Bank AmeriDeals was launched in 2012 with the most ambitious marketing effort in the card linked offer space. Since then, the
promotions program has given BoA insight into spending for over 35 million accounts, and helped deepen customer and merchant relationships, says BoA’s Alfred Hamilton, SVP of Bank AmeriDeals, during remarks on Sept. 22 at Cardlinx’s “Data Driven Commerce” event in Bellevue, WA.

Noting that customer attrition has gone down among Bank AmeriDeals users, Hamilton says that customers have gone from being leery of having their spending habits scrutinized in order to target them with better offers to actually wanting more specific targeting. “We’ve come a long way from ‘this is creepy,’ he says. “Customers expect offers to be very, very targeted.”

Bank AmeriDeals continues to make the safeguarding of consumer data a top priority, however. “No customer data leaves the bank,” Hamilton emphasizes. “We don’t have insight into all your wallets, just your BoA wallet.” That insight has proved critical for showing businesses how much incremental business AmeriDeals is providing them. As “retailers are getting more astute in this space, they need to know that this is incremental business we are getting for them,” says Hamilton.

Separately, Hamilton notes that Bank AmeriDeals is riding the wave from desktop towards mobile payments. With 18 million Bank of America customers now using mobile banking services, desktop-oriented online banking has become increasingly “kind of passe,” he says.

Hamilton’s insights into the positive impact of card linked offers were seconded at the event by Cardlytics U.S. Operations President John Brown. Cardlytics is the vendor providing the platform for Bank AmeriDeals, among other bank efforts.

Speaking generally, Brown said that card linking has multiple benefits for financial institutions beyond direct revenue – al leading to more engagement and less attrition. He notes that users do more online and mobile banking after activation, increasing their monthly sessions from 7.9 times a month to 9.1. times a month. They also increase their total monthly spend after their first redemptions by 5-7 percent;. It also helps boost a financial institutions’ CRM program because the interest in seeing offers plays a role in boosting email open rates by 2x, and click through rates by 10x.

Brown also says that the roster of companies providing card linked offers is getting increasingly stronger. While many brands are watching early results before they sign on, brands such as McDonalds and Nordstrom Rack are participating and attracting redemptions from well heeled consumers. “Upscale people eat at McDonald’s as much as anyone else,” he says.