CITGO Petroleum Corporation has begun offering the FuelLinks fuel reward program at more than 4,000 CITGO-branded stations in 28 states in the Eastern U.S., with plans to roll it out to additional sites.
CITGO is the first major fuel supplier to accept FuelLinks rewards with the option to issue them on purchases through the convenience stores.
CITGO General Manager of Business Services Jonathan Watson said retailers wanted a loyalty program that was simple and offered great value to consumers.
“We found precisely those things in the FuelLinks program,” Watson said. “We see it as a critical tool in generating loyalty for our CITGO brand and CITGO-branded retailers.”
Developed and owned by MetroSplash Systems Group Inc., FuelLinks is a cross-marketing and consumer reward program that enables numerous types of local and online businesses to offer customers fuel rewards based on purchases.
“What FuelLinks does is bridge between merchants and fuel retailers,” said MetroSplash president and CEO Steve Babick. “When a business joins the FuelLinks program, it becomes part of a growing coalition of merchants that reward their customers for coming back again and again to buy goods and services from them.”
Membership in the FuelLinks program is free to consumers, who can earn cents-off-per-gallon rewards from participating retailers. The rewards roll back the price at the pump. The more FuelLinks rewards they earn, the less that consumers pay for fuel.
MetroSplash also recently began collaborating with another company to allow retailers and suppliers to acquire new customers and execute promotions more efficiently. The collaboration with afterBOT – an industry pioneer in real-time retailing solutions through digital receipt technology – creates a marketing alliance that provides a comprehensive platform for the c-store industry.
The companies’ combined technologies could provide merchants and suppliers with full visibility required to optimize the resources applied to promotion and incentive programs that can drive the desired consumer behavior.
Suppliers can accurately measure consumption of promoted and non-promoted items down to the SKU/UPC and member levels, which enables them to quickly adjust resources and identify opportunities for more effective promotions.