In today’s competitive payments landscape, businesses with card products face a persistent challenge: how to keep customers engaged, ensure their card remains top-of-wallet, and drive meaningful spend shift. With an abundance of card options and evolving consumer expectations, traditional rewards programs alone aren’t always enough to create lasting loyalty.

The challenge: keeping cardholders engaged

Card issuers and fintechs invest heavily in acquisition strategies, but sustaining engagement beyond the initial activation remains a consistent challenge. Many consumers sign up for a new card based on introductory incentives, yet their spending behavior often reverts to established habits, making it difficult to maintain long-term preference. Meanwhile, card-linked offers and cash-back programs have become table stakes, meaning issuers need to innovate in how they deliver value to cardholders.

The opportunity: shifting spend through smarter incentives

To capture a greater share of customer spend, businesses need to go beyond traditional rewards and focus on dynamic, personalized engagement strategies. Some of the most effective tactics include:

• Personalized retailer offers: Providing targeted incentives based on individual spending habits to drive ongoing usage. Consumers are more likely to engage with offers that provide tangible savings in everyday spend categories, rather than static, one-size-fits-all rewards.
• High-frequency everyday spend categories: Rewarding purchases at gas stations, grocery stores, and restaurants—where consumers spend most frequently—drives sustained engagement. Unlike static offers at retailers with lower purchase frequency, these essential categories keep users returning and actively engaging with their cards.
• Strategic partnerships: Collaborating with third-party platforms to expand value propositions without increasing operational burden. Partnerships that leverage real-world transaction data can offer more compelling incentives than traditional card-linked offers, ensuring greater engagement and stronger spend shift.

How the Marqeta-Upside partnership unlocks growth

One of the most impactful ways card issuers can improve engagement and drive spend shift is by integrating with platforms that bring added value to their users. Through the new Marqeta-Upside partnership, Marqeta’s customers can now leverage Upside’s always-on cash-back offers in their card programs, helping them drive more transactions, increase retention and engagement, and strengthen their top-of-wallet positioning.

With Marqeta serving as the issuer processor for some of today’s most innovative companies and processing $300 billion in payments annually, this partnership unlocks significant opportunities for businesses looking to differentiate their card products. The Marqeta-Upside integration delivers several key advantages by reducing onboarding and integration time across account creation and card management while also enabling seamless transaction reconciliation, improving transaction tracking and processing.

What this means for retailers

Upside’s growing network of partnerships helps expand retailers’ reach by putting their business in front of consumers in more digital spaces - places like banking apps and rideshare driver apps. This increased visibility means more consumers seeing and engaging with personalized cash-back offers at grocery stores, gas stations, c-stores, restaurants, and hardware stores, ultimately driving more incremental sales to retailers in the Upside marketplace.

The bottom line

In a crowded market, standing out requires more than just a strong sign-up bonus or a static rewards structure. Card issuers and fintechs that leverage smart, data-driven partnerships can create ongoing value for their customers, ensuring stronger engagement, increased top-of-wallet positioning, and sustained spend shift.

With the Marqeta-Upside integration, businesses can now offer their users higher-value, personalized rewards without a heavy technical lift, driving long-term engagement and card preference. To learn more about how this partnership can transform your card program, visit upside.com/partnerships.