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Promotional offers and loyalty programs are increasingly targeted by fraudsters, and tactics like fake accounts, bot-driven redemptions, referral exploitation, and loyalty point fraud drain marketing budgets, distort campaign performance, and erode customer trust.
Fraud from promotion and loyalty abuse is projected to rise from 31% to 42% of total fraud in the next two years, a 35% increase. Manual-heavy workflows remain the norm, with 79% of organizations citing high labor costs and 96% of loyalty or referral cases still requiring manual review. At the same time, only 20% of organizations enforce promo code restrictions automatically, leaving wide gaps for exploitation.
The priority has shifted. Promotions can drive growth, but unchecked abuse turns them into a liability. Protecting campaigns is now essential to preserving profit and customer trust.
The 2025 Link Index for Promotion and Loyalty Abuse gives finance, marketing, and fraud leaders a clear view of who is solving the real problems. We evaluated leading vendors against buyer criteria such as analytical capabilities, data quality, scalability, and integration. From that review, the strongest vendors stood out for their ability to combine identity verification, AI-driven abuse detection, automated enforcement, and real-time monitoring into unified platforms.
Key Takeways:
- Manual review drives cost and delay: 79% of organizations report high labor costs, and 96% of loyalty or referral abuse cases still require manual review.
- Weak controls at enrollment and redemption:67% of practitioners cite ease of account creation, and 63% point to minimal checks at redemption as primary drivers of abuse.
- Fragmented systems limit efficiency: Loyalty management platforms (67%), CRM systems (63%), and CDPs (46%) create silos that slow detection and weaken prevention.
- Fraud share is climbing: Promo and loyalty abuse is projected to rise from 31% of total fraud to 42% in the next two years, a 35% increase.
- New defenses are gaining ground: AI adoption is expanding, with 58% of organizations already using it and 25% evaluating. Automated enforcement of promo restrictions is expected to accelerate.
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