Case Study:
Data-Driven Offers Based On Historical Sales Deliver Impressive Results
CLIENT
Plumbing and HVAC Distributor
THE CHALLENGE
Driving sales growth across customer segments in a challenging, cost-pressured market.
KEY RESULTS
186% qualified member growth vs negative nonmember growth
Background
Our plumbing and HVAC distributor client was operating in a difficult business environment shaped by several years of market disruption, including supply chain pressures, inflationary cost increases, tariff-related uncertainty, and rising material costs. Like many businesses, the company wanted to protect its sales performance without relying on broad discounting or price reductions that could weaken its margins.
Solution
Lift & Shift used the client’s sales data to segment program participants and create relevant monthly growth targets. The promotion was structured around last year's comparable sales performance, allowing targets to reflect realistic customer purchasing behaviour instead of arbitrary sales goals.
Each month, personalized growth-based sales targets were established for program participants. Customers who reached or exceeded their assigned monthly targets earned 2X the reward points through the loyalty program.
The program was executed consistently throughout the quarter, with targeted promotional communications sent at the beginning of each month. Statement communications were used to reinforce customer progress and engagement. This kept the incentive visible, actionable, and relevant to program participants.
Results
The Q1 promotion delivered strong results across each month of the quarter rather than relying on a single high-performing month. This consistency helped demonstrate that the campaign was influencing customer behaviour throughout the promotional period.
Sales causality was supported by comparing promotional-period sales with pre-promotion growth trends for qualified participants, thus discounting positive sales trends leading into the promotional window. Sales growth among members was also compared with that of non-participating customers (a control group) to reinforce the program's causal effect.
Surging Sales
Qualified participants experienced a 186% increase in sales over the promotional quarter, while non-participants saw negative sales for the same period.
Strong ROI
Program ROI of over $55 in additional Gross Profit for every $1 in rewards earned by participants.
Program Success
The promotion achieved outstanding engagement, with 19.8% of program participants successfully taking advantage of the offer.
The results showed that targeted B2B incentive programs can produce meaningful sales growth even in a down or challenging market. By using customer data to identify relevant opportunities, our client was able to reward sales growth and generate a measurable return on program investment.
Most importantly, this was not a one-time success. The same targeted promotion structure has been applied across other accounts with similar strong outcomes, demonstrating that a data-driven B2B loyalty program can be a repeatable marketing strategy for improving customer engagement, sales performance, and margin-supported growth.
Our client was very pleased with the results given the challenging business environment.