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As stores begin offering their holiday deals earlier and earlier, the days when Black Friday officially launched the holiday shopping season are long gone. So when exactly will customers start tackling their holiday gift lists? In a word, now. This week—the week of Halloween—has replaced Black Friday as the event that kicks off the holiday shopping season.The time period between Halloween and Black Friday is key for capturing holiday shoppers Marketers’ early holiday campaigns are paying off, as the weeks between now and Black Friday have a substantial impact on overall holiday sales. In fact, 40% of last year’s total holiday sales occurred in the four weeks before Black Friday.

Black Friday is still a milestone, but the mid-season sales spike that you would expect to see around Black Friday and Cyber Monday continues to be less pronounced than in years past. Retailers need to persist with ongoing marketing campaigns to win shoppers continuously throughout the next nine weeks to maximize their holiday returns.For instance, almost replacing Black Friday in terms of importance, our data shows that nearly 30% of holiday sales occurred in just the two weeks leading up to Christmas. Beyond early holiday sales, there are plenty of opportunities to drive last-minute revenue.Actionable tip for gaining early season shoppers:Early-bird shoppers are ready to spend. Appeal to them with gift guides organized by recipient so they can easily start checking off their lists. Consider keeping them engaged with progressive deals throughout the season to drive repeat purchases.Want more Holiday insights? Check out more Cardlytics holiday spend trends and stay tuned for our next blog post on Friday, where we’ll dig deeper into thenumber one driver of holiday spend.

Once school is in session, it may be tempting to save the next big marketing push until the winter holidays. However, now is the time to acquire customers who will really move the needle during the busiest shopping season of the year. This brings us to our last (but not least) back-to-school trend #5:Fall Lays the Foundation for More Holiday SalesAfter the back-to-school season ends, it is critical to keep the momentum going during the fall to stay top-of-mind leading into the winter holiday shopping season. Last year, 64% of holiday sales were from repeat customers. Across the majority of retailers, customers from fall acquisition campaigns not only drove a boost in fall sales, but they also set stores up for success during the holidays—spending 20% more overall than customers acquired in December.

Actionable Tip: Don’t wait until the winter holidays to start your marketing efforts. Strengthen brand loyalty now by running post-back-to-school campaigns to get your customers in the habit of choosing your brand.Want more Back-to-School Insights?Check out all five of our back-to-school spend trends based on our analysis of $2.4 trillion in purchase data across our banking partners, and look out for our Holiday Spend Trends Report this fall.

Earlier this week, we looked at the channels customers are shopping to check off their back-to-school lists and when they’re making these purchases. But which retail categories are bringing in the most shoppers?

Convenience Reigns Supreme During Back-to-School

Retailers that carry multiple items on shoppers’ lists are winning the battle for back-to-school. Last year, multiline retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Target accounted for nearly 75% of all back-to-school spend, and their share is growing. Multiline was also the only category to increase their share of back-to-school spend year-over-year. That said, customers were still willing to make specialty trips for categories like apparel.

Also of note, multiline Brick & Mortar retailers saw spend at their online stores grow faster than their Online-Only counterparts—driven by an increase in total customers and more frequent purchases. This helped offset a flat back-to-school season at their physical stores.

Actionable Tip:

In order to protect their share, vertical retailers must give customers a reason to make the specialized trip. Consider offering sales on your exclusive brands or products and highlighting them in any promotional materials.

Want more Back-to-School Insights?

Check out more key spend trends based on our analysis of $2.4 trillion in purchase data across our banking partners and stay tuned for more back-to-school blog posts next week. On Tuesday, we’ll dig deeper into spend trend #4: Omni-Shoppers Drive Incremental Value During Back-to-School.

Last week, we explored customers’ penchant for convenience when it comes to the types of stores they shop during back-to-school. This also comes into play for trend #4:

Omni-Shoppers Drive Incremental Value During Back-to-School

At Cardlytics, we think about omnichannel as both a customer mindset and the channels through which they buy. Driven by convenience, omni-shoppers flow easily between in-store and online channels—making purchases based on what works best within their day-to-day.

Omni customers underscore the value of enabling a convenient shopping experience during the back-to-school season. In 2018, customers who shopped online as well as in-store spent 48% more, and made 48.1% more purchases during the season than their single-channel counterparts.

Within key back-to-school categories, single-channel customers still account for over 75% of customers, and there is a significant opportunity for retailers to convert these single-channel customers into more valuable omnichannel customers.

