How Leading Companies Use Data to Boost Customer Loyalty

Discounts or daily habits?

Transactional loyalty is something we’re all pretty familiar with by now. It’s based on an exchange: a customer makes a purchase, receives a discount, and comes back.

A good example of a well-applied transactional loyalty can be found in the Biedronka app. Shakeomat, its unique engagement builder, lets users unlock two special offers each day by shaking their smartphones and watching the iconic ladybug from Biedronka’s logo wiggle on the screen. This is a good example of gamification in practice – creating experiences that encourage users to come back regularly thanks to dopamine-driven mechanics.

In a similar vein, Żabka has introduced “żappsy” – loyalty points collected while shopping – which could be exchanged for attractive rewards. Combined with personalized offers and promotions, made possible by an advanced AI-based system capable of analyzing data from multiple sources, Żabka keeps driving strong user engagement and customer satisfaction.

On the other hand, there’s emotional loyalty. This one is built on relationships, habits, and a sense of belonging. Here, users stay not because they have to, but because they want to. They co-create content, feel connected to the brand, and believe they make a difference.

While many companies try to reach this level, not all succeed.

Empik case study: 60% of retention among existing users

A strong example of this approach comes from Empik, which used a familiar concept – the widely beloved Advent calendar – to drive engagement during the holiday season. Each day, users could unlock a new offer, but only if they returned to the app every single day. The experience was further enriched with missions and tiered rewards, encouraging users to stay active over time. The results were significant: around a 60% increase in retention among existing users, alongside noticeable lifts in conversion and revenue.

What made this particularly effective was the emotional layer: nostalgia, anticipation, and a sense of exclusivity. Combined with behavioral mechanics like “streaks” and fear of missing out, the campaign successfully built daily habits rather than one-off interactions.

It’s worth noticing what Empik actually did here: it blended both modes. The discounts and tiered missions are textbook transactional mechanics, but the nostalgia, daily streaks, and anticipation are pure emotional engineering. The strongest loyalty programs rarely pick a side; they design for both at once, using transactional rewards to start a habit and emotional cues to keep it going.

S Group case study: engaging roughly half of Finland’s adult population

Another example comes from S Group, a leading Finnish retail chain, which approached engagement from a different angle. Instead of focusing purely on transactions, the company introduced a feature that allowed users to track and analyze their shopping behavior. From simple metrics like the number of plastic bags used to more advanced insights such as carbon footprint or fruit and vegetable consumption, users gained a new perspective on their habits.

What made this feature compelling was its relevance to users’ lives. By comparing their behavior to similar households and visualizing trends over time, users were encouraged to make more conscious decisions. The impact went beyond engagement; over half of users reported changing their habits as a result. In this case, loyalty was tied to broader values like health and sustainability.

The common thread: understanding your audience

These apps wouldn’t have gotten as far if they hadn't done their homework: understanding their audience.

Empik successfully hits the nostalgia notes by using a system everyone has known well since childhood. Meanwhile, S Group aligns with a broader trend often referred to as the “quantified self” or “measured human” movement, where people actively track aspects of their lives, such as sleep, steps, or daily habits, and continuously monitor their progress. Features like these naturally resonate with this audience, as they tap into existing behaviors and motivations.

This shows that the most successful digital products aren’t built around generic features but around real user behaviors and expectations. When an app reflects the mindset and lifestyle of its users, it has a far better chance of becoming part of their daily routine.

The shift in understanding what loyalty means

Transactions and rewards on their own aren’t enough to nurture loyalty. Rather, companies need to start creating meaningful, engaging experiences that resonate with users on a deeper level: whether through emotion, habit, or shared values.

For teams building toward this kind of loyalty, here are the things to keep in mind:

1. Look at where your features really sit. Take a look at your existing features and ask which ones are driving habits and which are driving exchanges – and which, ideally, are doing both. There's nothing wrong with leaning one way more than the other, as long as it's a conscious choice rather than something that simply happened along the way.
2. Build on what people already care about. S Group didn't push people to start tracking their habits; they noticed people were already doing it and joined in. This idea worked because they fit into something users were already familiar with. Similarly, Empik didn’t come up with an entirely new concept but borrowed from an already existing idea.
3. Watch more than the sales numbers. Conversion and revenue tell you only part of the story. Things like habit formation, streak retention, opt-in rates, or self-reported changes in behavior can reveal much more about whether your app is becoming part of someone's daily life.
4. Asking for data is part of the product. When you ask users to share more of themselves with you, the way you ask matters. The 20% of S Group users who agreed to share more data did so because the value was clear to them, and that kind of trust tends to grow over time. It's worth far more than higher numbers gathered through pressure or hidden defaults.

Want to go deeper? This article is based on our webinar on mobile app loyalty with Sebastian Szczepaniak (Head of Brand Growth & Product Evangelism at Synerise), Marcin Zduńczyk (Business Solutions & Customer Data Architect, Future Mind, a Solita Company) and Maciej Skrzos (Head of Data, Future Mind, a Solita company). Watch it now (in Polish)!