In March 2025, Dostyk Plaza faced significant customer churn. The number of unique visitors had declined by approximately 35%, while new visitors were down 38%. The obvious response would have been to attract more new customers. But Almaty’s premium retail market had a natural limitation. The potential premium audience represented only around 11% of the city’s population, while audience overlap between major shopping malls reached 60–75%. In practice, Dostyk Plaza and its competitors were competing for largely the same people. Before investing in another acquisition campaign, we decided to understand what had happened to the customers Dostyk Plaza had already lost. Analysis of actual visitor behaviour based on anonymized mobile location data revealed the key insight: They hadn’t stopped visiting shopping malls. They had stopped choosing Dostyk Plaza. Many former visitors continued to actively visit competing malls. So the problem was not awareness. These people already knew Dostyk Plaza. The relationship with them had simply been interrupted. And that revealed a new growth opportunity: instead of constantly competing for the next new customer, win back the customers the business had already earned.
Problem
We needed to bring back customers who had not visited Dostyk Plaza for more than six months and turn their return into repeat behaviour that generated measurable business revenue. We set four measurable objectives: - reactivate identified inactive visitors and convert communication into a physical visit to Dostyk Plaza; - convert returning visitors into purchasers; - turn the first return into repeat visits and increase visit frequency; - translate changes in customer behaviour into tenant sales growth and incremental turnover. The activation had to prove the entire behavioural chain: Return → Purchase → Repeat Visit → Loyalty → Business Growth Success was not a click, registration or one-time visit. Success meant bringing a lost customer back, converting that return into a purchase, and making Dostyk Plaza their choice again and again.
Solution
We built SMART PLAZA not as a one-off promotion, but as an always-on activation system. It was based on a simple understanding: one incentive can generate one visit. Building a relationship requires new reasons to return again and again. 1. Find the customers worth winning back Using anonymized mobile location data, we analyzed actual visitor behaviour: - visit frequency; - dwell time; - periods of inactivity; - visit history; - migration to competitors. This allowed us to identify 238,756 people who had not visited Dostyk Plaza for more than six months. We also segmented the audience into core and super-core groups based on the strength of their relationship with the mall. Instead of starting with a broad socio-demographic audience, the activation focused on people whose previous behaviour had already demonstrated a real connection with Dostyk Plaza. 2. Replace one promotion with personalized reasons to return Different people need different triggers. Instead of relying on one universal promotion, we brought multiple reasons to return together within the Smart Plaza ecosystem. The Smart Plaza Super App became the center of the experience. Customers could earn bonuses from purchases and exchange them for shoppertokens, discounts and gifts. They received personalized offers, paid for parking, discovered events, bought cinema tickets, registered for activities and received personalized push notifications. The app did more than reward a transaction. Every interaction could become a trigger for the next one. 3. Turn digital activation into a physical experience An app alone cannot build loyalty to a shopping mall. People need real experiences worth coming back for. Throughout the year, different activations created different reasons to visit Dostyk Plaza. Family Day gave families a reason to spend time together. The ice rink and ice show turned the winter season into a destination experience. Concerts created shared emotional experiences. The Safe activation introduced a reward mechanic with the opportunity to win a trip to Malaysia. New Year and seasonal activations created new reasons to visit throughout the year. The objective was not for every visitor to participate in every activation. The objective was to ensure that the ecosystem always offered another relevant reason to return. 4. Move customers from paid communication into the brand’s owned ecosystem Meta and TikTok helped reactivate behavioral segments at scale. But paid advertising was only the beginning of the relationship. Once customers entered the Smart Plaza ecosystem, communication continued through CRM, email and personalized push notifications. The Super App became a direct, owned connection between the customer and the mall. This created a continuous cycle: Relevant Trigger → Visit → Experience → Purchase → Reward → New Trigger → Repeat Visit Every interaction did not end the communication — it created an opportunity for the next one. 5. Measure behavioral change, not participation We did not consider impressions, clicks, app installs or participation in a promotion to be the final result. AppsFlyer, Firebase and CRM connected the entire customer journey: Ad → Install → Registration → Physical Visit → Purchase → Repeat Visit This allowed us to measure whether the activation actually changed customer behaviour and created commercial value.
Results
98,335 returning visitors → 49.4% reactivation → 72% repeat visits → 69% core retention → 3.9 visits per customer per month → 90% purchase conversion → KZT 23,000 average basket → +15–18% tenant sales growth → KZT 2.03B incremental turnover → ROMI 1:10 → ROI 1000%. Overall: 1.21M visits → 326,000 unique visitors → 51% above target → 40% above Shopping Index benchmarks.
