Receipt recognition technology is redefining loyalty for brands by making participation seamless, scalable, and data driven. With a simple receipt photo upload, consumers can earn rewards anywhere they shop, while brands gain verified, first-party data and insights into purchase behavior, product combinations, and retailer performance. Beyond simplifying purchase validation, the technology powers flexible promotions - from tiered rewards and targeted offers to instant wins and gift-with-purchase campaigns - all within one integrated platform. The result is a more efficient, engaging, and intelligent loyalty ecosystem that builds real customer relationships instead of one-time transactions.
It's no secret that consumer packaged goods (CPG) and other multichannel brands face many challenges. Fickle customer bases, fragmented distribution channels, competition from private labels and start-up brands, cautious spending – it's increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd and drive repeat sales.
To make matters worse, audiences continue to move away from traditional media in favor of digital channels. And brands are struggling to build profitable relationships with high value customers through mass advertising and other above-the-line (ATL) marketing spending alone.
In such an unstable environment, creating fast and accessible loyalty programs is essential. Customer loyalty programs, based on scalable receipt recognition technology, and below-the-line (BTL) shopper marketing efforts are proving highly effective at addressing these challenges.
Receipt-based customer loyalty programs allow customers to submit pictures of their receipts in exchange for discounts, points, or other rewards on qualifying purchases. These programs encourage repeat purchases, increasing basket size and giving you an invaluable window into your customers' shopping habits.
Traditionally, you'd have to manually process each receipt individually – a time-consuming and often error-prone process. Receipt recognition technology, also known as receipt validation or verification, makes the process smoother and more efficient – for you and your customers.
It leverages advanced optical character recognition (OCR) technology to automatically capture key information, such as purchase date and amount spent, from receipts. It also works with other forms of proof-of-purchase, such as invoices and purchase orders.
Some receipt recognition solutions have built-in fraud prevention technology. This helps you tackle illicit activity, like double-dipping, which can seriously impact your bottom line.
Historically, CPG brands steered away from loyalty programs due to the difficulty and expense of implementing them. However, with the advent of new technologies – including receipt recognition and powerful data analytics tools – they're becoming ever more popular.
While many brands are still experimenting and figuring out what works best for them, we're seeing some clear benefits, themes, and trends emerge.
Industry Leaders in Receipt Recognition
Snipp process over 5 million+ receipts every year for thousands of top brands, all through one powerful platform.
Today, earning customer loyalty is harder than ever. Customers can see brands on various channels and quickly find the latest deals or products. In such a competitive landscape, it's often difficult to capture your customers' attention.
Receipt recognition technology smooth the path to entry, making them a great opportunity for brands and customers. If you make participation straightforward for customers, they're more likely to join your loyalty program. Here are a few ways you can improve the customer experience:
Enhancing Customer Experience to Improve Reckitt's Loyalty Program
Reckitt demonstrated this with Schiff Rewards, a loyalty program across its family of vitamin brands. By using receipt recognition to capture purchases from every channel - in-store, online, and direct-to-consumer - the program made it easy for customers to participate and be rewarded. This seamless process enhanced the overall customer experience while supporting Reckitt’s broader data and engagement goals across its ecosystem.
2. Supporting Time & Geography Delimited Programs
For those reared on pin-on-pack, delimited programs (that run for a set amount of time or in a specific region) are especially powerful.
With receipts, you know when someone purchases a product, as well as the store address and zip code the purchase took place. Using this information, you can create targeted, time-based or geography-restricted promotions.
For example, one of our clients ran a month-long promotion as part of its launch strategy, offering double points on qualifying purchases. The limited-time promotion helped to increase visibility and engagement.
You can also run promotions to coincide with specific events, like back to school, or restrict promotions to specific zip codes, cities, states, or designated market areas (DMAs). You can even design promotions that reward participation from those geographies.
Driving Seasonal Engagement for Beam Suntory
Beam Suntory used receipt recognition to run a time-limited Hornitos “Marg Mode” cash back promotion during the Cinco de Mayo and summer season. By verifying purchases through receipt uploads, the brand rewarded consumers with a $25 Instacart digital gift card - driving engagement and sales during a key promotional sales window.
Receipt recognition technology is ideal for creating programs in partnership with specific retailers, especially if your objective is to provide better retailer support for sales and shelf placement.
One brand created an entire loyalty program around one retailer, allowing customers to earn points on every purchase. Other brands have run retailer-specific promotions where consumers get double or triple points for purchases made at those retailers.
Programs like this benefit retailers, too. For example, by increasing foot traffic and driving in-store sales.
Retail Specific Receipt Validation Program for LEGO
We developed a gift with purchase program for LEGO, leveraging Snipp's receipt recognition technology to reward customers who spent $50 or more on qualifying LEGO build sets at Walmart.
With receipt recognition technology, you can drive specific consumer behaviors in your program through judicious tiering and laddering points.