At the end of the day, what matters is winning the next sale by fitting into customers’ daily lives—regardless of the channel.

Actionable Tip:

Customers want the same offers across all channels; Cardlytics works for any customer path to purchase. We can help convert single-channel customers into omni customers, pinpoint your best omni customers to grow loyalty, and increase your share of spend with customers who are omni at your competitors.

Want more Back-to-School Insights?

Check out more key spend trends based on our analysis of $2.4 trillion in purchase data across our banking partners, and don’t miss the final part of our back-to-school blog series on Thursday, Fall Lays the Foundation for More Holiday Sales.

We’re in the final hours of Prime Day—the perfect backdrop as we take a closer look at trend #2 in our series of key back-to-school spend trends:

Early Sales Give Online-Only Retailers an Edge on Back-to-School

Since the inaugural Prime Day in 2015, Amazon has continued to set the pace for when back-to-school shopping kicks off. Last year, online retailers’ sales peaked the week of Amazon Prime Day for the fourth year in a row. Brick & Mortars and their online properties—what we call Brick&Mortar.coms—followed suit, with sales peaking two weeks later.

In this case, the early bird gets the worm – Prime Day is pulling back-to-school spend forward and laying the foundation for Online-Only retailers’ YOY share growth. If traditional retailers want to recapture share of wallet, they’ll have to get in front of customers earlier in the season while they’re beginning to knock out their shopping lists online. This week, many retailers are already taking advantage of the “Prime Day effect” with their own early sales.

Actionable Tip:

Prime Day may kick off the season, but there's still time to capture the August sales spike traditionally seen by Brick & Mortar stores and their online sites. For retailers planning to continue their sales in the coming weeks, consider launching teaser campaigns. This will encourage shoppers to start scoping out your products and filling their online shopping carts so they are ready to check out as soon as the sale hits.

Want more Back-to-School Insights?

Check out more key spend trends based on our analysis of $2.4 trillion in purchase data across our banking partners and stay tuned for our next blog post on Friday, where we’ll dig deeper into spend trend #3: Convenience Reigns Supreme During Back-to-School.

Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is just around the corner. I will be there alongside our co-founders, Scott Grimes and Lynne Laube, as well as Jared Luskin, our new SVP of Growth Verticals. If you’re heading to Cannes, we’d love to connect with you. Email us at events@cardlytics.com if you’d like to schedule time to meet up.

Here’s where you can find us:

MediaLink Beach
We’ll be hosting meetings Monday through Thursday (June 17^th – 20^th) on the terrace at MediaLink Beach, just minutes from the Palais. We look forward to discussing how we can help you better understand your customers based on their actual purchase history, then put those insights to use in our platform of over 100M bank customers.

Brand Innovators Roundtables 
I’ll be moderating a roundtable at Brand Innovators on Monday, June 17^th. Monday’s Brand Innovators conference will be held at Jane's Bar at Hôtel Barrière Le Gray d'Albion (next to the Majestic Hotel). I’m also planning to attend various Brand Innovators sessions throughout the week.

Cannes Blanc White Party
LUMA's Cannes Blanc draws some of the best-known names in advertising and technology at their exclusive, invitation-only event. This year, Cardlytics is co-hosting the reception at Le Rooftop, one of the festival’s most stunning venues. The party kicks off on Monday, June 17^th at 19:00.

MediaLink Daily Dose Panel
Cardlytics’ Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Lynne Laube will speak on the “Commerce is the New King” panel alongside executives from Deloitte, Vice, Flywheel, Nissan and mParticle. The panelists will discuss how changing consumer tastes and behaviors are radically shifting the way people connect with brands. Many brands are faced with an important imperative: anticipate the needs of customers and provide them with a frictionless experience, all while transforming their businesses to compete with the direct-to-consumer model that’s shaking up the industry. Join us at MediaLink Beach and hear what the group has to say on Thursday, June 20^th at 16:00.

Let’s find a time to connect—drop us an email us at events@cardlytics.com. À Bientôt!

Happy Prime Day, A.K.A. the unofficial kickoff to the back-to-school season.

To help advertisers make the most of the second-largest shopping season of the year, we’ve analyzed $2.4 trillion in purchase data through our banking partners to identify five key spend trends. Here’s a closer look at trend #1:

Back-To-School Spend Grows Online, but the Majority Still Occurs In-Store

From 2017-2018, total back-to-school spend grew 2.5% compared to the previous year, as more customers went online versus in-store to check off their school supply lists.

