If you’re not familiar, Punchh’s Restaurant Marketing Cloud is the first platform that “bridges the gap” between restaurants and customers, “empowering restaurants to shape personalized offers that attract and engage more meaningfully with loyal customers.”

We’re told that Punchh’s clients include more than 85 prominent restaurant chains such as Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, El Pollo Loco, Moe’s Southwest Grill, Pieology, Quiznos, and Smashburger.

“Consumers expect rich, digital experiences when they engage with the brands they love, and that includes being able to pay with their iPhone,” said Shyam Rao, CEO of Punchh. “By offering Apple Pay with Punchh-powered restaurant loyalty programs, we are not just facilitating a faster, easier and more secure method of payment to the industry, but enabling restaurants to tailor their experience in a way that drives increased visits and sales. It’s an industry game changer.”

To learn more about Punchh, click here.

The post Apple Pay Comes to Leading Restaurant Loyalty Program appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The capability to pay with Apple Pay for sending money transfers through the Western Union app in the United Kingdom is planned for later this year.

“Today, 60 percent of all Western Union digital money transfer transactions globally are initiated via a mobile device1,” said Khalid Fellahi, senior vice president and general manager of Western Union Digital. “By bringing Apple Pay as a payment method in the US and later to the UK, Western Union is delivering an exceptional experience across our mobile platform, allowing our customers to conveniently and reliably move money, whenever they please.”

More information about the offering is available from Western Union online.

The post Major Moves in Mobile Money for Western Union appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

It’s an effort to bring loyalty rewards together with a business’ support for Apple Pay to offer consumers the ability to earn and redeem rewards, and pay, “with a single tap.”

We’re told that businesses can now automatically update loyalty points or serve up a pre-filled rewards enrollment form at the point of sale when customers use Apple Pay at the register, on the web or in apps.

The complete solution will be demonstrated for the first time at Mobile World Congress (February 27 – March 2, booth #8.1C14), in collaboration with USA Technologies and its MORE. loyalty program integration with Apple Pay.

In the coming months, USAT will introduce these new enrollment capabilities and loyalty rewards to select unattended retail locations nationwide among its 300,000 participating self-serve machines connected to its cashless payment platform, ePort Connect.

“Apple Pay is unlocking massive marketing value for brands as loyalty cards top the list of things consumers want in their wallets and provides a dramatically easier and speedier checkout experience that extends reach well beyond the register,” said Brett Caine, CEO and president of Urban Airship. “The opportunity for growth could be as monumental as the Web, or apps, or email coming into existence, and Urban Airship is on the frontlines of helping businesses of all sizes fully realize the promise of dynamic mobile wallet marketing with Apple Pay.”

The post First Look: Urban Airship Integrates with Apple Pay appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Apple Pay has been growing since it launched two years ago. It is supported by numerous banks and credit unions in the US, and is gradually spreading into the rest of the world. According to a recent report from consumer spending analytics firm TXN, the number of mobile transactions using Apple Pay rose by 50% from December 2015 to December 2016.

While this may look promising on the surface, it is less impressive than one might expect. Apple Pay has been growing steadily since launch, but its penetration is still quite low. In the app store, for example, it is used for only 1%–1.5% of transactions. On average, physical stores see less than 0.8% usage of the payment method. And while the number of transactions is rising, the frequency at which consumers use Apple Pay has actually fallen. A common reason for this is that people simply don’t remember that it’s an option.

Apple and other organizations are working to change this, however. Square, a mobile payment company, has partnered with Apple to promote Apple Pay, waiving processing fees for the first USD 12,000 worth of transactions made using Apple’s payment app. Merchants can also request a free marketing kit and training materials. This initiative will incentivize vendors to promote Apple’s services, increasing awareness and helping combat the issue of consumers not realizing the option is available.

This is not the first initiative from these two companies. Square recently carried out a campaign in Portland to educate merchants and consumers about the payment service, and the result was that contactless payments such as Apple Pay tripled. This demonstrates just how important awareness and education are, as well as business partnerships with compatible companies. While adoption of mobile payments has been somewhat lackluster, a concentrated effort to increase it met with considerable success.

Although awareness of Apple Pay’s existence is widespread, many people who already have the ability to use it have no idea how it works. It is essential to identify gaps like these, determine which demographics and regions might need a heavier marketing focus, and ensure that the widest possible audience has a solid understanding of your offerings.

Market intelligence can pinpoint places where a campaign might be failing, and bring to light opportunities for partnerships that can strengthen both companies involved. It can also point out why numbers might not be as positive as they look — a 50% growth rate becomes less impressive once you know usage is increasing from 1% to 1.5%. Market intelligence is vital in a sector such as mobile payment services, where there is immense potential for growth.

