Untangling the Mystery of Everyday Rewards Offers

[kangarooflyer88]

Hello again,

A couple of months ago I ran into an issue with my Everyday Rewards (EDR) points bonus offers not posting to my account. I called the EDR customer support team and thankfully got through in under an hour (the same cannot be said of other Australian businesses in the loyalty game). Anyway, we went through the usual back-and-forth confirming my name and other details for security and then the agent asked me an interesting question: "Can you tell me the CVM number on the offer?" Having not a clue what he was talking about I asked where I could find that and he said look at the bottom of the offer email. I did and found the CVM number:

I did not press the agent further on this new EDR specific thing I discovered but when I started looking back at my prior EDR offers I noticed at the bottom of every email there was a three character value followed by a four digit number which uniquely identified the offer. Don't believe me? Go look at the bottom of your latest EDR offer and see if you find one. So now the next thing to consider is what does that number mean? On the one hand it seems pretty clear that these EDR targeted offers are likely not randomly generated by a computer system, but instead there likely exists a large number of EDR offers and the computer system simply assigns these pre-defined offers to their customers based on a number of factors. The next thing to consider is what do these "CVM" numbers tell us about the quality of the offer or how we should pursue our shopping strategy at Woolies, Big W and others to maximize our bonus points earning opportunity? From my preliminary analysis, I couldn't find any red flag from these codes, they all appear to be "random" to me. Perhaps we should start collecting the CVM numbers and offers to see if any pattern emerges?

Anyway, I think I'll take off my tin foil hat for now, but would appreciate member's thoughts on what these codes mean and how we could use them to our advantage!

-RooFlyer88

 

[RAM]

Hello again,

A couple of months ago I ran into an issue with my Everyday Rewards (EDR) points bonus offers not posting to my account. I called the EDR customer support team and thankfully got through in under an hour (the same cannot be said of other Australian businesses in the loyalty game). Anyway, we went through the usual back-and-forth confirming my name and other details for security and then the agent asked me an interesting question: "Can you tell me the CVM number on the offer?" Having not a clue what he was talking about I asked where I could find that and he said look at the bottom of the offer email. I did and found the CVM number:
View attachment 270565
I did not press the agent further on this new EDR specific thing I discovered but when I started looking back at my prior EDR offers I noticed at the bottom of every email there was a three character value followed by a four digit number which uniquely identified the offer. Don't believe me? Go look at the bottom of your latest EDR offer and see if you find one. So now the next thing to consider is what does that number mean? On the one hand it seems pretty clear that these EDR targeted offers are likely not randomly generated by a computer system, but instead there likely exists a large number of EDR offers and the computer system simply assigns these pre-defined offers to their customers based on a number of factors. The next thing to consider is what do these "CVM" numbers tell us about the quality of the offer or how we should pursue our shopping strategy at Woolies, Big W and others to maximize our bonus points earning opportunity? From my preliminary analysis, I couldn't find any red flag from these codes, they all appear to be "random" to me. Perhaps we should start collecting the CVM numbers and offers to see if any pattern emerges?

Anyway, I think I'll take off my tin foil hat for now, but would appreciate member's thoughts on what these codes mean and how we could use them to our advantage!

-RooFlyer88

I suspect (strongly) but do not know that the first two letters stand for Customer Value(Valuation?) and the third possibly is Margin or something to that effect.

 

[PineappleSkip]

I see all these identifiers are preceded by

Campaign code:

I see from the few of these campaign codes I can look at that the WW product offers start with C, usually CAT, the BWS offer codes start with B, and BigW start with W. One exception to CAT was my last “spend $xx in a week and earn yy bonus points” which was CVM-3525.

WoW themselves have said the offers are customer targeted, and there seems to be two WW categories, the CVM one based on spend and the CAT ones being whatever promo campaigns they have that week. The CATs are either product specific boosters or general around a general category.

