Presence-based rewards are benefits earned for a verified, opted-in visit, whether or not the member makes a purchase. Presence-based loyalty adds those visits to the events a program can recognize. The retailer decides which visits qualify and what they earn.
From visit-based loyalty programs to presence-based rewards
While Panera had moved in the other direction a month before, Circle K’s redesigned Inner Circle counts qualifying purchases as visits. Presence-based rewards extend recognition to the customer who shows up before buying anything.
In September 2026, Circle K’s Inner Circle program — 15 million members, up from about 1.2 million at its mid-2023 rollout — switched to what its parent company calls a visit-based model. Members earn one Visit for a qualifying fuel purchase of at least five gallons or an eligible in-store purchase of at least three dollars. 5 visits buys a Polar Pop or snack, 10 a coffee, 25 visits up to a dollar off per gallon. The reasoning, from Circle K’s VP of loyalty Rick Rasor: members “told us loyalty programs shouldn’t feel like one more thing to manage,” so the redesigned program rewards “the stops they’re already making.”
The appeal is easy to understand. Members can see how a few more stops will bring them closer to a reward.
Weeks earlier, Panera had moved in the other direction, launching a points-per-dollar MyPanera program nationwide on August 19, 2026. The two approaches give members different ways to understand progress. Both still begin with a qualifying purchase.
What presence-based rewards add to the purchase record
The new Inner Circle registers a visit when a member enters a phone number at the pump or register, or scans the app, during a qualifying transaction. No transaction, no visit.
When a member identifies themselves during a qualifying purchase, it tells the retailer something useful. A fuel purchase, however, does not tell the program whether the member also entered the store and browsed without buying. The shopper who leaves empty-handed creates no purchase record; the regular who forgets to identify herself leaves a purchase that the program cannot connect to her membership.
Rewarding a visit directly needs a record the retailer can trust and verify
Reward rules also shape behavior and loyalty gets gamed. Starbucks abandoned per-transaction stars in 2016 partly because customers split single orders into multiple transactions to farm stars, behavior the company said had reached about 1% of all transactions. And when the visit token leaves the register entirely, as with Subway’s paper Sub Club stamps, it gets counterfeited: the program died in 2005 after forged stamps were duplicated at scale and sold on eBay. A visit ledger the operator cannot verify gets gamed. Rewarding a visit directly introduces another requirement: the retailer must be able to verify it. A benefit worth earning is also worth trying to claim without showing up.What presence-based rewards need to work
Earlier approaches to recognizing visits offer three useful lessons about trust, consent, and the cost of delivering a reward.1. Check-ins need verification
Foursquare made check-ins part of the retail experience, then added controls to identify check-ins made away from the venue. Once a visit earns something valuable, pressing a button is not enough. The retailer needs a signal tied to the place where the reward can be earned.Radius can supply a signal and the retailer's application determines membership, eligibility, and rewards.
2. Members need a clear reason to opt in
Location estimates can help retailers understand traffic, but they do not necessarily establish that a particular member entered a particular store. Consent is a separate requirement. In May 2024, the FTC finalized an order barring InMarket from selling or licensing precise location data, following allegations that it collected and used location information without adequately informing consumers.
A loyalty program can make the exchange clear at the start. The member chooses to share presence to receive a stated benefit. The program explains what information it collects, when the feature is active, how it uses the record, and how the member turns the feature off.
Which leads us to the next question any loyalty program manager cares about whether that benefit earns its cost.
3. The reward has to make economic sense and cover its cost
Earlier shopping apps showed that walk-ins could earn rewards without a purchase. For a retailer, the next question is whether the recognition fits its own program and produces enough additional business to cover the reward and the cost of running it. Presence becomes commercially useful when the retailer can decide which visits earn a benefit and test what happens afterward.
These requirements belong together. The retailer needs a verified visit, the member’s permission to use it, and a reward whose cost makes sense for the business. LISNR’s Radius technology supplies a presence signal that retailers can integrate into that design.
