This is page 2 of:
Want To Buy Tokens? Pretend It’s A Marketing Program
In itself, a tokenization solution is not a loyalty platform, but it is one element of a foundation for one. Figuring out how to track customer purchases for loyalty offers is one of the most difficult components of building a loyalty program. Asking customers to carry a piece of plastic is so 1990s.
That being said, tokenization is a great place to start. First, you must make sure that your tokenization vendor provides a consistent token for a credit-card transaction. Next, the token is only the identifier. You must build or buy a campaign management system that does something with that identifier.
You must also be careful about how and if you implement Track 2 data (hint: don’t). Although it may be tempting to leverage the Track 2 data for customer information other than the PAN, Track 2 data is still considered card data and, therefore, is covered by PCI. It may hurt, but you need customers to provide their data again—just like you would with any other loyalty program.
Doing so is a good idea for two reasons: First, it enables customers to implicitly opt-in to loyalty offers versus being freaked out that you are tracking their purchases. Second, it enables you to capture their cell-phone numbers, which are critical for a mobile loyalty offering.
Finally, you need to work with your POS provider (or some other point of purchase technology) to build a redemption system for your loyalty platform. This enables you to build a closed-loop system that, in turn, enables you to quantitatively track the ROI of your loyalty marketing campaigns.
Warning: By implementing this marketing system you may increase your information security. It is strongly recommended that you utilize hardware encryption to implement your new loyalty solution. Side effects may include reduced PCI scope. Consult your QSA if your PCI scope does not reduce after implementing.
What do you think? If you disagree (or even, heaven forbid, agree), please comment below or send me a private message. Or check out the Twitter discussion on @todd_michaud.
Cards issued by European banks when used online cross border don't usually support AVS checks. So, when a European card is used with a billing address that's in the US, an ecom merchant wouldn't necessarily know that the shipping zip code doesn't match the billing code.
-Marc
