Rezolve AI (RZLV) Bets on Rewards to Scale Commerce Media

Rezolve AI (RZLV) has publicly signalled a strategic pivot toward loyalty-driven commerce media and integrated payments, framing rewards as the engine for advertiser yield and merchant spend. Management told Yahoo Finance on March 29, 2026 that early pilot programs produced a 32% increase in repeat purchases and a 22% uplift in average order value (source: Yahoo Finance, March 29, 2026). The company is targeting a user-base scale milestone of approximately 2 million enrolled consumers by the end of 2027, according to the same disclosure. For investors and industry participants, the announcement reframes Rezolve’s go-to-market away from pure attribution and toward an ecosystem that blends first-party identity, couponing, and closed-loop payments. Given the structural growth in commerce media and the push for better measurement, the move raises questions about unit economics, addressability, and competitive differentiation in a crowded ad-technology landscape.

Context

Rezolve AI’s shift to reward-oriented commerce media comes at a time when brands and retailers are reallocating ad budgets to channel-level, transaction-linked marketing. Online commerce media — where ads directly influence product searches and purchases on retailer-owned properties — has expanded from a niche into a material line item for CPG and retail advertisers. Management’s March 29, 2026 commentary underscores that Rezolve aims to leverage loyalty incentives as both a consumer acquisition mechanism and a deterministic data source for improving match rates between ads and transactions (source: Yahoo Finance, March 29, 2026). That approach attempts to address persistent privacy-driven headwinds to third-party tracking by creating a voluntary opt-in signal tied to economic value.

Historically, loyalty programs have been used to reduce churn and increase lifetime value; what Rezolve is proposing is to reconstitute loyalty as a media primitive. Where traditional loyalty programs deliver incremental spend within a retailer, Rezolve is positioning rewards to be interoperable across merchant networks and to fund media placements — effectively turning discounts into a measurement and yield lever. This strategy contrasts with incumbent commerce media players that focus on catalogue-level bidding and onsite promotions; Rezolve’s pitch explicitly ties a portion of the consumer incentive to payment rails and merchant payouts.

From an investor perspective, the critical context is capital intensity and margin profile: commerce media can generate higher gross margins than payments but requires scale to justify customer acquisition costs. Rezolve’s stated 2-million-user target by 2027 (management statement, Mar 29, 2026) implies aggressive user acquisition and onboarding economics; whether those cohorts deliver the claimed 32% repeat purchase uplift at scale is the central execution risk. For comparability, market leaders in commerce media report conversion metrics that often range below the pilot-level claims once scaled across heterogeneous merchant bases.

Data Deep Dive

The most concrete figures available from the company’s public comments are the pilot metrics communicated to Yahoo Finance on March 29, 2026: a 32% lift in repeat purchases and a 22% lift in average order value (AOV) in participating merchant cohorts (source: Yahoo Finance, March 29, 2026). Both figures, if representative, imply meaningful improvements to lifetime value (LTV) and advertiser return on ad spend (ROAS). A 32% uplift in repeat purchases can compress payback periods for customer acquisition, particularly where incremental margin on subsequent purchases is high. However, pilot cohorts are typically biased toward more engaged merchants and early-adopter customers, and historical experience in adtech shows pilot uplifts often normalize by 30–50% after national rollouts.

Rezolve has also been explicit about leveraging payments to close the loop: integrating a rewards token within payment processing enables deterministic attribution of discounts to transactions without relying on cross-site tracking. The company projected a 2-million enrolled consumer base by December 2027 (management guidance reported Mar 29, 2026). On a unit-economics basis, modeling this trajectory requires assumptions for CAC, wallet share per consumer, merchant take rates, and ad yield per enrolled user. For example, a simplified LTV/CAC model where each enrolled consumer drives $150 of incremental gross merchandise volume (GMV) annually with a 22% AOV uplift would yield different outcomes depending on whether Rezolve captures 5–20% of GMV in fees.

Comparative benchmarks matter: legacy loyalty programs (e.g., major US retailers) historically report repeat purchase uplifts in the 10–25% range during promotional periods, and commerce-media pure-plays often disclose conversion gains from 2% to 10% relative to baseline display channels. Rezolve’s quoted pilot gains (32% repeat, 22% AOV) sit above these benchmarks (source: company statement via Yahoo Finance, Mar 29, 2026), which indicates outsized early traction but simultaneously increases the burden of proof for sustained, economy-wide replication.

Sector Implications

If Rezolve’s approach scales, it would add a differentiated node to the commerce media stack: deterministic rewards tied to payments create a means to monetize first-party behavioral data while offering measurable ROAS to advertisers. For retailers and CPG advertisers, this suggests an additional channel to drive incremental basket size and frequency, especially for categories with repeat purchase dynamics (grocery, household goods, personal care). A wider adoption curve could shift incremental ad spend from open web channels toward closed-loop commerce programs that guarantee an exchange of consumer value for measurable outcomes.

