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The Hidden Economics of Loyalty

Wiser Perspectives Interview Series with Kyros Insights and Len Llaguno

This Wiser Perspectives interview features Len Llaguno, CEO & Founder, Kyros Insights. Kyros Insights is the world’s only actuarial firm dedicated exclusively to loyalty programs, and Len is one of the industry’s most trusted sources of information on managing loyalty program liability.

Len has spent more than a decade helping some of the biggest loyalty programs in travel, hospitality, and retail translate their programs into terms that C-suite leadership can trust, centering on measures like customer lifetime value, breakage, redemption cost, and program liability.

KYROS Insights just released a new report, ‘The Hidden Economics of Loyalty: 2026 Trends from High-Performing Loyalty Programs’, and that is our topic for today.

The core premise of the report is compelling:

  • Loyalty programs ultimately trade margin for volume
  • Loyalty programs are facing a new level of financial pressure
  • Most loyalty programs can report engagement, but very few can answer the toughest questions from finance

In this discussion, Len and Bill talk about the “Basic Principles of Incrementality,” how value is created in customer loyalty, and give you a big head start on answering that pesky question from the CFO: “how much incremental value is this program creating?”

We also uncover why loyalty programs often track engagement but can’t explain incremental value and thoroughly dissect Customer Lifetime Value and the optimal way to calculate it in your organization.

To learn more, please be sure to register for the webinar from Kyros Insights, Measure What Matters: How to Prove Your Loyalty Program’s Incremental Value Before Your CFO Asks.

The webinar takes place Sep 24, 2026, at 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada), and you can register here.

Time Stamps for the Time-Starved

  • 1:21 Introducing Len Llaguno
  • 2:21 The Hidden Economics of Loyalty 2026
  • 6:08 Engagement versus Incrementality
  • 10:01 Defining Customer Lifetime Value
  • 12:01 How to Explain Loyalty to the C-Suite
  • 14:31 How to Calculate a Redemption Rate
  • 17:31 How to Correctly Reserve for Program Liability
  • 21:06 How Marketers Can Use the Hidden Economics of Loyalty
  • 23:26 Four Key Inflection Points
  • 29:01 Trends in Loyalty Economics
  • 31:31 The Hidden Economics Webinar