My reckoning is that CVM is either customer value maximisation, or customer value management; both are standard marketing terms and mean similar things. All these offers appear to be based on past shopping history. The CAT offers all appear to be based on product categories; both the individual product boosters and the “xx times points on <category zz>”. The CVM offers appear to be based on spend history plus a bit more, so customer spend specific.

I’d guess that CAT offers are simply product (categories), they’re quite specific usually pegged to a single barcode. Be interesting to see if there is any match there.

I have another proposition for you, the value of a booster is related to the margin on the product. I’ve noticed that a booster tends to be on a full price item, and a likely correlation between the largest value boosters on products which have the biggest markdowns in other weeks, suggesting that product has a pretty big margin when not marked down.

cheers skip

 

[moa999]

The CAT codes are definitely to get you to rebuy a product that you've previously purchased, or a competing product.

You also rarely get a CAT code when a product is on sale, and quite often when a competitor is.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Some more data points to share in unraveling this mystery:

• RNL-5164 - Spend $100 in one week (one or more shops) at Woolies direct to boot or delivery to get 3000 bonus points
• CVM-0106 - Spend $70 each week for 2 weeks at Woolies to get 4000 bonus points
• MOB-4935 - Collect up to 3500 points for using Scan & Go three times at Woolies
• BCV-3618 - Spend $40 at BWS get 2000 bonus points
• CVM-0056 - Spend $30 in week 1 to collect 1000 points, $40 in week 2 to collect 2000 points and $50 in week 3 to collect 3000 points at Woolies
• CVM-0106 - Spend $100 each week for two weeks at Woolies to pocket 4500 points
• CVM-0108 - Spend $105 each week for four weeks at Woolies to pocket 10,000 points
• SER-2301 - Pocket 2500 bonus EDR points when you take out a qualifying Woolies Pet Insurance policy
• WCV-5342 - Collect 5x bonus points at Big-W

What's interesting is not all Woolies offers fall into CAT or CVM, we're also seeing RNL (retention? regional?) and MOB (Mobile Shop) offer codes. Based on what I'm seeing from the codes I think PineappleSkip is correct that the first three characters indicates the type of offer (e.g. BWS, Woolies Category offer, Woolies Mobile Shop offer, etc.), with the remaining four digits indicating the specific offer for that category.

I should also point out that I received CVM-0056 twice during the year once around May and again in July which suggests that Woolies likely has a large but finite set of offers they provide to customers and which one they offer to customers is likely dependent on factors such as when you last shopped there, what offers you previously activated, whether you were successful in achieving the last booster, etc.

-RooFlyer88

 

[Saab34]

How many BOOST offers does everyone get?

I seem to be getting a lot of these ‘boost offers’ for things I one off purchased (namely due supply delays on other out of stock items) weeks or months ago and have not re purchased.

Currently have about 8 of these however I don’t intend of purchasing as they were just substitutions. I note I never get bonus point offers for things I regularly buy, now if I stop buying something for a few weeks they pop up as ‘boost’ bonus points. They must think I’ve gone to Aldi or somewhere else to buy this regular item.

 

[drron]

Most of mine are for things I buy regularly and often at full price. For 3 of the last 4 weeks I have had a booster for Sunwhite rice 450 gm packets. I buy at least 1 every week for the curries I take to work every day.
On the other hand there are things I usually only buy on special and when they come up as a booster it is always at full price.

Still a lot better than Flybuys where the bonus offers I get are for things I have never bought and don't want to buy.

 

[PineappleSkip]

Most of mine are for things I buy regularly and often at full price.

+1. And always 8 boosters a week.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

How many BOOST offers does everyone get?

I seem to be getting a lot of these ‘boost offers’ for things I one off purchased (namely due supply delays on other out of stock items) weeks or months ago and have not re purchased.

Currently have about 8 of these however I don’t intend of purchasing as they were just substitutions. I note I never get bonus point offers for things I regularly buy, now if I stop buying something for a few weeks they pop up as ‘boost’ bonus points. They must think I’ve gone to Aldi or somewhere else to buy this regular item.