While purely eCommerce retailers like Amazon were the fastest-growing channel, traditional Brick & Mortars helped offset the decline in spend at their physical stores by driving sales online. Their online and mobile properties—what we call Brick&Mortar.coms—saw a 0.3 increase in share points year-over-year.

Worth noting, physical stores still account for the large majority (79%) of actual back-to-school spend, although their share of that spend is decreasing.

Actionable Tip

Brick & Mortar retailers with a strong online presence should consider offering a ship-to-store option during the back-to-school season. Once the customer is in store to pick up their online order, they may often be inspired to do some additional shopping.

Want more Back-to-School Insights?

Check out more key spend trends here and stay tuned for our next blog post tomorrow, when we’ll dig deeper into spend trend #2: Early Sales Give Online-Only Retailers an Edge on Back-to-School.

School may be out for the summer, but with Amazon Prime Day just hours away, the 2019 back-to-school shopping season is officially here.Back-to-school is the second-largest shopping event of the year following the December holidays. Excluding the weeks leading up to Christmas, it accounts for nearly 20% of annual spend.By analyzing $2.4 trillion in purchase data across our banking partners, Cardlytics has identified five key trends for advertisers to consider this season: 1. Back-To-School Spend Grows Online, but the Majority Still Occurs In-Store

Download the high-resolution image[/caption] 2. Early Sales Give Online-Only Retailers an Edge on Back-to-School

Download the high-resolution image[/caption] 3. Convenience Reigns Supreme During Back-to-School

Download the high-resolution image[/caption]

Download the high-resolution image[/caption]4. Omni-Shoppers Drive Incremental Value During Back-to-School

Download the high-resolution image[/caption] 5. Fall Lays the Foundation for More Holiday Sales

Download the high-resolution image[/caption] Want more Back-to-School insights? We’ll be digging deeper into each of these trends, so don’t forget to check back in the coming days for more insights and tips to make sure you are getting an A+ in capturing spend throughout the season.

As concerns over Brexit mounted in 2018, consumer spending on the UK’s high streets was anything but ‘strong and stable’. And across the dining sector, down-sizing and deep discounting dominated the headlines.

But while consumers spent cautiously on the UK’s high street, their appetite for apps, speed and convenience allowed the delivery economy to emerge as the overall success story last year.

Delivery Dominates

With overall spend up almost 20% from 2017, delivery services almost single-handedly drove growth in the dining sector.

In 2018 alone, Just Eat surpassed 400 million orders in the UK while Domino’s recorded its largest ever sales day in the UK– so there’s no doubt that the meteoric rise of the delivery economy will continue. In fact, the average spend per order on delivery services bucked the broader sector trend and even outpaced traditional restaurants, rising to an all-time high of £20.56 in 2018, compared with a steady decline to just under £20 for physical restaurants.

Appetite for Apps

Hungry app users continue to be attracted by the convenience of choosing and paying for their food from the comfort of their sofa. This popularity of delivery apps hasn’t gone unnoticed by traditional food-to-go brands, who are taking heed and responding by innovating their service models.

In 2018, McDonald’s and Greggs introduced their own click-and-collect apps to optimise speed and convenience for walk-in customers. The success of brands such as Deliveroo, Just Eat and UberEats isn’t just down to their customer experience offer. They also have an advantage over traditional food chains, given their endless options to choose from. It’s the equivalent of the eating-out industry’s Amazon effect.

Delivery platforms have seen that the traditional takeaway, like pizza and Chinese, has evolved to a point where consumers are instead ordering gourmet health foods, deserts, coffees - and in some cases Michelin star meals - at the click of a button.

This shift toward healthier preferences is being driven primarily by the younger consumer, aged 19-28, which has helped lunch brands like Leon and Pret a Manger grow in popularity with spend on salads, soups and sandwiches, up 5% last year.

While many attribute the rise of delivery services to Millennials and Gen Z’s, the surivial of the model may well hang on its appeal with older consumers having deeper pockets. In fact, those aged 49-58 spent on average £2.50 more per order in 2018 than the 19-28-year-olds.

Which trends will continue?

As consumers increasingly opt for eating-in over dining-out, it’s no secret that traditional brick-and-mortar restaurants are feeling the pressure. But it’s not all doom and gloom for restaurants, particularly those who offer delivery services and healthier menu items.

Facing the headwinds by embracing these platforms, as well as consumer taste trends, could well pay dividends. What’s more, tapping into areas like door-to-door delivery and click-and-collect, a desire for healthier choices and other new marketing platforms could be the recipe for success in 2019.