The pitch for customer loyalty has always been easy to understand: Give program members a reason to come back, and they will. In convenience retailing, that reason has often been a few cents off a gallon of fuel, a free coffee after a certain number of visits or a digital coupon that nudges a shopper from the forecourt into the store.
But many convenience retailers increasingly see loyalty less as a coupon book and more as an operating system. The rewards still matter, and so do the cents-off fuel offers, the points, the clubs and the surprise-and-delight promotions. The bigger prize is what those programs reveal about the customer: who is shopping, how often they visit, what they buy, what they ignore and what might bring them back tomorrow.
“The other benefit of strong loyalty programs is access to the data,” said Jeff Keune, a former convenience retailer and founder and principal consultant at 4910 Consulting LLC. The strongest operators, he said, do not simply collect that information. They invest in the people and processes needed to manage it, mine it and use it to grow the business.
In other words, the value is in the data. That concept is taking on new urgency as convenience retailers work to protect traffic, grow inside sales and build more durable relationships with shoppers who have more options than ever. A loyalty program can still drive them “onto the lot and then trade them into the store,” as Keune put it, but the next level is understanding which offers actually change behavior and which merely subsidize a purchase that would have happened anyway.
From Rewards to Relationships
Loyalty programs in convenience retail have matured. What once might have been a paper punch card is now often a mobile app, a personalized offer engine, a payment tool and a communications channel rolled into one. The customer still sees the reward, but the retailer sees a richer picture of the trip.
“Data is behind everything we do with RaceTrac Rewards,” said Lanna O’Connor, director of loyalty and digital marketing at Atlanta-based RaceTrac. “At the end of the day, it’s a value exchange. Guests tell us how they shop, and we make their experience better because of it. Without data, you’re just guessing. With it, you can actually be intentional and make sure the program is changing behavior, not just rewarding what was already happening.”
That distinction—changing behavior rather than rewarding existing behavior—comes up often among retailers who are pushing loyalty beyond discounts. It’s the difference between sending every member the same offer and identifying that one guest who buys coffee three mornings a week and might be persuaded to add a breakfast sandwich, or the fuel customer who rarely goes inside but might respond to an offer tied to their commute pattern.
Casey’s General Stores, for example, uses data to help its marketing team and category managers understand not only what guests buy but also how they engage with the brand.
“Data is foundational to Casey’s Rewards and allows us to tailor the individual experience for each guest, however they prefer to shop with us,” said Steph Hoppe, vice president of omnichannel marketing at Ankeny, Iowa-based Casey’s. “It gives us a clearer view into how they engage with our brand: what they respond to, how often they visit, where we can make the experience the most relevant and, ultimately, best serve them.”
The business case is straightforward: Loyalty members identify themselves, and their transactions can be connected across trips and, increasingly, across digital and physical channels. That gives retailers a way to move beyond aggregate sales reports and into patterns of behavior. The data can show whether a promotion drives a repeat visit, a category trial sticks, an offer works differently by region or a lapsed customer can be reactivated.
Keune said the usefulness of the data depends on the platform, and strong systems can track loyalty usage and purchases “as a brand, region or district and down to the store and consumers.” Even simple programs can produce insight. “Some of the simpler ones do not capture all the data, but even data from a digital punch card can be meaningful,” he said.
What Retailers Measure
The building blocks of loyalty data are familiar: transactions, visits, redemptions, engagement and financial performance. The power comes in connecting them.
“It starts with the transaction data: how often members are showing up, what they’re buying and how that changes over time,” O’Connor said. “Redemption behavior is another big one for us. The way members engage with offers tells us pretty quickly what’s resonating and what’s falling flat.”
For RaceTrac, that means pressure-testing whether the program is driving incremental behavior or simply discounting purchases that already would have happened. “There’s a place for that in loyalty, too,” she said, “but at the end of the day, incremental is the goal.”
Casey’s looks at many of the same things. “We tend to focus on the fundamentals first, including member growth, active engagement, transactions, redemptions and financials,” Hoppe said. “Those are the signals that help tell us where Casey’s Rewards is creating real value and where the opportunities exist.”
Those signals then inform smarter offers, better timing and a more seamless guest experience across channels. In a retail environment where the same shopper might see a social post, open an app, order a pizza, buy fuel and redeem a reward in the same week, integration matters.
Tom Brennan, chief merchandising officer at Casey’s, during the company’s investor day in June, described that integration as “one coordinated system designed to acquire new guests, engage them across touchpoints and ultimately drive them back into the Casey’s ecosystem.” He called it a “powerful flywheel” in which digital capabilities and personalization drive higher loyalty participation, which generates more transactions and engagement, which in turn creates more data and unlocks new opportunities.
