Cardlytics on the Rising Demand for CLO and Making the Power 100

Cardlytics has an incredible proposition for advertisers looking to target customers right where trust and attention are at their peak. 

Roughly half of consumers log into their mobile banking apps every single day. By powering reward and cashback programs of major financial institutions like Chase and Wells Fargo, Cardlytics analyzes billions of first-party bank transactions to connect advertisers with consumers on the lookout for a deal.  

Founded in 2008, the company now reaches one in four UK consumers and hundreds of millions in the US. It's part of Awin's card-linked offers specialism, giving advertisers a route into premium, trusted inventory that sits outside the traditional affiliate mix. 

It's also a member of Awin's Power 100: a showcase of the 100 most innovative partners on the Awin platform. 

At ThinkTank Americas, we sat down with Christian Klos, Partner Lead for Specialty Retail at Cardlytics, to talk about why economic pressure has made CLO so relevant and how the partnership with Awin fits into it all. 

View Christian's full interview above, or check the write-up below. 

Congratulations on making the Power 100. Could you describe what Cardlytics does? 

We are the biggest CLO provider in the United States, and we're essentially the technology that aggregates all of the banks - or as we call them, financial institutions - into one place for advertisers.  

Those advertisers can come and work with Cardlytics and get access to the Chases, to the Wells Fargos, to the Amexs of the world, and really get their brand offers out there. 

We are essentially the DSP [demand-side platform] of CLO. We are the tech aggregator that allows advertisers to get on all of this premium inventory and also see measurement and reporting in a one-stop shop, as opposed to fragmenting their buys across some of the different financial institution inventory. 

Cardlytics was actually founded back in 2008. What's the recent evolution been like? 

It's been expanding partnerships, taking our inventory off of just your traditional financial institutions and into other advertiser loyalty programs, like Fanatics, for example. That's been a really big push. And then also, like I said, getting more financial institutions under the umbrella. 

We've been really focused on aggregating more inventory sources, scaling that up for our advertisers, and then diversifying our inventory sources into more retail-centric platforms. 

Card-linked offers have never been bigger. Why are current market conditions primed for this? 

Let's be honest, it's never been bigger because it's never been this expensive. Groceries, gas, day-to-day living, and even the retail space. It's expensive, and customers need that incentive to feel confident purchasing a brand they've never purchased before. 

Or even on the flip side, they need that incentive to come back and spend more with the brand that they love. So it's really the economic impact, and just the inflation and rising prices across the board, that have made CLO so relevant as of recent. 

You've got great presence in both the UK and US. What are the big differences between serving consumers in those markets? 

I think it just comes down to the financial institutions that we work with. Obviously, those are really safeguarded environments, so there are rules and regulations and data governance that we need to follow. As you can assume, those differ a little in the UK and US markets. 

Otherwise, very similar in regards to the product offering and what we're able to do with advertisers and driving incrementality. 

What does the future look like for Cardlytics? 

Like I alluded to earlier, it's increasing inventory sources, getting more financial institutions under the umbrella, and then really diversifying our inventory sources into some of those retail and advertiser-specific loyalty programs, creating a full ecosystem across financial institutions and other loyalty programs. 

What's the single biggest affiliate trend you're talking about in the office at the moment? 

Honestly, I think it's working with platforms like Awin and then really leaning into those relationships, especially as measurement and validation become more important. Advertisers are becoming more sophisticated, and they care more. They've always cared, but they want to validate more the success that they're seeing. 

Having strong relationships with partners like Awin and leveraging your platform to ensure that measurement and validation, is something that we're really leaning in on internally. 

Strike up a partnership with Cardlytics, or browse the Power 100 for influencers, tech partners, coupon sites, and more.