DALLAS — Fuel Rewards has provided an infographic overview of the program’s members and engagement levels. The data also serves as a case study of the viability of coalition loyalty in the United States and the impact of fuel savings as a loyalty driver.

Consumers save an average 25 cents a gallon on fuel—nearly $15.5 million a month—as a direct result of the Fuel Rewards savings they earn from 11,000 restaurants, 4,500 retail locations and more than 700 online merchants who participate in the Fuel Rewards national coalition loyalty program.

The Fuel Rewards program’s 5.5 million members redeem their rewards as cents-off-per-gallon savings on fuel at more than 12,000 Shell stations nationwide.

“Over the last three years, we’ve seen our membership grow in size, frequency, recency and depth of engagement, despite fluctuating gas prices at the pump,” said Scott Schaper, executive vice president of marketing and program operations of the Fuel Rewards program. “With this upward trend indicating how valuable fuel is as an everyday reward and how satisfied our members are, the question we get asked by merchants is no longer why fuel, but instead how best can we use fuel as a part of our marketing strategy.”

The State of Coalition Loyalty in the U.S. infographic illustrates:

• Program demographics: Women make up the majority of the membership base at 59%, and 56% of Fuel Rewards households have more than three members.
• National presence: Cities with the highest concentrations of program members are Chicago, San Francisco, Houston, Los Angeles and Dallas.
• Moving to mobile: 56% of visits to the program’s website happen on mobile devices, and 60% of program emails are opened on mobile devices.
• Top online merchants: Members have shopped most at these online merchants to earn Fuel Rewards savings: Lowes, Homedepot.com, Staples.com, Groupon and QVC.com.

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The Fuel Rewards program recently updated its mobile app and launched a card-linked offers program, which provides insightful marketing data about customers’ preferences and activities to merchant participants.

“The next stage of the Fuel Rewards program will focus on increasing sales and deepening brand loyalty with our retail merchants through stronger analytics and business intelligence,” said Greg Phillips, senior vice president of business intelligence and customer relationship management (CRM). “We continue to accelerate investment in our CRM infrastructure to better understand the unique behaviors of our members. From there, we can better tailor individual communications and offers to increase member engagement ultimately driving incremental spending power to our coalition merchants. Investments in data are also helping us get smarter about acquisition of new members so we don’t have to work as hard on retention through the customer lifecycle.”

Whether through direct-to-consumer programs like the Fuel Rewards program and fuelperks!, or through companies using Centego products and services, Excentus proprietary software helps loyalty and marketing programs drive down the cost of everyday commodities like gasoline. Founded in 1996 in Dallas, Excentus is a privately held company.

Click here to view a larger version of the infographic.