That flywheel is becoming central to how leading retailers talk about loyalty. Casey’s CEO Darren Rebelez said the company’s “advanced AI-enabled technology platform,” coupled with nearly 11 million rewards members, is driving higher spends, more visits and more personalized guest engagement.
Personalization at Scale
Personalization can mean many things in convenience retail: market-level relevance, such as recognizing regional food preferences, or store-level insight, such as understanding which locations overperform in certain categories. Increasingly, it also means tailoring offers to the individual guest.
“There are pieces that are more regional, like understanding which markets have different product preferences,” O’Connor of RaceTrac said. “But the bigger opportunity is getting down to the individual level.”
RaceTrac’s ability to personalize offers depends on a strong data foundation and the technology needed to act on it without overburdening teams.
“When you can see how each member shops and what they care about, you can start delivering things that feel genuinely relevant to them and do it in an automated fashion,” O’Connor said. “We’re not personalizing for the sake of it, though. If it doesn’t feel helpful [to the customer], it’s just noise.”
Hoppe described a similar balance at Casey’s. “Personalizing our guest experience happens at different levels,” she said. “Local and store-level insights help us match our offer with local demands and preferences, but the real opportunity is guest-level personalization.”
A reward that feels random can get ignored, but a reward that recognizes a habit can drive the next trip. “Our biggest opportunity is relevance: connecting our offer directly to what our guest wants,” Hoppe said. That could mean encouraging a return trip, introducing a customer to a new category or reconnecting with a guest who hasn’t visited in a while.
Brennan said Casey’s is moving “from static campaign-driven marketing to always-on data-driven engagement,” with the goal of driving frequency, preventing churn and reactivating lapsed users.
The Value Exchange
If the value for the retailer is data, the value for the customer has to be clear, immediate and trustworthy. Consumers are increasingly aware that they are sharing information when they enroll in a loyalty program, scan an app or accept a personalized offer. Retailers have to earn that exchange.
“We know data-sharing is a real concern for consumers right now, and honestly, it should be,” O’Connor said. “People want to know their information is being handled responsibly, and we take that seriously.”
RaceTrac has governance in place around member data, she said, but the customer benefit is what makes the exchange work. “When you share your data with us, we can give you a better experience,” O’Connor said. “Instead of generic promotions, we can serve up offers that match how you shop.”
That can translate to a coffee customer being rewarded and encouraged to try a new pairing, or a morning fuel customer getting a reason to come inside.
“When you get it right, you’re not just driving one transaction,” O’Connor said. “You’re building a habit and an ongoing relationship, and that’s where the real value lives.”
That habit-building is especially important in a channel built around speed and routine. A loyalty program that makes the customer think too hard can fail. That’s why recent program updates from retailers have emphasized simplicity as much as personalization.
South Carolina-based Refuel in January launched an enhanced loyalty program that places fuel savings at the center of the experience. Members who spend $25 inside the store automatically receive 10 cents per gallon in fuel savings at the pump. The company also introduced targeted offers based on members’ interests and purchasing behavior, along with interactive challenges such as visit-based and gallon-based challenges.
Love’s Travel Stops expanded its Love’s Rewards program this year, creating a unified program for professional and casual drivers. Casual drivers can earn points on gallons and in-store merchandise, while professional drivers can earn more points on merchandise, benefits such as shower credits and member best offers.
“Love’s Rewards is a reimagining of how loyalty is rewarded on the road,” said Patrick McLean, chief marketing officer at Oklahoma City-based Love’s. “Drivers today expect more than a place to stop; they expect value and consistency wherever the road takes them.”
A Competitive Advantage
Industry research suggests that loyalty and digital adoption are becoming markers of stronger competitive positioning.
Dunnhumby’s 2025 Retailer Preference Index, Convenience Channel Edition, found that top-tier convenience retailers are growing nearly two to three times faster than bottom-tier retailers and excel in quality, affordability, frictionless transactions, visibility and product variety. Leading retailers are also using capabilities that make it easier for customers to customize orders and transact across channels, the report said.
The implication for loyalty is clear: Retailers that can identify customers, understand preferences and reduce friction have more tools for building emotional connection and spurring repeat behavior. App adoption and loyalty participation create important sources of first-party data, which gives retailers more ways to personalize experiences, measure outcomes and improve the next interaction.
That last point is critical. Loyalty programs can be expensive if they are treated only as giveaways. A retailer that rewards every existing behavior without measuring incrementality may train customers to wait for deals instead of generating new trips or bigger baskets. A retailer that understands the data can be more selective, more relevant and more effective with its offers.
“First, you can use [the data] to understand what benefits and promotions are working,” consultant Keune said, “and help the brand also understand which ones to amplify or advertise and which ones may not work as hard as others.”
If consumers increase visits and take advantage of benefits, he said, they are more likely to become loyal to the brand and, ideally, increase both their visits and basket size.
