitely digital and web-based,” Lee said.
Marketing professor David Soberman said the U.S. offers a big playing field to help companies set up their own loyalty programs.
“It’s the one country in the world where stand-alone loyalty programs have taken off,” said Soberman, who teaches marketing at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.
“They’re not nearly as popular to the same degree in other countries.”
Aimia already has a U.S. presence with Carlson Marketing, a global loyalty services company acquired in 2009.
Queen’s University business professor Ken Wong said retailers would have liked to analyze their customers shopping habits more fully years ago, but the technology wasn’t available.
He noted that the average Canadian has more than eight loyalty cards, which can lead to points going unused and being held longer.
Aimia has recently said it wants to make travel rewards easier to redeem under its Aeroplan customer loyalty program and is prepared to replace CIBC as its bank credit card partner and is ready to partner with TD Bank in 2014.
