Definition
Opt-in
Opt-in is a customer’s active, recorded agreement to receive marketing. Joining a loyalty programme is not opt-in on its own: holding a card and agreeing to be emailed are two different permissions.
Also called marketing consent, permission.
Two permissions, not one
A customer scanning a code to get a stamp card has agreed to hold a loyalty card. They have not agreed to a newsletter, and treating the first as implying the second is both a legal problem and a fast way to have people delete the card. Keep the marketing consent as its own explicit choice, unticked by default, and store the answer alongside the customer.
Record when and how
Consent you cannot evidence is consent you do not have. What matters is being able to say, later, that this person agreed at this moment through this form. That record is also what lets you honour a withdrawal properly rather than hoping nobody notices the same address still receiving mail.
Collect less than you are allowed to
Every additional field costs signups, and personal data you never use is a liability with no matching benefit. If you have no concrete plan for email addresses, do not ask for them — the loyalty card itself is a channel back to the customer, and it needs no consent because it is a card they chose to keep.
Questions
- Does joining a loyalty programme count as consenting to marketing?
- No. They are separate permissions and should be captured separately, with the marketing one presented as an active choice rather than a pre-ticked box.
- Can I email everyone who has a card?
- Only those who agreed to be emailed. The rest hold a card, which is itself a way of staying present with them — that is what the card is for.
Related terms
Enrollment
Enrollment is the point at which a customer joins a loyalty programme and gets their card. It is the single biggest determinant of whether a programme works, because every customer who never joins is one the scheme cannot affect.
Loyalty program
A loyalty program is an arrangement that rewards customers for coming back. In hospitality it usually takes one of two forms: stamps counted per visit toward a free item, or points accrued against how much is spent.
Churn
Churn is the loss of customers over time. In hospitality it is rarely announced — nobody cancels a café — so it shows up as a regular whose visits stretch further and further apart until they stop.
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