From time to time I get those booster offers for specific products and occasionally for specific product categories like fresh produce. I tend to agree with you that these seems to be centred around items you have bought in the past. Indeed, looking at the prior product specific boosters I received they were all items in my quick reorder list on Woolies. What I do find interesting is the offer code has always been the same OSP-2373. I'm not sure if that's because it's one of a large set of "customized" boosters they offer customers, or if it's just a generic code they use for these types of promotions. Further investigation is necessary to tease that out.

Indeed, one open question is what do those 4 digit numbers that follow the three letter code mean? Are they just some serialized number that's used to track specific promotions for a given Everyday Rewards promotion category? Or is there inherent meaning behind the codes? For instance, maybe the first digit in the code indicates the value of the cash back (e.g. 5% versus 20%). Maybe the second number represents the validity of the offer (e.g. weekly, 3 day, 1 month, etc.) Again, it's all wild speculation, and maybe there is no meaning in any of the numbers (even if there appears to be meaning in the three characters the offer code starts with).

-RooFlyer88

 

[Captain Halliday]

What I do find interesting is the offer code has always been the same OSP-2373

one open question is what do those 4 digit numbers that follow the three letter code mean?

That’s an easy one.

When they are ready to release an offer they phone the QF call centre. Whatever the wait time is they convert to minutes and that becomes the four digit code.

 

[sqrt()]

Have people had luck getting bonus points from boosters after purchasing gift cards (wish/eftpos etc)? I have been fine in the past, but when I messaged support after not getting a 2700 bonus for $100 spend where I bought a gift card, the agent said they were not eligible to contribute to the bonus, and their IT dept. had "fixed" the issue where bonuses could be earned buying gift cards.

I know gift cards don't earn regular EW points but in my experience still contributed to bonus spend... She did give me 2000 points as a consolation but kind of annoying...

 

[MooTime]

I find it hilarious that some think they can crack some sort of EDR WW codes for shopping..... Really you get what offers they offer you. By understanding the code or not means diddly.

I've seen the codes at end of offer email for long time, well before have had to use them to operator when been an issue. Should read the full T&C's at least occasionally.

If you knew what the code translated into, hang on, you/we do, it means what's in large print at very top of the offer.. spend this blah blah.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

I find it hilarious that some think they can crack some sort of EDR WW codes for shopping..... Really you get what offers they offer you. By understanding the code or not means diddly.

I've seen the codes at end of offer email for long time, well before have had to use them to operator when been an issue. Should read the full T&C's at least occasionally.

If you knew what the code translated into, hang on, you/we do, it means what's in large print at very top of the offer.. spend this blah blah.

I'm under the impression Everyday Rewards and Flybuys offers operate under the matrix in the sense that the outcomes are pre-ordained and the only say we have in them is which outcome we choose (i.e. taking the red pill versus the blue pill). It's my hope in this thread to try and pick this apart to figure out how we can take the red pill with these programs.

-RooFlyer88

 

[oz_mark]

I don't think the digits have any intrinsic meaning - they are just a unique identifier to look the promotion up.

 

[RAM]

I find it hilarious that some think they can crack some sort of EDR WW codes for shopping..... Really you get what offers they offer you. By understanding the code or not means diddly.

I've seen the codes at end of offer email for long time, well before have had to use them to operator when been an issue. Should read the full T&C's at least occasionally.

If you knew what the code translated into, hang on, you/we do, it means what's in large print at very top of the offer.. spend this blah blah.

That's what makes some successful and others sheep. Accepting you cannot influence an outcome is inevitable just plays into the hands of a developer/company/Govt etc - 'There's nothing I can do.'

All rewards schemes operate using some type of algorithm.

If you can work out what components are used in an algorithm then you can indeed 'manage' the outcome. For example:

• What triggers an increase in the spending hurdle offered?
• How much spend above the prevous hurdle is required to 'up' the next requirement?
• Is it a single 'over' spend or a coughulative over-spend for a 7 day (or longer) period?

Perhaps that's why some harvest 250,000 to 300,000 FB points per year on a spend of $5,000 or so - and others don't.

