Case Study: Major Card Issuing Company achieves 15% lift in card usage and $4M profit improvement with Applied Predictive Technologies' Test & Learn®

Major Card Issuing Company - Customer Case Study

A major card issuer with multiple cards and varied rewards programs struggled to measure the true causal impact of different incentives on customer spending. Analysts couldn't tell whether rewards drove incremental spend or simply subsidized behavior that would have occurred anyway, and the company needed to choose between launching a Double Rewards Points program or a Cash Rewards offering with similar projected costs.

The issuer ran an in-market experiment using APT’s Test & Learn® to randomize offers and adjust for detected biases in test/control cohorts, enabling clean measurement of post-offer behavior. Results showed a 15% lift in active card usage overall, with Double Rewards producing an 18% lift in sales per customer versus 13% for Cash Rewards; APT also identified high‑response segments (recent card opens, >$500 spend in past 6 months, higher income) and built a predictive model to target them. By deploying the targeted Double Rewards strategy the client avoided an unprofitable plan and realized $4M in profit improvement.