About BJ’s Wholesale Club
BJ’s is a leading membership-based wholesale club with over 250 locations across the U.S., offering unbeatable value for hardworking families looking to save time and money.
To be getting eyes on BJs in that moment, I think there's there's something about the prospect's openness and willingness to join. So I think that's just a different experience than we see in any of our other platforms. My name is Dani Kelly, and I'm the director of member acquisition at BJ's Wholesale Club. I manage a team where our job is to acquire new members, both in our existing club basis, which is over two fifty clubs, as well as all the new clubs that we're opening. We have a lot of hardworking families that really need to get the most bang for their dollar. By providing them with a membership, they're able to save a lot of money and be able to get everything they need in one place, so they're able to save a lot of time too. And so this membership provides them with the ability to do both. Back in the days of yore, BJ's was acquiring a lot of people through them either just walking into a club or through pieces of mail. So our mix has changed tremendously over the last five years to be much more digitally driven. And what we like about this is it gives us the opportunity to really be flexible, test different messaging, test different creative, test different channels, test different customer segments. I think it really is just another way to add more flexibility to our media mix and tap into other sets of prospects that we otherwise wouldn't be tapping into. We started working with Rokt about two years ago, and the reason behind it was that we wanted to acquire more digitally savvy younger members. And we've been really impressed with the growth that we've seen with Roc'd. In the two years that we've been working together, we've seen about three hundred percent growth in the average number of members that we're acquiring in a given month at a pretty steady cost per acquisition. The average age of the customer we get from Rokt is roughly ten years younger than our average BJ's membership age. So our tenured renewal rate is about ninety percent. If you think about it, like, if we are renewing ninety percent of those folks, we're gonna have them for life. And so that's a huge value to BJ's. And, you know, the fact that they are renewing at ninety percent means BJ's is providing huge value to them. We want people that are gonna shop and that are gonna take advantage of it. So we worked with Rokt quite a bit to really share our goals with them around getting members who are really gonna engage. One of the things that we did this year was set up an API connection with them to really sort of give them a feedback loop with our data so they're able to see the behavior of the members that we acquire via Rokt once they've joined. They're meeting prospects where they're at. Right? So I love to take screenshots when I've just purchased concert tickets on Ticketmaster or if I've just sent a Venmo to someone of a BJ's pop up ad. It's like an exciting experience. Like, I'm happy. I'm feeling euphoric. Right? It's like a little dopamine rush. So to be getting eyes on BJ's in that moment, I think there's there's something about the prospect's openness and willingness to join. So I think that's just a different experience than we see in any of our other platforms. So I think the two things that really keep coming to mind to me about the relationship with Rokt is really the flexibility and the partnership. For me, the flexibility in terms of really being able to figure out how much money I can invest and, like, quickly get a return on that investment is a huge piece of it. And then the partnership. So on the one hand, there's the people. Right? So the people are amazing. We love our partners. We have such a great time with them, like, always. But also just their responsiveness and their deep understanding of the tech is really what enables us to really unlock value. I think the other thing that I'm excited about is some of the other opportunities we have in sort of the retail media space that we've been playing around with with other teams in Rokt. So looking at how we can kind of endemically on our own site, advertise for some of our merchants, right, or, advertise for a higher-tier membership offering. I think there's a lot of opportunities there, and we're kind of only in the tip of the iceberg in exploring that.
Challenge
BJ’s needed a smarter, more scalable way to attract digitally savvy younger shoppers as it expanded into new markets. Traditional acquisition channels, like in-club signups and direct mail, were falling short of expectations in cost-efficiency and targeting precision.
Solution
BJ’s partnered with Rokt to unlock the Transaction Moment™, tapping into Rokt’s global ecommerce network to reach high-intent prospects in moments of peak attention, like right after purchasing concert tickets or sending a payment. These real-time moments of digital engagement became the foundation for a more relevant, data-driven acquisition strategy.
Through API integration, BJ’s gave Rokt direct access to behavioral insights. This closed feedback loop enabled more precise customer segmentation to improve targeting capabilities to reach high-value users.
Results
- Member acquisition grew 300% YoY with Rokt Ads
- Expanded in scale and reach while maintaining the same cost per acquisition
- Captured digitally savvy members, averaging 10 years younger than BJ's existing customer base
- Scaled evergreen campaigns exponentially by leveraging Rokt’s expanding partner inventory
Why it worked
Rokt’s platform allowed BJ’s to test messaging, creative, and targeting dynamically.
It’s a different experience than we see in any of our other platforms,” said Dani Kelley, Director of Member Acquisition at BJ’s Wholesale Club. “When someone’s just completed a purchase, they’re open, excited—it’s a little dopamine rush. That energy translates into higher intent.
By engaging prospective members when they’re most open to value, BJ’s turned fleeting digital attention into lasting customer relationships.
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