How presence-based loyalty works: What you can verify decides what you can reward
That combination of verified presence, inside the merchant’s own program, at a standard that fraud can’t game, is presence-based loyalty. The industry sorts programs by denomination: points-based, spend-based, tier-based, and now visit-based. With presence-based loyalty the retailer can keep its existing points, tiers and purchase rules. Presence-based loyalty adds a verified visit to the events that can earn a benefit. What changes is when the program can recognize the member.
Recognize the member before checkout
The invitation is straightforward. A member opens the retailer’s app, chooses to enable presence-based benefits, and allows the microphone access needed to receive the store’s signal. The retailer can then recognize a visit while the member uses that experience. The value is visible to both sides: the member gets recognition before checkout, and the retailer gets a chance to respond while the member is there.
Rewards run in the merchant's own currency, at earn logic the merchant sets: a verified walk-in can be worth a coffee, a status point, or nothing at all this quarter.
Device presence, account identity, and reward authorization are different parts of this system and these three separate steps turn a presence check-in into a reward:
- Receive the presence signal. A compatible speaker transmits a Radius tone. With microphone access enabled, the member’s app receives and validates the signal in the configured area. This is the device event described as proof of presence.
- Connect it to the member. The retailer’s app links that event to the signed-in loyalty account. The sound signal does not, on its own, establish the identity of the person holding the phone.
- Apply the reward rules. The retailer checks eligibility, previous claims and redemption limits, then awards the benefit or records progress. The program decides whether a pump check-in and an in-store check-in belong to the same visit.
The retailer decides which visits qualify and what they earn. A first recorded in-store check-in after several fuel stops might unlock a coffee. Other visits might add progress toward status. The rules should make clear which events belong to one visit and how often a member can earn the benefit. Those limits keep the cost tied to the behavior the retailer wants to encourage.
A fuel stop can become an In-store visit: From pump to counter, no purchase required
Dana’s morning stop shows how a retailer like you could put this into practice. Let’s assume you are a retailer who has integrated Radius into their app and reward logic, configured the relevant speakers, and validated the locations where recognition works.
Dana is your customer. Dana joined the store’s loyalty program in its app and opted in to presence benefits and allowed the microphone access needed to receive the store’s ultrasonic signal.
Tuesday, 7:40 a.m., she pulls in for fuel and opens the app to use her benefits. A speaker configured for Radius covers the pump area. Her phone receives its ultrasonic signal, and the app connects that presence event to her loyalty account. Visit seven, credited before she lifts the nozzle.
The important moment is recognition before the purchase. The store sees a verified regular on the forecourt for the seventh time.
Dana’s recent app check-ins have all been at the chain’s pumps, with no recorded in-store check-in. The program offers a free coffee to encourage her to come inside.
She walks in, phone in hand, and crossing into the store’s presence zone is itself a recognized event.
The in-store signal is recording that check-in as part of the same visit. She claims the offer in the app and collects her coffee at the counter.
At the counter, the same channel verifies that the member redeeming the coffee is the member standing there.
The signals travel through compatible speakers and the microphone in Dana’s phone. Where suitable speakers are already in place, the retailer can reuse them; other locations may need equipment added. The pump and store coverage are configured and tested separately.
The coffee is the presence-based reward. Dana has a reason to walk into the store, and the retailer has a record of that check-in before asking her to make another purchase. What she does next determines whether the offer earns its place.
How to test whether presence-based rewards earn their cost
The commercial test is whether the reward changes what customers do. With proof of presence and place incrementality becomes measurable for the first time, because verified visits can be tested: hold out a control group of real, counted visits instead of modeled ones, and read the lift.
