The forecourt is no longer just a fuel island. It's the front door to your loyalty ecosystem. Retailers who successfully use forecourt loyalty marketing are asking a different question of their ROI reporting: What is the dollar amount required to move customers the final 100 feet to the product?
Ed Craig, President of Electrum Loyalty, had this to say:
"Effective forecourt marketing enables convenience retailers to deliver personalized, relevant offers while customers are still fueling and just steps away from the store. That's the difference between influencing a transaction and reacting to one"
True personalized forecourt marketing isn't about sending the same offer to every customer. It's about delivering the right offer to the right customer at the right moment. That could mean Jane Doe at Pump 1 receiving a discount on products from her favorite NACS category, John Doe at Pump 8 scanning a QR code to unlock a manufacturer-funded reward, or a loyalty member receiving a personalized offer based on their purchase history before they ever step inside the store. That's how retailers turn the forecourt into the first personalized touchpoint of the shopping journey.
Creating the Foundation: Customer Identification
So how do retailers create that ecosystem? Through a three-pronged communications strategy and a phased loyalty approach. The first step is training customers to identify as loyalty members at the pump. Some retailers, like Smart Stop and Korner Kash, use member-only fuel discounts, while Sioux Valley uses a CPG points program that ties in-store spend to fuel discounts, with occasional bonus-point promotions on fuel.
Turning the Forecourt Into a Marketing Channel
Once customers are identifying themselves, the forecourt becomes a communication channel through pump texts, QR code signage, app push notifications, and more. Pump texts are automatic text messages sent to customers when they identify as loyalty members at the pump. Retailers can choose a personalized offer based on purchase history, a manufacturer-funded offer, or another preferred promotion.
Pump texts are the holy grail of convenience retail marketing.
They incentivize customers while they are already at your store and just 100 feet from the product. Top Stop Convenience Stores ran a pump text campaign for Mas+ Energy drinks. The product launched in 2024, and the campaign ran from July 15 through the end of August 2025. During the 48 days before the campaign, the product had been purchased only 28 times. Once the pump text campaign launched, it achieved an 11.9% redemption rate and drove a staggering 6,175% increase in purchasing behavior (28 to 1,757 transactions), along with a massive increase in associated sales when customers came in to redeem. Participating customers redeemed an average of 1.6 offers each, and the entire promotion was funded by the manufacturer. Overall, the results illustrate how forecourt messaging can influence purchasing decisions before customers enter the store, increasing product awareness, offer redemption, and total in-store sales.
Another effective way to drive in-store shopping is by tying inside purchases to fuel rewards. Hot Spot's Buy 2 Cokes/Monsters, Get $0.10 Off Per Gallon campaign connected an inside-store purchase to a fuel reward, creating a complete inside-to-forecourt customer journey. Loyalty members who purchased two qualifying beverage products earned a $0.10-per-gallon fuel reward redeemable at the pump. Compared to the pre-campaign period, promoted-item basket sales increased 480.5%, associated basket sales increased 58.5%, transactions increased 60.2%, and units sold increased 27.3%.
For Hot Spot, these results reflect a broader strategy of using the forecourt as the starting point for personalized customer engagement. As Shawn Holmes, Corporate Manager of Marketing and Merchandising for Hot Spot Convenience Stores, explains:
"Partnering with Electrum has allowed Hot Spot to better connect with our customers at the forecourt and beyond. Through targeted loyalty campaigns, data-driven insights, and consistent performance tracking, we have been able to create promotions that drive engagement, increase basket size, and build stronger customer relationships. The ability to measure ROI and understand campaign performance has been a valuable tool in helping us continue to grow and improve our marketing strategy."
Driving Repeat Visits Through Behavior-Based Rewards
The final phase of forecourt marketing is gamification and automation of rewards based on behaviors.
A California retailer created a coffee bounceback campaign that automatically sent an email to customers who purchased coffee or fuel, offering a same-day $1 off coffee promotion if they returned to the store between noon and midnight. This campaign demonstrates the effectiveness of behavior-based marketing by turning a single morning coffee purchase into a second same-day visit. While the redemption rate was expectedly lower, the promotion generated a 128% increase in promoted-item sales and a 16.5% increase in associated sales, demonstrating that customers purchased additional products beyond the discounted item. Participating customers redeemed the offer an average of 2.3 times each, establishing repeat purchasing behavior while helping reduce afternoon sales spillage.
