We love our customers — and they love us. To celebrate customers’ first year on the My McDonald’s app, McDonald’s used transactional data to recognize loyalty, strengthen affinity, and inspire deeper engagement.
Order frequency increased by 14% in the two weeks after receipt amongst target groups compared to control — with offer redemption up 7% on a similar standard offer.
Three months on, a higher level of spend remained in the original audience, creating a 10% uplift in customer value on the control group — a trend continuing as the programme rolls out.
The dynamic product cross-sell strategy paid off, with a peak of 8% more customers choosing to expand their product choices against control.
The campaign delivered an extremely healthy email engagement rate, with open rates 9% above the sector average and excellent interactive engagement throughout.
The Strategy: Bring storytelling to life via data
We had two key objectives.
First, to build affinity and prove its value. Often aimed for but difficult to measure, affinity is at the heart of McDonald’s marketing. We wanted to see if we could deepen our relationship with an already engaged group of customers by making them feel valued, inspired and excited to interact with us even more than they already are.
We have full app-based transactional history for these customers, providing an excellent opportunity to connect with them individually based on what we know about how they interact with us. We wanted to show them how they fit into our customer family and inspire their future relationship with us.
Second, to cross-sell to other areas of the menu. We recognised we had a golden opportunity to drive new behaviours as well as celebrate existing ones. We created an intelligent data algorithm to ensure each customer was served a new product suggestion to try — one they hadn’t previously ordered through the app. This was dynamically positioned within each customer’s reward offer. Money off and something new. Win win.
To make that happen, we:
- Leveraged rich app-based transactional data to paint a picture of each customer’s unique McDonald’s story
- Created playful storytelling that turned data into chapters of the customer’s individual relationship with the brand
- Built an intelligent cross-sell algorithm that served each customer a personalised product suggestion they hadn’t yet tried
- Designed the campaign to maximise insight for future iterations, challenging our creatives to deliver a highly personalised, dynamic and explorable piece
The Solution: A year in the life of a McDonald’s fan
We have reams of transactional app data. But how do we use this to celebrate our first year together with a customer? At first, it doesn’t sound particularly inspiring.
Yet in the age of the quantified self, we spotted a brilliant opportunity to paint a picture of our relationship with each customer. Turning data into a compelling narrative not only allowed them to see what type of McDonald’s customer they were, but also to see where they fit amongst the wider McDonald’s family.
After what can only be described as some Adobe ninjitsu, transactional data was transformed into chapters of the customer story:
- Day part variations. Customers could see whether they were a ‘Night Owl Orderer’ or a ‘Breakfast Baller’ and compare that to when other customers ordered
- Channel variations. Whether an ‘In-restaurant regular’, a ‘Drive-thru and thru-er’, or a ‘Click & Serve-er’ — each customer saw exactly how they liked to get their food, and how that compared to the rest of the UK
- Most ordered item. Customers could see their most ordered item and whether they followed the trend or stood out from the crowd
- Cross-sell offer. Our thank you became an offer voucher with a nudge to the most popular in-app product each customer hadn’t tried yet — dynamically positioned and personally relevant
The simple infographics were playful, intriguing and highly personal. Animation and interactivity increase both click-throughs and conversions, so the design reflects this with interactive panels and dropdowns revealing comparison data. Using our proprietary tracking pixels, we have detailed conversion insight — enabling us to measure effectiveness and optimise content going forward.
We were very mindful of choosing data sets carefully to celebrate each customer while ensuring we met our legal and moral responsibility as a brand.
The Results: When customers feel seen, they come back for more
Yes, there was initial take up of the thank you offer. Redemption was up 7% on what we’d usually see on a similar offer, and order frequency increased by 14% in the two weeks after receipt amongst target groups compared to control.
But this is about the long game. Three months on, we can still see a higher level of spend in the original audience. Add this up and it sees the campaign creating a 10% uplift in customer value on the control group — a trend continuing in the data as we roll this out to each anniversary group.
The dynamic product cross-sell strategy paid off too, inspiring customers to try new menu items and achieving our cross-sell ambitions with a peak of 8% more customers choosing to expand their product choices against control.
The campaign also delivered an extremely healthy email engagement rate, with open rates 9% above the sector average and excellent interactive engagement throughout. Designing the campaign to maximise insight for future iterations means we move forward confidently — knowing we can further optimise this important piece of customer communication as we roll out.
When customers feel seen, celebrated and inspired, they don’t just redeem an offer. They come back, spend more, and bring more of themselves to the relationship.
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