Building Customer Loyalty Without Discounts or Gimmicks

The Gist

• Creative consistency matters. Strong, ongoing creative output builds recognition, improves campaign flexibility and strengthens customer loyalty over time.

• Smart targeting evolves. Broad audience settings and real-time platform optimization are often more effective than overly segmented, manual targeting.

• Engagement builds trust. Responding to customers consistently across channels builds credibility and plays a critical role in repeat purchases.

Customer loyalty gets talked about a lot in marketing, but in practice, it’s one of the hardest things to get right. That’s especially true for functional products (i.e., batteries, toothpaste or underwear) where most people aren’t looking to form a long-term relationship with what they buy. These categories don’t naturally inspire passion, yet they represent massive markets where even small gains in repeat customers can drive real growth.

When I left my job in finance to start a business, I focused on structure, cost and return. I thought the numbers would tell us everything we needed to know. What I overlooked at first was the role customer relationships play in our growth.

In the early days, we couldn’t afford to offer discounts just to incentivize repeat purchases. So we had to find other ways to build customer connections. Loyalty wouldn’t necessarily come from excitement about underwear. It would come from how we showed up, stood out and kept people engaged.

Here are some lessons I’ve learned since becoming an entrepreneur.

Table of Contents

What Good Creative Actually Does for Customer Loyalty

High-performing campaigns are built on strong creative, not one-off assets. When an ad performs well, it can be tempting to keep running it until performance dips. But marketing is rarely that stable. What works today might fall flat tomorrow. Brands that invest in a pipeline of diverse, well-executed content give themselves more flexibility and more chances to scale. That means developing a mix of ad formats including short videos, static images, customer testimonials and long-form storytelling. Each format serves a different purpose, but together they reinforce a clear and consistent brand tone and message wherever your ads appear.

Build a system that leverages A/B testing to understand what works and delivers a steady stream of content your team can rotate. This structure gives brands more to work with, and it identifies which messages are resonating and where fatigue sets in. It also gives your audience more natural ways to engage with your brand across channels. When customers see your brand stand out consistently and deliver a relevant message, it builds familiarity and trust over time. Once people recognize your brand and understand what it stands for, you’re on your way to building real customer loyalty.

Related Article: How to Craft Brand Stories That Resonate With Your Audience

Let AI and Automation Guide Your Targeting Decisions

When campaigns underperform, many marketers turn to audience targeting as the first thing to fix, and they add new interests, narrow age ranges or layer on demographics in hopes of finding the right mix. However, heavily segmented targeting tends to shrink the audience too much and slow down performance. 

Digital advertising platforms like Meta now offer built-in optimization tools that adjust targeting in real time. Instead of requiring marketers to define every audience attribute manually, these systems can learn from early performance data and improve delivery based on who’s engaging. Rather than manually setting strict parameters, start with a wide audience and allow the platform’s optimization tools to identify who’s most likely to convert. For example, targeting broad ranges, like anyone 18 and older, instead of demographics, gives algorithms more room to adjust and find efficiencies based on real-time engagement. 

Broader targeting also allows brands to connect with new customers they might have overlooked. Reach might not feel personal, but it’s one of the first steps toward identifying repeat customers.

Why Showing Up Still Matters for Customer Engagement

A lot can happen between the first and second purchase, and how brands show up between those moments matters a lot. Whether replying to a comment on a paid Instagram ad or answering a question through Messenger, consistent engagement signals that someone is paying attention, which goes a long way.

Building consistent customer engagement in day-to-day operations takes commitment. It means dedicating time and people to manage all conversations, not just to help publish content or launch new campaigns. But it pays off. People are more likely to trust brands that show up, especially when deciding whether to buy again or recommend them to someone else.

Related Article: Mastering Customer Engagement Strategies: The Art of Cultivating Brand Loyalty

Customer Loyalty: Lessons and Actions for CX Leaders

These takeaways guide CX leaders on building long-term loyalty through creative consistency, smarter targeting and authentic engagement.

How to Measure Real Progress in Customer Loyalty

Success shouldn’t be measured by clicks or impressions alone. After all, they only tell marketers how many people see the ad, not whether it led to a conversion. A better marker is whether campaigns are bringing in new customers and driving sales at a sustainable cost. That’s why incremental growth is one of the clearest ways to understand how your campaigns are actually performing.

Some platforms now offer tools that estimate how much of the performance a campaign drives, like the Incremental Attribution tool in Meta Ads Manager. It helps marketers understand whether their budget is actually moving the needle or just showing up in reports.