Retailers increasingly adopt temporary loyalty programs (TLPs), in which consumers have limited time, often less than half a year, to save stamps and redeem highly discounted rewards. These programs often run alongside the retailers’ permanent loyalty programs in an attempt to increase customer engagement. Despite the growing popularity of TLPs, the literature on the topic remains limited. We address this gap by looking at the redemption rate, the industry’s primary success indicator, of almost 900 TLPs across a broad set of grocery retailers in 45 countries. We study the effects of four key design characteristics (the duration of the program, the discount offered, the spending requirement before an award can be redeemed, and the reward depth) on the redemption rate, and explore how these effects vary across a broad range of retailer and country characteristics. In doing so, we control for both a retailer’s potential self-selection into running a TLP and the potential endogeneity of the subsequent design choices. We derive a set of actionable results on how to design successful TLPs and show that high redemption rates are not only beneficial for the program operator and reward manufacturer, but also translate into higher sales and profit for the retailer.

零售商越来越多地采用临时忠诚度计划 (TLP)，消费者只有有限的时间（通常不到半年）来保存邮票和兑换高折扣奖励。这些计划通常与零售商的永久忠诚度计划一起运行，以提高客户参与度。尽管 TLP 越来越受欢迎，但关于该主题的文献仍然有限。我们通过查看 45 个国家/地区众多杂货零售商的近 900 个 TLP 的赎回率（行业的主要成功指标）来解决这一差距。我们研究了四个关键设计特征（计划的持续时间、提供的折扣、兑换奖励前的消费要求以及奖励深度）对兑换率的影响，并探索这些影响如何因广泛的零售商和国家特征而异。这样做时，我们控制了零售商运行 TLP 的潜在自我选择和后续设计选择的潜在内生性。我们得出了一组关于如何设计成功的 TLP 的可行结果，并表明高兑换率不仅有利于计划运营商和奖励制造商，而且还可以转化为零售商更高的销售额和利润。