Hi there! Mary Pilecki here, reintroducing myself as your Forrester analyst covering loyalty marketing.

During the 10 years I’ve been at Forrester, I’ve worn a few different hats: financial services analyst, research director for our customer insights and B2C marketing teams, and, perhaps most importantly, unofficial “snack drawer fulfillment manager” back when we were still in the office.

In January, I stepped into this role to help you keep the pulse on all things loyalty. I’m looking forward to sharing some of my upcoming research, including a deep dive into emotional loyalty, our take on the dynamics of loyalty during the pandemic, and a vendor landscape on promotion and offer management providers (via a collaboration with ace e-commerce analyst Emily Pfeiffer).

To kick off my coverage of this space, I’m thrilled to share a gargantuan report, which published today: “The Forrester Wave™: Loyalty Solutions, Q2 2021.” Working closely with my colleague Emily Collins, we identified the 14 most significant providers with both loyalty technology and service offerings: Annex Cloud, Bond Brand Loyalty, Brierley, Cheetah Digital, Clarus Commerce, Comarch, Epsilon, ICF Next, Kobie, Mastercard Data & Services, Merkle, Oracle, Punchh, and Tenerity. We evaluated these vendors against 28 criteria, which span a breadth of tech capabilities, service offerings, and strategic thinking. In this research, we found that brands want their providers to understand their business and that vendors are continuing to invest in analytics and automation to enable easy, personalized experiences for loyal consumers. Check out the full report to learn more and see how the vendors ranked. Stay tuned for another loyalty Wave evaluation publishing in Q3 on loyalty service providers and agencies.

I’m looking forward to working with you on your loyalty challenges and strategies! Feel free to set up an inquiry for questions about my research, this Wave, or any other loyalty-related questions.