 

[MooTime]

That's what makes some successful and others sheep. Accepting you cannot influence an outcome is inevitable just plays into the hands of a developer/company/Govt etc - 'There's nothing I can do.'

All rewards schemes operate using some type of algorithm.

If you can work out what components are used in an algorithm then you can indeed 'manage' the outcome. For example:

• What triggers an increase in the spending hurdle offered?
• How much spend above the prevous hurdle is required to 'up' the next requirement?
• Is it a single 'over' spend or a coughulative over-spend for a 7 day (or longer) period?

Perhaps that's why some harvest 250,000 to 300,000 FB points per year on a spend of $5,000 or so - and others don't.

Ah...... We're talking about an offer code in an email that we have already received.

Your on another tangent.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

That's what makes some successful and others sheep. Accepting you cannot influence an outcome is inevitable just plays into the hands of a developer/company/Govt etc - 'There's nothing I can do.'

All rewards schemes operate using some type of algorithm.

If you can work out what components are used in an algorithm then you can indeed 'manage' the outcome. For example:

• What triggers an increase in the spending hurdle offered?
• How much spend above the prevous hurdle is required to 'up' the next requirement?
• Is it a single 'over' spend or a coughulative over-spend for a 7 day (or longer) period?

Perhaps that's why some harvest 250,000 to 300,000 FB points per year on a spend of $5,000 or so - and others don't.

That's my thoughts as well. There have been times where I would shop exclusively at Coles and receive very lucrative offers from EDR like spend $30 in a week earn 1,000 bonus points, $40 in week 2 earn 2,000 bonus points, and $50 in week 3 to earn 3,000 bonus points. Whilst it's clear the offers aren't truly personalized, which ones they target to customers does appear to be influenced by several factors. As someone who, in a prior life was a software developer, it was not uncommon to encode some of the logic of the algorithm into easily observable things like codes for debugging. Determining whether these factors are somehow encoded in these codes at the bottom of emails could help us shed a light on how Woolies profiles customers to target these offers.

-RooFlyer88

 

[RAM]

Ah...... We're talking about an offer code in an email that we have already received.

Your on another tangent.

Not quite.

Tracking the offer codes also reveals information....

Especially where some family members insist on having their own separate accounts. Then you get to compare codes vs offers for the same time period....

Not so simple grasshopper.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Technically if we had semi-anonymized shopping patterns along with the offer codes everyone received, we could do a regression analysis to determine which hypothesized factors influence each type of offer. One open question that I don't think has been answered is whether an offer code represents the same offer for everyone? My hunch is to say yes, since I doubt Woolies or Coles has the technology to do hyper-personalized offers, but that remains to be verified. Certainly if we are seeing different members posting the same offer and offer code we can have some certainty that the matrix is finite, and therefore we can shape our destiny within the confines of the system.

-RooFlyer88

 

[Jean Prouvaire]

One open question that I don't think has been answered is whether an offer code represents the same offer for everyone?

CVM-0108 - Spend $105 each week for four weeks at Woolies to pocket 10,000 points

In my case, CVM-0108 is spend $115 (not $105) for 4 weeks for 10K EDR points. So similar, but not identical.

Codes starting with "CVM-" appear to be "spend $X per week for Y weeks to collect Z points", as per the above, or CVM-007 for (in my case) $60 per week for 2 weeks to collect 600 points.

In my case I did not take up the measly 600 points for $60 x 2 weeks (although I may have activated the offer by clicking on it - can't recall), but got the more appealing 10,000 points for $115 x 4 weeks straight after.

Codes starting with "CAT-" appear to be "collect 5x [or 10x] points" on selected products - ie normal point value based on $$ spend, but multiplied by 5 or 10.

Codes starting with "OSP-" appear to be "collect xx_ points" on selected products - ie get 50, 80, 100, 120, 250 or whatever points per product purchased.

Codes starting with "ENG-" and "ONL-" appear to be messages without offers (eg supply updates in light of floods or Covid).