For payments incumbents and card networks, Rezolve’s model introduces a competitive dynamic around value-add services at checkout. If rewards are instrumented within payments, issuers and processors will need to respond with their own merchant-facing incentives or risk margin erosion on interchange or fees. The model also intersects with regulatory scrutiny on loyalty-driven steering and merchant surcharging; adoption may trigger differentiated regulatory review in jurisdictions with strict anti-steering provisions.

From an advertiser allocation perspective, Rezolve’s success would put pressure on walled gardens to demonstrate comparable deterministic measurement without price-sensitive incentives. For institutional investors, the relevant comparator metrics will be revenue per enrolled user, gross margin on media versus payments, and the elasticity of ad demand to reward-financed offers. These are quantifiable KPIs that should appear in subsequent quarterly disclosures if Rezolve intends to convert pilot anecdotes into repeatable, investor-grade metrics.

Risk Assessment

Execution risk is front and center. The conversion and AOV uplifts cited in March 2026 pilots are attractive, but pilots can be unrepresentative; national scale often dilutes promotional intensity, merchant cooperation, and margin capture. Customer acquisition economics are another critical variable: achieving 2 million enrolled consumers by end-2027 requires sustained marketing, merchant incentives, or deep channel partnerships; each path burdens gross margins differently. If average CAC exceeds the contribution margin from incremental transactions, the business model will rely on cross-sell or up-sell to remain viable.

Regulatory and competitive risks also merit attention. Loyalty and rewards mechanisms that are tightly coupled to payments might attract oversight under payments regulation or consumer protection regimes. Competitive reactions from large platforms (retailers or ad networks) could compress fees or replicate the integrated reward model at scale, leveraging far larger merchant catalogs and consumer wallets. Additionally, measurement reliability and data governance — including consent, storage, and use of first-party identifiers — will be scrutinized as privacy regulation matures across major markets.

Financial risk should be monitored through disclosure cadence: investors should look for metrics such as revenue yield per enrolled user, take-rate on transacted GMV, gross margin on commerce media versus payments, and payback periods for CAC. Absent transparent, repeatable KPIs, valuation will remain sensitive to narrative momentum rather than durable economics.

Fazen Capital Perspective

Fazen Capital views Rezolve’s reward-led strategy as a credible attempt to monetize first-party intent in a privacy-constrained environment, but it is not a guaranteed pathway to durable margins. Our contrarian assessment is that reward financing can be a double-edged sword: it effectively monetizes consumer participation and improves measurement, yet it also commoditizes the value exchange between merchant and consumer if rewards become the primary driver of purchase rather than product-market fit. We see three non-obvious implications: first, the marginal economics of rewards favor categories with high gross margin and repeat purchase frequency; second, merchant concentration risk could emerge if a small subset of large retailers captures the lion’s share of enrolled users; third, strategic partnerships with payment processors or card networks could be more valuable than direct-to-consumer scale in achieving sustainable take-rates.

Operationally, Rezolve should demonstrate sequential improvements in revenue per enrolled user and declining CAC before the market should ascribe a multiple similar to mature commerce-media peers. We recommend investors track quarterly disclosures for the following: enrolled-user cohorts by acquisition channel, gross and net take-rates on GMV, and the split of revenue between media services and payments. Prior Fazen Capital research on commerce media and payments can be referenced for comparative frameworks: topic and topic.

Outlook

Near-term, the market will likely trade on follow-through: whether Rezolve can convert pilot success into merchant contracts that produce predictable ad yield. If management posts sequential quarterly KPIs — including enrolled-user growth, sustained repeat purchase lift across broader merchant sets, and improving payback on CAC — the narrative will transition from experimental proof-of-concept to scalable commercial product. Conversely, any material slippage in pilot metrics when rolled out or rising CAC without concomitant revenue per user expansion would reprice expectations.

On a two-year horizon, the trade-off is clear: successful scaling should produce higher-margin, subscription-like media revenue with payment-enabled attribution; failure to scale will leave Rezolve dependent on structurally low-margin payments or on heavy promotional expense to sustain user engagement. For markets where commerce media ad spend is expanding, a differentiated rewards-payments combination could capture an outsized share of incremental budgets — but only if the firm demonstrates durable LTV/CAC and a defensible merchant network.

FAQ

Q: How should investors interpret Rezolve’s pilot metrics relative to industry benchmarks?

A: Pilot metrics (management-reported 32% repeat purchase lift and 22% AOV uplift, Mar 29, 2026) are higher than typical large-scale loyalty program averages. Pilots often involve early adopters and cooperative merchants; institutional investors should expect normalization when cohorts diversify. Track cohort-level rollouts and three- to six-month retention on enrolled users for a more accurate signal.

Q: What are the practical implications for merchant partners?

A: Merchants gain an acquisition and measurement mechanism that promises deterministic attribution, but they may cede a portion of margin to rewards and platform fees. The model is most attractive to merchants with repeat-purchase behavior and sufficient margin to absorb promotional economics; low-margin categories may see weaker ROI.

Bottom Line

Rezolve AI’s pivot to reward-centric commerce media is strategically coherent in a privacy-first world, but its investment case hinges on proving unit economics at scale and securing durable merchant partnerships. Investors should demand transparent cohort KPIs and margin reconciliation before assigning multi-year upside.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.