Get to know the consumers who buy through your distribution network thanks to “cashback”

The technique is certainly not new. But boosted by digitalization - which simplifies the process for the consumer -, it is becoming increasingly successful. How successful? Cashback operations have been recorded double-digit growth over the last 5 years.

A win-win-win offer

Cashback is a marketing technique through which a consumer is given a discount coupon when buying a product. The cou- pon is then converted in cash on his/her bank account after the consumer has introduced a “claim” with the brand.

This is a two-step operation, which differs from a direct discount given at the checkout.

For the consumer looking for a good deal, cashback means money in his pocket – or better said, on his bank account (the annual Belgian market is estimated at 20 million euros in transaction amounts).

For the brand that does not sell its products directly to the consumer but rather through a distribution channel, cashback is a way to collect “gold nuggets” for future marketing campaigns: personal data obtained from its consumers. In addition, it is a perfect opportunity to encourage the consumer who has just made his purchase to discover the brand’s online sales services (see «E-commerce acceleration»).

For the seller (i.e a department store specializing in household appliances), cashback is an effective lever for boosting sales at the brand’s expense. Cashback products receive the best positions in advertising folders, which is quite telling.


Personal data, the challenge of relational marketing for brands

For the brand, the cashback technique is not only a way to collect the consumer’s personal data, but it also helps capture his buying motivations. The claim process requires the consumer to disclose his identity and provide evidence of the purchase of the product by scanning the receipt. If you multiply this by the number of cashback transactions made each year in Belgium (estimated at 2 million), you will have a better idea of the volume of data that can effectively be used to engage and interact with the consumer.

When automatically integrated into CRM tools and coupled with business intelligence systems that process the data and help marketers interpret it, the sum of data collected by brands is worth its weight in gold.

This is immediately evident from the fact that it is five times more expensive to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one... The results are well worth the effort!

Digitalization allows for a seamless transaction experience

Gone are the days when people had to use a pair of scissors to cut out the precious «coupons» that they filled in by hand and sent via traditional mail, hoping they would be processed within a year... Digitization makes it possible to manage a cashback request in a few minutes through a smartphone. It only takes a form to be completed online and a scanned receipt displaying the product reference number.

“With Dataceed, everything is done to make the operation easier for the consumer, explains Jean-Christophe Gabriel, in charge of strategy for the Adjust group (Rixensart). The cashback processing software uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to quickly identify the information needed for the validation process.”

The customer experience during this stage is one of the major challenges and should be conceived of as a continuation of the act of buying.

“Dataceed clearly stands out from other solutions available on the market,” says Jean-Christophe Gabriel. “With Dataceed, the consumer processes the cashback operation directly from the brand’s website. His/her data is collected on behalf of the brand, which becomes the owner of the data. The consumer remains connected to the brand’s universe from start to finish. The experience is seamless.”

Accelerating the move to online purchase

A cashback claim operation leads many consumers to discover the brand’s digital outlets: website, electronic newsletter, online sales site, etc.

“We believe that cashback operations can help brands accelerate the transformation of their sales model towards e-commerce,» continues Jean-Christophe Gabriel. It is an effective way to connect consumers to the brand’s digital outlets, which will continue to gain market share in the coming years.”

Cashback processing within 24 hours

Dataceed’s technology is clearly mature. After just 18 months of existence, the company has been already managing the cashback process for five leading brands in their sector and handling a transaction volume that exceeded €3 million after the first half of the year (about 100,000 transactions).

“Our technology handles transactions on a daily basis» says Gabriel Taminiaux, CTO of Adjust Group. From a technical standpoint, it is possible to buy your product on Monday morning, register the claim via Dataceed in the afternoon, and get the cashback refunded to your account the next day.”