Why use mobile wallet marketingfor your business?

What is mobile wallet marketing?

Mobile wallet marketing means using the digital wallet built into every smartphone (Apple Wallet or Google Wallet) as a communication and loyalty channel. You send cards, offers, and notifications straight to it, with no app to build and none for your customers to install.

The way it works is simple.

Your customer adds a card or digital ticket to their phone. From then on, you stay in control: you can update it and send messages whenever it suits you.

According to the 2026 Digital Barometer run by Arcep (France's telecom regulator), 91% of people in France aged 12 and older own a smartphone, and every one comes with Apple Wallet or Google Wallet built in. And according to the Banque de France (France's central bank), mobile payments grew 54% in volume in the latest year measured. They now account for up to 15% of in-store card payments.

Your customers already pull out their phone to show a digital card instead of a plastic one. That is what sets mobile wallet marketing apart from other digital channels:

• You require no app installs
• You take up space on a screen your customers check dozens of times a day
• You are always in your customers' pocket

What is the difference between a mobile wallet and mobile wallet marketing?

It comes down to point of view. A mobile wallet is the tool as the end user sees it. Mobile wallet marketing is the same tool as the business sees it.

A mobile wallet is the digital wallet app already installed on your customers' phones: Apple Wallet on iPhone and Google Wallet on Android. Your customers store their boarding passes, tickets, and loyalty cards there. It is a natural, everyday habit that exists without any effort on your part.

Mobile wallet marketing is how your business uses that same channel to build customer loyalty.

Issue a loyalty card, send a location-based notification, re-engage customers with an offer, bring a customer back to your store. The tool is the same, but here it becomes a way to reach your business goals.

In short, the mobile wallet is already in your customers' pocket. Mobile wallet marketing is what you do with it to build loyalty or improve their experience.

How does mobile wallet marketing work?

Mobile wallet marketing is quick to set up and requires no development on your end. Here are the 6 steps to add a digital loyalty card to Apple Wallet and Google Wallet.

1. First, you connect your mobile wallet marketing platform to your POS, CRM, or loyalty tool.
2. You create a digital card, ticket, or coupon from a dedicated platform like eldo wallet.
3. Your customer then adds the new pass to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet with a simple link, a QR code, or a button.
4. Once added, the pass is available on the smartphone at all times, even offline.
5. At any time, you update the information remotely, such as the points balance, schedules, status, or card design, from your business software.
6. Best of all, you send notifications tied to the pass, which appear right on the lock screen.

Once the pass is in the phone, you have a dynamic touchpoint you can reactivate whenever you want.

What can you create with mobile wallet marketing?

Almost everything your customers carry in their pocket, whether plastic or paper, can move into the wallet. Each physical item has a digital equivalent that updates, sends notifications, and never gets lost at the bottom of a bag.

• Digital loyalty card: balance and status updated in real time.
• Digital membership card: for clubs, associations, and subscription programs.
• Coupon: scanned at checkout, then removed automatically after use.
• Gift card: reloadable, with no physical card to produce.
• Ticket: transit, shows, or events, with a QR code for validation.
• Badge: access to a gym, an office, or a coworking space.
• Booking: confirmation, date, and practical info in a single pass.
• Warranty card: kept in the phone as proof of purchase.
• Invitation and event pass: entry and schedule together for a trade show or conference.

What are the benefits of wallet passes for your business?

To sum up, the wallet combines four strengths:

• Frictionless acquisition
• Communication that actually gets read
• Data that is always up to date
• A channel your customers already carry

Here are seven concrete benefits.

No app to download

The most underrated benefit is removing the download barrier.

No install, no password, no account to create: your customer adds their card with one tap or by scanning a QR code.

This is critical when you look at what happens to apps once they are installed. According to Business of Apps, more than 90% of users abandon an app before day 30.

By the next day, average retention is already down to 21.1% on Android and 23.9% on iOS, before collapsing to 2.1% and 3.7% after thirty days.

The wallet avoids this friction because it is already on the phone, built in.

It is one of the reasons our customer Corsica Ferries recently rolled out eldo wallet.

The company's passenger app wasn't effective enough and had high churn.

The wallet lets Corsica Ferries passengers go digital with their tickets while reducing that friction. In just 3 months, more than 442,000 tickets were issued.

Always in your customers' pocket

With wallet cards, your messages land on a screen your customers check all day.

The pass lives in the phone and your notifications appear on the lock screen, where no one can miss them.

Yet they are less intrusive than traditional marketing, because the customer chose to add your card.

The message arrives in a context they expect, and you stay present without coming across as pushy.

Real-time updates

A paper card or a PDF stays frozen once it is printed, but a wallet card updates remotely and instantly.

• Points balance
• Schedule
• Customer status
• New design for a private sale

You can change everything without reissuing the card, so the information shown is always accurate.

Push notifications and geofencing

You can send a location-based wallet push notification as soon as a customer gets near your store. For retail, geofencing makes the wallet a powerful tool for driving foot traffic and revenue.

A better alternative to email marketing

The wallet gets higher read rates than email marketing.

Pass notifications appear directly on screen, while email gets filtered, sorted, and often buried.

The wallet sidesteps spam filters and inbox algorithms that decide for you whether your message deserves to be seen.

How does it compare with other channels?

To see where the wallet fits, compare it with the channels you already use: the ones it replaces, extends, or complements.