A free coffee for someone who would have come in anyway is a cost. An offer that brings a fuel customer into the store and leads to another purchase may earn its place. Marketing to the physical store has always run on impressions. Verified presence now gives it the equivalent of the click. And gives you the ability to compare eligible members offered the benefit with a comparable group that is not, measuring subsequent visits, purchases, and margin after reward costs.
Start with eligible, opted-in members whose records resemble Dana’s. Define the group before sending offers, then randomly assign members to receive the coffee offer or continue with the usual program. Compare everyone assigned to each group, including people who do not claim the reward. The two groups need the same measurement setup and observation period.
Decide what the test must show before it starts. Recorded in-store check-ins show whether members used the presence experience inside. Linked purchases, basket value and return purchases show what happened commercially. More check-ins alone are not a sales result: the offer may also have encouraged more people to open the app. Keep account-linked purchase measurement consistent across both groups, and interpret the presence records alongside app use.
Compare the groups’ contribution margin after allowing for the cost of rewards and any additional operating costs. A rollout decision also has to account for integration, equipment, support and ongoing program costs. A revenue projection cannot answer that cost question on its own.
After the offer ends, keep comparing the groups over a defined follow-up period. That helps the you see whether additional purchases continue once the incentive stops.
Loyalty Programs: Why presence-based loyalty deserves a test
A reward can be easy to understand and still fail to change a habit. Member attention, progress toward a benefit, consent and measurement all affect whether presence-based loyalty earns another visit.
Loyalty fatigue is forcing simplification and Members need a clear reason to participate
Members have many programs competing for their attention. Bond’s 2024 Loyalty Report put average membership at 19 loyalty programs. A visit-based benefit gives members a simple action to understand. The experience still has to make opting in and receiving that benefit worth the effort.
Progress toward a reward can encourage another visit
Research using a café reward card found that customers increased purchase frequency as they approached a reward. That gives retailers a reason to test visible progress in a presence-based program. The result still depends on what members value and what the retailer asks them to do.
Behavioral research studied how visit-denominated rewards work on human behavior. The measurement is the part that has been missing.
Regulation closed the passive alternative because consent belongs in the member experience
Consent has to be part of the experience. Recent FTC location-data actions reinforce the need to explain what information is collected and how it will be used. Presence-based loyalty gives the retailer a clear place to make that exchange explicit: when a member chooses the benefits.
In-store measurement standards
Stores are developing a more precise language for measurement. In December 2024, IAB and IAB Europe published in-store retail media standards that distinguish store traffic from presence in an ad’s exposure zone. For retailers that also run media networks, a verified presence event can contribute to that record when combined with the relevant timing and exposure information.
LISNR’s guide to operationalizing the IAB measurement framework discusses the later framework in more detail.
Verified Presence: Putting presence-based rewards into practice
In June 2025, PEM Media announced Nexos. The announcement described using TransMilenio’s existing speakers in Bogotá to deliver offers to opted-in riders through its app. It shows a practical use of the channel: connecting an app user in a particular place with a relevant offer.
For a loyalty program, start with one behavior worth encouraging, such as bringing a fuel customer into the store, and one benefit with a defined cost. Choose a small set of sites where the app and speaker setup can be tested reliably. Agree on the member group, the qualifying check-in and the rule that prevents repeated rewards for the same stop.
Before the offer goes live, assign owners for the app integration, store operations and measurement. Set the test period, comparison group and margin result that would justify expanding it. Then the pilot has a decision to produce, not just check-ins to count.
The next opportunity for your loyalty program is the customer who is already there. Presence-based rewards let you recognize that visit, give the member a reason to take another step, and measure whether the benefit earns its cost.
Frequently asked questions: What’s the difference between visit-based and presence-based loyalty?
In programs such as Circle K’s Inner Circle, a qualifying purchase earns a Visit. Presence-based loyalty can also recognize a verified, opted-in visit before a purchase, including a store visit that ends without a sale. The retailer decides which check-ins qualify and what they earn. Existing points, purchase rewards and tiers can remain in place.