Based on your particular service, Infiniti Research experts will provide a comprehensive look at the market, including multiple metrics on which to evaluate the environment and the performance of your offering. They will also determine possible partners and competitors, including those companies’ current performance, strengths, and weakness. It can be difficult to identify opportunities or select a strategic partner that will be a strong fit for a business venture, but Infiniti can provide you with a detailed analysis that will give you all the information you need to make informed business decisions.

Looking for additional IT and Telecom Research? Request a free proposal

About Infiniti Research

Established in 2003, Infiniti Research is a leading market intelligence company providing smart solutions to address your business challenges. Infiniti Research studies markets in more than 100 countries to help analyze competitive activity, see beyond market disruptions, and develop intelligent business strategies.

With 13 years of experience and offices across three continents, Infiniti Research has been instrumental in providing a complete range of competitive intelligence, strategy, and research services for over 550 companies across the globe.

The post Apple Pay Takes Action to Improve Underwhelming Growth: Infiniti Research appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

This week, the company announced the results of a six-month study testing targeted point-of-sale advertising of Apple Pay.

Based on the results showing a steady upward trajectory in mobile payment usage, USAT concluded that smartphone users shown digital advertising at point-of-sale through the ePort Interactive platform are more apt to pull out their iPhone to make a purchase, and even spend more.

Findings by USAT after 24 weeks show targeted, digital advertising on USAT’s ePort Interactive platform that highlight Apple Pay availability at point-of-sale resulted in a:

• 36.5% increase in overall sales
• 44.6% increase in total transactions
• 6% increase in total contactless average ticket; 18% at week 20*
• 55.5% increase in revenue through contactless purchases, including Apple Pay; 121% at week 20*
• 135.2% increase in overall mobile payment usage

“Based on our study, we believe that when businesses and operators present consumers with the option to pay for items with Apple Pay, the number of mobile payments made and the amount spent, increases,” said Maeve McKenna Duska, senior vice president of marketing and sales at USA Technologies. “The data from this study suggest that call-to-action messages underscoring speed, convenience and security of Apple Pay can act as an electronic gateway for consumers to learn about and use the mobile wallets already installed on their phones. Further, unattended markets are continuing to drive Apple Pay usage as it offers consumers a simple and convenient way to pay without cash or a credit card.”

The post Apple Pay Messaging at Point-of-Sale is Good for Business, Study Shows appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Guess what? Apple Pay was a success.

According to early results, USAT believes that smartphone users shown digital advertising at point-of-sale through the ePort Interactive platform are more apt to pull out their iPhone to make a purchase, and even spend more during the transaction.

Initial findings by USAT show targeted, digital advertising on USAT’s ePort Interactive highlighting Apple Pay availability at point- of-sale resulted in a:

• 26% increase in overall transactions;
• 22% increase in total revenue;
• 12% increase in total contactless average ticket; and
• 89% increase in revenue through contactless purchases, including Apple Pay

“Whether an ad at point-of-sale serves as a simple reminder that a consumer can use Apple Pay to make a purchase, or educates and informs them of how easy, secure and private the mobile payments service is, consumers are responding positively as they buy more and spend more, more often,” said Maeve McKenna Duska, senior vice president of marketing and sales, USA Technologies. “Recent research shows that consumers are becoming more accustomed to using their phones to make payments, particularly to make smaller purchases where, we believe, speed and convenience is often a top priority. We believe the unattended markets we serve will continue to drive Apple Pay use – and that consumer awareness campaigns at the point-of-sale are key to accelerating adoption even further.”

The post USAT: Consumers Respond to Apple Pay Messaging with More Payments appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The following is a guest contributed post by Gillian Hughes, VP of Corporate Sales Veoo.

Apple Pay was announced in the US in late 2014 and launched with quite a bit of fanfare in the UK in July 2015. Today, most of the big UK banks have committed to support Apple Pay, although not all were part of the scheme when it first launched.

For those who don’t know, Apple Pay is a mobile payment system and digital wallet service designed to change the way consumers shop. There is no doubt that the company has been leading the way in the effort to move consumers from the use of old fashioned physical wallets, packed with various plastic cards, to a world in which your iPhone or Apple Watch does all the work.

According to a new report from Juniper Research, approximately 148 million global consumers will make a contactless payment this year, and mobile wallet use will be the main growth driver, as almost 70% of new users who make contactless payments in stores are either Apple Pay or Samsung Pay customers.

I was chatting with Alex Meisl, from our partner Vibes, a provider of mobile marketing solutions, about the focus on Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and the soon to be launched Google ‘Pay’ as a payment mechanism and we both think that wallets represent so much more than this. The payment side is merely one of many functions that mobile wallets have the capability to deliver and we are really only scratching the surface of their potential. I believe that the bigger and certainly more interesting prospect is what this means from a marketing perspective.

Mobile wallets provide marketers with a new way to create and deliver branded content, such as offers, coupons, and loyalty cards, to their customer base across both online and offline channels.  Consumers can save and organize offers and loyalty cards in a simplified way whilst marketers are armed with trackable, updateable and location-aware content to help them drive in-store visits, redemptions and RoI.