Likewise, Hot Spot ran a campaign funded by Mistplay, a mobile gaming platform to reward customers with a $0.10-per-gallon fuel discount for downloading a mobile game. By connecting a digital action outside the store to a real-world fuel reward, the promotion created a unique customer acquisition and engagement opportunity that extended beyond traditional retail interactions. Compared to the pre-campaign period, promoted-item basket sales increased 38.2%, transactions increased 23.1%, and the campaign achieved a 28.1% redemption rate. The campaign demonstrates how fuel rewards can extend loyalty beyond the forecourt, using a digital action to drive real-world customer engagement and redemption.
Electrum's introduction of progressive reward paths has also led retailers to create innovative ways to engage younger demographics. One retailer used a waterfall fuel discount— three progressively larger fuel discounts with each return visit for new enrollees. 32.6% of participating new enrollees who redeemed the first discount completed the entire waterfall and reached the highest-value reward. For the first time, Gen Z emerged as the campaign's largest demographic, edging out Millennials and highlighting the effectiveness of progression-based rewards with younger consumers. The goal wasn't simply acquiring a loyalty member. The goal was training a new member to repeatedly identify, engage, and redeem until loyalty behavior became habitual.
Analyze, Optimize, and Repeat.
Every customer interaction creates the next opportunity to engage. Every campaign answers new questions. Which offer generated the highest associated sales? Which products drove the strongest product trial? Which customer segments engaged the most? What time of day produced the highest redemption rates? Which store locations outperformed the rest? Electrum's tailored campaign reporting gives retailers a complete view of campaign performance, measuring everything from promotional sales, transaction lift, associated basket sales, discount investment, reimbursements, and overall ROI to customer demographics, purchase patterns, product performance, and engagement by day and hour. By comparing campaign performance before, during, and after a promotion, retailers can quickly identify what worked, adjust what didn't, and continuously optimize future campaigns based on real customer behavior—not assumptions.
The Next Generation of Forecourt Marketing
Forecourt marketing is evolving beyond single-source fuel rewards, enabling retailers to layer fuel discounts with refiner brands, personalized offers, manufacturer-funded promotions, and loyalty rewards into a single, seamless customer experience.
With SMS and mobile app serving as the foundational forecourt engagement channels, innovative retailers are expanding personalized marketing beyond the customer's mobile device. Electrum's new POS Communications solution delivers targeted promotions directly at the point of sale while also capturing explicit customer consent, creating a fully TCPA-compliant foundation for ongoing SMS marketing. One retailer invited new loyalty members to complete their profile to unlock a Choose Your Own Reward delivered via SMS. The personalized reward journey proved highly effective, with POS enrollment members accounting for 76.1% of coupons issued and 84.8% of all redemptions, driving stronger profile completion, customer engagement, and immediate purchasing behavior.
The next evolution of forecourt engagement brings these same personalized promotions directly to the pump screen. Combined with pump texts, QR code signage, push notifications, and POS Communications, retailers gain multiple real-time touchpoints to influence purchasing decisions before customers ever leave the forecourt. The future isn't choosing between these channels; it's orchestrating them as a coordinated forecourt communications platform.
Rebecca Burch, EVP of Sales at Electrum Loyalty, says: "The future of forecourt marketing isn't about a single fuel discount or one promotional text. It's a connected loyalty ecosystem where every customer action automatically creates the next opportunity to engage. From identifying at the pump to personalized offers to automated reward journeys that keep customers coming back. The retailers seeing the greatest success are using data as a competitive advantage. They're measuring campaign performance, identifying what's driving engagement and segmenting offers, and making real-time adjustments that continuously improve customer participation, redemption, and ROI."
The forecourt is no longer just where customers buy fuel. It's where the next generation of customer loyalty begins. To learn more visit Electrum Loyalty at https://www.electrumloyalty.com
This post is sponsored by Electrum Loyalty