• SMS marketing: high read rates, but you pay for every send and it never updates. A pass does.
• Mobile app: feature-rich, but costly and held back by the download. The wallet is already there.
• Paper loyalty card: tangible, but static, easily lost, and silent when it comes to data.
• Paper coupon: easy to hand out, but untraceable and impossible to change.
• Ads (TikTok, Meta, Google): powerful for acquisition, but rented. Stop paying and your visibility drops. You own the wallet.

Wallet passes are a strong alternative to traditional marketing channels. They outperform conventional retention channels and extend your acquisition campaigns by turning a paid click into a lasting relationship, right inside the phone.

A connection to your business tools

The wallet plugs into your CRM, your ERP, your POS system, and your loyalty tools.

This connection automates updates. A purchase recorded at checkout credits points directly to the wallet card, with no manual steps. You save time and keep customer data reliable instead of re-entering it.

Read our dedicated guide to connecting your wallet passes to your business software.

Performance tracking with KPIs

The last benefit is analytics and reporting.

You measure every step, from distribution to activation. The key metrics to watch include:

• The number of cards issued and the wallet add rate
• The activation rate in the first few weeks
• The click-through rate on push notifications
• The pass retention rate over time
• In-store conversions attributed to the wallet (visits, average basket size, coupon use)

5 winning wallet marketing strategies for businesses

Retail and store chains: bring more people into your stores

Retail is one of the main examples of mobile wallet marketing strategies.

Digitize your loyalty card, add it to your customers' wallets, and trigger location-based notifications as soon as a customer gets near one of your stores. The push brings the customer back to the store, increasing foot traffic and generating revenue.

Passenger transportation: make tickets dynamic and impossible to lose

Take Corsica Ferries. The ferry giant puts its tickets in the wallet as digital passes to cut queues and keep a contact channel open during the trip.

The back of the ticket updates with schedules, docks, and delays, and each alert goes out as a notification. It also saves a lot of time at ticket checks.

Within the first month, we estimated that their teams had saved 70 hours once lost to passengers searching for their tickets. For customers, that means just as much time not spent waiting in line.

Software vendors: add a wallet module to your offering to generate revenue

If you are a CRM, ERP, or POS vendor, you can integrate the wallet module through the API and offer your own customers ready-to-use features, such as post-purchase follow-ups or Google review requests.

Associations and federations: strengthen the sense of belonging

That is what our customer Mobilité Club France did. It digitized its membership cards to stay in touch with its members, build a true digital loyalty program, and meet the expectations of younger generations.

Ticketing and events: the pass on the lock screen

Replace paper tickets and check-in apps with a single wallet pass that holds everything you need to run your event smoothly. For example, direct scanning at the entrance, schedule reminders, and post-event offers sent as notifications.

How do you choose the right wallet platform for your business?

Apple and Google Wallet compatibility

To choose the right wallet pass platform for your business, pick one that works with both Apple Wallet and Google Wallet, with no app to build. This is the criterion that drives all the others.

If the card can only be added to one of them, you risk losing nearly half of your users and customers. So check that the platform you choose works with both Google (for Android) and Apple (for iPhone).

Business fit

Mobile wallet marketing is not a silver bullet. It only makes sense if you deploy it to solve a specific problem, and after checking that it is truly relevant for your customers.

Before you dive in, take the time to map your customer journey and the friction points along the way. That is how you find the use cases that truly matter to your customers.

Marketing features

Just digitizing a card without using the wallet's many features doesn't do much. Four of them deserve particular attention:

• Push notifications: send notifications with open rates email can no longer match.
• Geofencing: trigger a message when the customer gets near your store.
• Dynamic card: balance, expiration date, hours, locations. Update your pass in real time.
• Coupons and design: build customer relationships through passes that fully match your brand.

Systems integration

A card cut off from your data is useless. It has to talk to your CRM, your ERP, your POS, your ticketing system, or your loyalty platform.

The real issue is not the card, but the plumbing that connects it to your tools. Ask the vendor about its connectors, its documentation, and how much work your own teams will have to do, because a poorly planned integration quickly turns a simple project into custom development.

Security and GDPR

With a wallet, you handle personal data, so GDPR compliance is not optional.

Three requirements are non-negotiable:

• Documented GDPR compliance
• Tokenization of sensitive data
• Transparent hosting, preferably in Europe

Beyond the checklist, ask where the data is stored, who can access it, and how a customer gets their data deleted. A serious vendor will answer openly. Vague answers are a red flag.

Fast deployment

A wallet project should launch in a few weeks, not a quarter. That speed is the whole point.

If getting started already feels like a major undertaking, you lose that benefit and strain the budget before seeing a single result.

So check the stated timelines, the ready-to-use templates, and the level of support.

One last tip on integration. Favor a well-documented REST API that plugs into your tools without rebuilding everything. It is what separates a deployment finished in a few hours from a project that drags on for months.

Budget

Finally, make sure you understand exactly what you are paying for, because pricing models vary a lot:

• Monthly subscription
• Annual plan
• Pricing per card issued
• or, sometimes, a mix of the three.

Above all, watch for hidden costs like setup fees, volume tiers, and options billed separately.

Always weigh the price against the value it generates, not the raw amount. Clear billing up front spares you unpleasant surprises as volumes grow.