Retailers are also starting to get savvier about driving more foot traffic into their shops by inserting offers into local search results, but I believe that it is the offers held in mobile wallets that will lead to an increase in in-store revenue.

The question often asked regarding retailers and mobile wallets, however, is that surely retailers have their own apps, so why would they want to use a mobile wallet?

Retailers are facing a challenge when it comes to mastering mobile commerce. Consumers are spending more time on their smartphones and companies are seeing more mobile traffic than ever before, but people aren’t downloading and using retail mobile apps. In fact, a recent Forrester study which looked at how smartphone users are engaging with retailers on their mobile devices reported that 85 percent of time on smartphones is spent in apps, but of that time, only 5 percent is spent in retailer apps. The study looked at how many retail apps consumers had downloaded to their phones and it found that 60 percent had only two or fewer.

Even once downloaded, retail apps still aren’t getting much use. Forrester found that only 8 percent of smartphone owners with at least one retail app used them daily, while 13 percent said they never used the retail apps they downloaded. What appears to be holding retail apps back from being useful is that many customers aren’t willing to disclose the information needed for retailers to personalise and ultimately enhance the mobile experience. Personalized content, like purchasing histories, location services and stored credit card or loyalty information, drives usage and engagement. Privacy concerns however, and wariness of how the data will be used, suggest that app users aren’t giving that information up.

That said, consumers are willing to use mobile wallets. According to our US partner, mobile technology provider, Vibes, more than half of consumers would like to receive mobile wallet content on a weekly basis, and 70 percent of consumers will save an offer to their mobile wallet when presented with the option. Moreover, consumers are interested in receiving a variety of content via mobile wallets. For instance, Forrester found that 57 percent of US online adult smartphone users are interested in having access to loyalty program points and rewards within a mobile wallet.

At Veoo, we have just launched our mobile wallet marketing solution, which provides brands and marketers the functionality to leverage smartphone wallets to further their marketing and loyalty experience with customers. It really couldn’t be simpler, the user taps on the ad or offer, which then auto previews and allows them to instantly save the corresponding offer to their mobile wallet. Once saved, this branded offer becomes a dynamic and persistent presence in the mobile wallet and is infinitely updateable.

Organizations can also generate additional foot traffic in-store by making offers that capitalize on the context of someone’s location, and also variable factors such as weather conditions or time of day. For instance, a chemist on the South Coast on a hot, sunny day might offer pedestrians nearby a reminder to protect their skin from the sun along with a 10 percent off coupon for a tube of sunscreen. By making the coupon good for a limited amount of time (say, the next hour), the chemist can make the offer more urgent.

Retailers can also create more business by making offers of convenience. After someone locates a store and buys a product, naturally the store wants the shopper to become a repeat customer, which is why stores offer paper-based coupons at the point of sale. The same logic applies to mobile wallets.

However, the real catalyst in this form of marketing is the consumer adopting the technology and interacting with the retailers and brands. All the pieces are in place for the mobile wallet to extend its influence on marketing way beyond payments and to become a real phenomenon. We just need marketers and brands to see how powerful the wallet will be in the future.

The post Apple Pay is So Much More than Just a Payment Mechanism appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

What does that mean? This development allows Card Members to pay on the go with compatible Apple devices.

As of this writing, the mobile payment option is available for eligible U.S. Corporate Cards.
“Businesses today are going digital, and American Express is at the forefront of digital innovation, helping companies to streamline their payments systems and simplify their processes,” said Greg Keeley, Executive Vice President of Global Corporate Payments at American Express. “We continue to invest and expand digital offerings for our corporate customers in ways that maximize security and enhance the user experience.”

To read the full announcement from AMEX, click here.

The post American Express Doesn’t Want U.S. Corporate Card Holders to Leave Home without Apple Pay appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Perhaps that’s why NASA is the among the latest supporters of the payments platform.

On Tuesday, Apple augmented the list of organizations and financial institutions to adopt Apple Pay. And among the most obvious additions is the NASA Federal Credit Union.

We’re told that employees at the agency as well as non-employees can now capitalize on Apple Pay at the NASA Federal Credit Union.

All told, close to three dozen new names hit the list this week, including some of the largest credit unions in California and Texas.

To check out the updated ranks of Apple Pay supporters, click here.

The post Apple Pay Blasts Off for NASA appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

It’s yet another major financial services giant to warmly embrace Apple’s red-hot mobile payments platform.

“As the mobile payments landscape matures, Discover remains committed to giving cardmembers secure options for using their cards and mobile devices,” said Diane Offereins, Discover’s president of payment services. “Discover’s focus on simplicity and value for our cardmembers aligns well with the way Apple Pay makes purchases easy and convenient.”

The option to pay via Apple Pay will be available to Discover Card members beginning this fall.

The post Cardmembers Poised to ‘Discover’ the Latest in Contactless Mobile Payments appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.