Marketing
The secret weapon for loyalty this holiday season and beyond
Email is not a secondary channel but where identity, behavior and brand experience converge. Treat it like that and an email list becomes a community rather than a ledger.
December 4, 2025 by Brian Cardona — President, AtData
Let's be honest: loyalty programs have evolved beyond punch cards, generic points and BOGO offers. These are relics of a world where transactions trump relationships and consumers see right through them.
They want more than perks; they want to belong. And this holiday season, the brands that treat customer lists and emails as a relationship engine instead of a discount channel will win.
Email as an identifier is the underappreciated workhorse of modern marketing. It crosses devices, survives browser changes and anchors identity in ways cookies, apps and other platforms can't. Behind every inbox sits powerful data: when someone last opened a message, how often they browse, their purchase cadence and cross-channel engagement. Marketers that treat that as actionable intelligence can move loyalty from theory to practice. According to some reports, leveraging email's behavioral insights can increase retention by a third, making it a clear competitive advantage.
The truth is that personalization without identity is guesswork. If marketers can't confidently connect the subscriber who opened the last email to the person who shopped last week, it is indeed guessing. Identity-first email allows marketers to recognize the frequent browser, the repeat buyer or the engaged subscriber who hasn't purchased yet. It allows brands to reward attention, not just transactions. Tiers and experiences built on real behavior — not arbitrary points — create recognition that feels human.
And recognition matters as today's consumers respond to status, but it must be earned and meaningful. A frequent browser deserves alerts for back-in-stock holiday items. A loyal buyer deserves early access, curated bundles or concierge service. Even someone who only engages with content can be treated as a valued member through insider stories or exclusive updates. Loyalty, in other words, isn't just spending — it's identifying those consumers and offering engagement, attention and connection.
Ways to honor loyalty with email
Emails should feel like member perks rather than campaigns. Limited-time advent-style reveals, early access to launches, insider livestreams, curated editorial stories — these make subscribers feel part of something. Every send should compensate consumers for their attention and engagement, and personalization must be precise. While surface-level "Hi [First Name]" tactics can do more harm than good, predictive, behavior-driven recommendations drive real results.
As an example, Mastercard's Dynamic Yield finds personalized emails convert three times better than generic sends. Timing and cadence are just as critical. The holidays are a high-stakes period when over-sending erodes engagement and under-sending misses opportunity. Behavioral models should dictate frequency, adjusting for individual tolerance. Compress high-value content into purposeful clusters triggered by actual email behavioral activity rather than blasting offers to everyone. Quality always beats quantity.
Protecting loyalty programs from fraud is equally important. Holiday campaigns attract coupon abuse and synthetic accounts. Adopting email-centric verification, anomaly detection and tiered redemption rules are ways to protect value without alienating real members.
Measuring impacts
To help validate the influence of email as an identifier, measure what matters. Member activation, incremental revenue per member, retention lift and fraud-adjusted redemption rates are a few of the ways to identify whether the loyalty marketing program is building a real community or just filling inboxes. A holiday spike doesn't equal loyalty and small holdouts can separate real impact from seasonal noise. True loyalty endures beyond December.
Email is not a secondary channel but where identity, behavior and brand experience converge. Treat it like that and an email list becomes a community rather than a ledger. Curate thoughtfully to ensure personalization and protect carefully to ward off fraud. Rewarding attention helps build rituals that make subscribers feel seen and valued. Scarcity, compelling narratives and recognition are more powerful than any discount.
The brands that approach email-based identities this way won't just drive holiday sales — they will create belonging, advocacy and engagement that lasts all year. And that's the real definition of loyalty.
About Brian Cardona
