Proving Upside's impact: Takedown analysis
Performance before & after pausing Upside
We hate to see them go, but sometimes sites that are removed from the platform are valuable case studies in Upside’s impact on customer acquisition and incremental revenue. While it may sound counterintuitive, another way to clearly see Upside’s impact is by analyzing what happens when our retailers leave Upside or pause their accounts. By measuring the change in customer activity once Upside’s personalized promotions are taken away, we can see how much of an impact Upside had been driving, and how many customers are now being redirected somewhere else.
In one study, we turned off Upside’s personalized promotions at a retailer’s locations and measured the impact — and what we saw wasn’t good for the business. While these stations were on the program, Upside delivered a roughly 3.5% volume lift, illustrated by the green line in the graph below.
After pausing Upside
Without Upside, the volume that was once captured by this network of sites quickly shifted to competing stations on Upside. This change is to be expected; without the motivation of Upside’s personalized promotions, consumers go right back to their old behavior patterns (which means they’re buying from your competitors!). Within 50 days of pausing these sites, more than 80% of incremental gallons left the stations, equivalent to a 2.6% overall volume loss. That’s a significant drop-off in actual revenue.
In conjunction with measuring volume impact, Upside sent an in-app survey to collect users’ reactions to promotions being paused at the stations they used to frequent with Upside. Of users who visited more than once in the 3 months before the promotions paused:
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72% said they stopped going to the site because they try to use Upside for their gas expenses |
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84% said they now go to the Upside site with the highest cash-back promotion instead |
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48% said they go to the Upside site most convenient to them instead |
When sites leave the platform, many of the customers formerly incentivized by Upside will take their business elsewhere. By comparing the performance of Upside sites before and after the sites are paused from the program, it’s easy to see the program’s impact on both transaction volume and customer retention. To learn more, read “Proving Upside's impact: Overview.”
