May 11, 2025

Unlocking the Potential of Card-Linked Offers (CLOs) for Your Affiliate Marketing Strategy

By PartnerCentric

Why CLO partners could strengthen your affiliate marketing mix

In today’s fast-paced ecommerce environment, affiliate marketers and brand leaders are constantly searching for new, incremental channels that drive performance and deliver measurable ROI. Whether you’re optimizing a mature affiliate marketing program or building one from scratch, diversification is key. 

The new twist? Card-linked offers (CLOs) have quickly emerged as one of the most intriguing, yet misunderstood, players in this space.

Once reserved for loyalty-first strategies and banking app experiences, CLOs are now getting the attention of savvy affiliate marketing program managers who want to reach customers in more seamless and integrated ways. But, are they the right fit for your program?

Here, we explore what CLO partners are, how they function, and weigh the pros and cons so you can make an informed decision. (Spoiler alert: Our team worked with a globally recognized fashion brand and helped them achieve a 25x ROAS from their first collaboration with a prominent CLO partner. Find the secret sauce below!)

What Are Card-Linked Offers?

Card-linked offers are a type of affiliate marketing tactic where a shopper links a debit or credit card to a loyalty or cashback program, and discounts or rewards are automatically triggered when they make qualifying purchases with that card.

Once a shopper opts into a program—whether through a bank, an airline rewards platform, or a dedicated loyalty app—they’ll see offers from partner brands. When they shop using their enrolled card, the discount is automatically applied, and the transaction is logged and attributed through the CLO network.

How CLOs Differ from Other Affiliate Marketing Tactics

Unlike traditional affiliate marketing, where users typically have to click a tracked link, enter a coupon code, or interact with a piece of content to trigger attribution, CLOs require no such action at checkout. Once a user links their card to a loyalty or rewards platform, the offer is activated automatically when they use that card to make a qualifying purchase—online or in-store.

This “invisible” mechanism removes friction from the customer experience. There’s no need to remember promo codes or navigate through affiliate links. For the end user, it feels seamless—rewards just happen.

Because of this, CLOs behave more like loyalty marketing than traditional affiliate advertising. They’re embedded into platforms consumers already use and operate passively in the background. Offers are “always on,” providing constant visibility and a persistent incentive to purchase without requiring ongoing user engagement.

This low-friction model also creates a distinct advantage in offline and omnichannel environments where traditional digital tracking often struggles. For example, if a customer sees an offer in their banking app and then visits your physical store to make a purchase, that sale can still be captured and attributed through the CLO system—something most affiliate models simply can’t do.

In short, CLOs offer a fundamentally different user experience and tracking mechanism—one that prioritizes convenience and cross-channel reach over direct click-based engagement.

Digging Deeper: How CLO Partners Work

Understanding the CLO mechanism is critical to deciding if they belong in your affiliate marketing strategy.

The Process

Benefits of Adding CLO Partners to Your Affiliate Marketing Program

There are a number of benefits of adding CLO partners to your affiliate marketing program. The following represent four of the most advantageous.

1) Access to High-Intent Shoppers

As mentioned, CLO partners often work with banking apps, travel platforms, or high-trust loyalty ecosystems. These are places consumers visit with purchasing intent—making CLO placements a high-value opportunity to drive conversion from a qualified audience.

2) Always-On Visibility

Because offers are passively shown within apps and triggered by card usage, brands don’t have to rely on clicks or site visits to drive conversions. Your offer is embedded where people bank or track points—resulting in evergreen exposure with minimal upkeep.

3) Offline and Omnichannel Reach

CLOs are one of the few affiliate methods that bridge online and in-store performance seamlessly. For brands with brick-and-mortar presence or complex customer journeys, CLOs enable trackable in-store attribution without clunky coupon systems or loyalty cards.

4) Incremental Reach Beyond Traditional Affiliates

These partners sit outside the usual affiliate marketing ecosystem (think content sites, coupon platforms, influencer marketing). This gives brands access to new customer segments and shopping behaviors.

Drawbacks and Unique Considerations of CLOs

While CLOs offer a range of benefits, they’re not without challenges. For some brands, those limitations are significant.

1) Tracking Transparency Is a Major Hurdle

One of the biggest concerns brands face is a lack of visibility into performance data. CLO networks typically operate as a black box. Brands get aggregate reporting, but little detail about customer journey, overlap with other channels, or even the exact offer engagement.

This opacity creates doubt. Brands often question:

For this reason, some brands avoid CLOs entirely—despite their potential. (Stay tuned: We’re launching a new tool that helps uncover the real value CLO partners drive, bringing much-needed transparency to this opaque space.)

2) Limited Creative and Messaging Control

Unlike content or influencer partners where brands can shape the messaging, CLO partners typically only allow a few lines of copy and a basic offer display. This limits storytelling opportunities and brand positioning in a critical conversion space.

3) Attribution Challenges

Because CLO transactions are tied to card activity, they often overlap with other touchpoints like paid search, organic, or email. Without granular tracking, it’s hard to tell where credit should be assigned—leading to messy attribution models and potential channel cannibalization.

4) Not Ideal for Every Vertical

CLOs work best for consumer goods, dining, fashion, and lifestyle brands. B2B companies or subscription-based services may find that CLO networks aren’t designed to support their longer sales cycles or specialized targeting.

Should You Add CLO Partners to Your Affiliate Marketing Mix?

So, should you consider adding CLO partners to your affiliate marketing mix? The answer depends on your business goals, customer profile, and existing affiliate maturity. CLOs may be a good fit if:

If you test CLOs, start small and track closely. It’s essential to monitor the following.

And, most importantly—insist on transparency. Ask tough questions about data sharing and campaign reporting. As industry tools evolve, you’ll soon have more options to hold CLO partners accountable to performance standards.

Case in Point: A CLO Success Story

The above-mentioned company PartnerCentric worked with was a globally recognized (and woman-led) fashion brand that had the goal of better understanding attribution in their affiliate marketing program—specifically regarding CLOs. 

While CLOs offer access to high-intent shoppers through financial institutions, the brand was concerned about the lack of transparency in attribution due to missing order-level data, making it difficult to determine incrementality.

To address this, our team recommended a cautious test-and-learn approach. Initial small-scale tests yielded promising results, prompting a larger campaign with a major CLO partner known for privacy-friendly analytics. Thanks to our strong relationship with the partner, the brand secured a $50K test campaign (a significant reduction from the standard $100K+ minimum).

Over six weeks, the campaign delivered strong performance:

Bottom Line: CLOs Are Here to Stay. Will You Buy In?

Card-linked offers are more than just a trendy affiliate marketing channel—they’re a legitimate performance lever that taps into consumer loyalty behaviors and mobile-first spending habits. But like any affiliate strategy, they require scrutiny.

On one hand, CLOs offer unmatched ease for the shopper, great reach for brands, and unique omnichannel attribution. On the other, they come with tracking limitations, limited creative control, and potential channel overlap that may leave marketers skeptical.

For brands that want to stay ahead, the real opportunity lies in testing smart, demanding transparency, and using the right tools to uncover CLO impact beyond the surface-level reports.

Want help evaluating CLOs for your affiliate marketing program?

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