Historically, this was difficult to execute with pin-on-pack programs. However, it's much easier to do with receipts, where all purchases are visible simultaneously. For example, you can offer point boosts to drive sampling when customers purchase two specific products together or buy a product from a specific store or retail chain.
Similarly, to increase basket size, you can design your loyalty programs so that customers earn more points for each additional unit purchased. I.e., one purchase is worth one point, two purchases are worth three points, three purchases are worth six points, and so on.
Loyalty Rewards Program for Paw Points
Receipt uploads allow members to earn points as part of a loyalty rewards program. Using Snipp technology as the backbone to validate purchase and non-purchase activities, Paw Points customers can now earn points on many everyday purchases.
A significant use case for receipt recognition technology in loyalty programs is to supplement existing point-of-sale (POS) programs. This is particularly valuable if you sell:
And are looking to expand your reach. We worked with a brand who did just that.
They ran a loyalty program across their retail stores. However, they also sold products through several online and offline retailers. Customers regularly complained they couldn't earn rewards for purchases made outside of the brand’s stores. So, they implemented receipt recognition technology. This allowed loyalty program members to submit purchase receipts via the app, earning them points for all their purchases – wherever they buy.
Punch Card Loyalty Program for Spencer's
Spencer’s wanted to drive loyalty and increase basket size across its product portfolio. They needed a multi-channel platform connecting diverse physical stores, e-commerce stores, and pop-up store infrastructure. The team chose Snipp to deliver an omnichannel solution covering all store types — physical, e-commerce, and pop-up stores.
Receipt recognition technology helps you turn your customer loyalty program into a holistic platform for all your promotional activities. This includes:
Additionally, the technology's innate flexibility makes it quicker and easier to add brands and sub-brands as your platform matures. This is becoming increasingly important, as more and more brands centralize everything on their customer loyalty platforms – rather than running disparate, stand-alone programs.
It stands to reason. Running everything from one location creates smoother user experiences, helping you to attract new members and satisfy existing ones.
Creating a Centralized Loyalty Platform for Nestlé Purina
Nestlé Purina uses receipt recognition technology to support myPurina, a comprehensive loyalty program powered by receipt processing tech for purchase validation, Loyalty tech for program management and Fraud Management technology. Members earn points for every dollar spent, in-store or online, by uploading purchase receipts via the app to collect points, redeemable for various pet rewards. The program also includes personalized promotions and offers and expert pet content. Purina is able to unlock deeper value from receipts by extracting shopper behavior data and conducting detailed basket analysis.
Receipt-based customer loyalty programs increase program participation and engagement. But more than that, they provide a reliable source of transactional data that helps you refine your program even further.
The big opportunity lies in the treasure trove of first-party customer data receipts offer. The right tools reveal valuable insights into purchase behavior, basket size, and more. You can also use receipt data to determine:
In some loyalty programs, brands ask customers to provide feedback or complete surveys. Qualitative data like this is useful for determining engagement and pinpointing areas of improvement.
First-party Data Acquisition at Scale for Kellogg's
Multinational food brand Kellogg's uses Snipp's receipt processing platform to validate purchases across multiple markets and languages. This includes North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Integrated via Snipp's flexible receipt processing API, Kellogg's now has access to unprecedented shopper behavior data, driving engagement in its biggest promotions – like Puzzles for Prizes.
CPG and multichannel brands continue to embrace receipt recognition technology as a key component of their customer loyalty programs.
Brands across the globe rely on these solutions to make their programs more accessible, exciting, and efficient. And, as they become more comfortable with these programs, we expect to see more interesting examples and best practices emerge.
Q: How can receipt recognition technology boost engagement for brands?
A: Receipt recognition simplifies participation, removing barriers for customers to engage with loyalty programs. By enabling quick receipt submission via mobile apps or web portals, brands can increase program adoption, incentivize repeat purchases, and build richer shopper profiles for smarter marketing decisions.
Q: What makes a receipt recognition platform essential for global loyalty campaigns?
A: Global brands face complex challenges like varying retail formats, languages, currencies and compliance requirements. Receipt recognition platforms with multilingual and currency support, flexible APIs, and fraud prevention capabilities streamline global loyalty campaigns, ensuring consistent customer experiences while delivering scalable insights across markets.
Q: Why should brands choose a receipt recognition platform over traditional loyalty system?
A: A dedicated receipt recognition platform offers flexibility, speed, and scalability. Unlike traditional pin-on-pack or POS-only programs, these platforms support multi-channel engagement, allow purchases from any retailer, integrate easily with existing systems, and deliver valuable shopper behavior insights. They turn loyalty programs into a dynamic marketing platform rather than a static offer.
Q: What role does OCR play in receipt-based loyalty programs?
A: Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is the backbone of receipt recognition. It scans and extracts critical information - purchase date, store location, product details, and amount spent - directly from images of receipts. This automation drastically speeds up validation, reduces errors, and enables brands to scale loyalty initiatives without manual intervention.
Ready to power your loyalty programs with marketing leading receipt recognition? Contact us today.