Real-Time Pump-Side Activation to Drive High-Margin
In-Store Purchases
Built Real-Time Activation: Deployed live geospatial detection with <150ms response to trigger wallet offers during active fueling.
Drove Behavioral Conversion: Designed and tested 10-minute expiry passes, habit-sequenced follow-ups, and contextual creative across multiple DMAs.
Behavioral Experience Mapping
Emotion-Attuned Conversion Analytics
Narrative Intelligence Platform
Hyperlocal Influence Networks
+48%
verified in-store entry lift from fueling customers
+208%
increase in repeat visits within 30 days
3.2×
media ROAS on cafeteria margin contribution
Contents
A precision geo-targeting initiative transformed routine fuel stops into measurable, high-margin retail conversions. By detecting fueling dwell in real time and delivering short-expiry wallet offers, Moonbrush bridged the gap between forecourt intent and in-store action—creating a scalable blueprint for micro-dwell monetization across retail categories.
Forecourt revenue was trapped in low-margin fuel transactions while nearby convenience stores—particularly coffee and cafeteria lines—remained underutilized. The cause was not lack of traffic, but lack of behavioral activation. By aligning offer timing, context, and dwell state, the program converted idle attention into active purchase intent.
The campaign drove immediate, verifiable behavior change: customers moved from the pump to the counter, spent more per visit, and returned faster. Within weeks, the system produced measurable habit loops, proving that micro-dwell targeting can deliver sustainable margin impact at enterprise scale.
Context and Challenge
A top-five U.S. fuel retailer was facing a margin dilemma: forecourt activity was abundant, but nearly all of it was low-margin fuel sales. The adjacent convenience stores—especially the hot beverage and cafeteria programs—remained underpenetrated during the most valuable dayparts, particularly the morning commute. The challenge was to turn fueling dwell time into a monetizable, intent-driven moment that could trigger immediate in-store purchases without relying on invasive data or high-friction promotions.
Traditional geofencing approaches proved too broad and delayed, missing the crucial few minutes when customer attention peaked at the pump. Moonbrush was tasked with reimagining the forecourt not as a static location but as a moment of actionable intent, one that could be dynamically addressed in real time through short-expiry incentives and precision targeting. This required building an intelligent activation layer capable of recognizing when a consumer was fueling, serving them a relevant offer, and tracking the incremental lift in store engagement and cafeteria spend.
The program had to deliver on both business outcomes and behavioral fidelity—not just driving traffic, but creating a repeatable, habit-forming behavior that increased basket size over time. To achieve this, Moonbrush developed a system that fused live geospatial data, time-of-need offers, and a rigorous measurement framework to quantify causal impact at enterprise scale.
Key points/summary
The retailer’s core challenge: high forecourt volume, low-margin revenue, and underused in-store programs.
The opportunity: transform fueling moments into intent-driven, real-time media events.
The constraint: drive measurable, privacy-safe behavior change within minutes of pump activation.
Methodology: Behavioral Systems Architecture
Moonbrush engineered a multi-layered methodology integrating geospatial precision, real-time media activation, and habit reinforcement. Using H3 spatial indexing and on-site audits, the team built high-fidelity geofences around pump islands and store entrances. Dwell detection (>3 minutes) identified active fueling sessions, triggering short-expiry wallet offers tailored by context such as temperature, daypart, and proximity. The system operated through a Kafka decision layer with <150ms response time, ensuring real-time relevance.
Offers were dynamically selected through a contextual bandit model balancing $1 coffee and $5 burger variants based on temperature and commuter density. Delivery surfaces included native map placements, weather apps, and social feeds. Wallet passes, valid for ten minutes, minimized friction and drove immediate store entry. Redemption was verified through cryptographic tokens linked to POS data, ensuring deterministic attribution.
Post-exposure sequences (at Day+2, Day+5, and weekly intervals) reinforced new behaviors using tiered rewards—like upgrading from coffee to coffee-plus-pastry—and subtle personalization (“your usual?”). Causality was established through geo-holdouts (10–15% per DMA) and synthetic controls adjusting for fuel prices and weather anomalies. All signals were opt-in, with aggregate reporting and strict privacy governance.
Key points/summary
Real-time decisioning fused geospatial presence, context modifiers, and rapid creative selection.
Ten-minute wallet passes replaced generic coupons, driving immediate in-store behavior.
Causal rigor was achieved via geo-holdouts, synthetic controls, and deterministic redemption tracking.
Results and Quantitative Impact
Across an eight-week flight, results confirmed strong, statistically significant improvements in customer engagement and cafeteria sales. Verified in-store entries from fueling customers rose 48%, from 142 to 210 entries per 1,000 fueling devices. Conversion was strongest during the 6–9 a.m. window, up 31 points versus afternoon, validating the morning coffee anchor. Pumps positioned within 35 meters of doors outperformed by 9 points, while cold weather boosted coffee redemptions by 14–18%, proving environmental sensitivity.
Habit formation was equally transformative. The program achieved a 208% increase in second-store visits within 30 days (from 6.2% to 19.1%) and reduced median days-to-repeat by 41% (from 11.7 to 6.9 days). Over time, repeat customers expanded their average basket: coffee buyers added pastries at 2.4× the baseline rate by their third visit.
Basket economics reflected the success of the behavioral model. Cafeteria attachment on fuel trips rose 21%, AM tickets grew $1.38, and lunch tickets increased $2.11, yielding a 3.2× media ROAS. The cost per incremental visit averaged $0.78, with top-performing locations achieving $0.61, confirming strong efficiency even after offer costs.
Key points/summary
+48% increase in verified in-store entries; +208% second-visit rate within 30 days.
3.2× media ROAS and sub-$0.80 CPIV across key DMAs confirmed margin-positive performance.
Environmental and spatial factors (temperature, path length) meaningfully influenced outcomes.
Strategic and Theoretical Insights
The case surfaced powerful behavioral and operational insights. Proximity emerged as a silent performance driver—shorter pump-to-door paths consistently outperformed, but wayfinding signage (“Fresh coffee 20 steps →”) recovered up to 6 percentage points at longer-path sites. Temporal scarcity was proven critical; ten-minute expiry passes generated 2.1× more immediate store entries than open-ended coupons, validating the behavioral economics principle of urgency.
The campaign also revealed the power of sequenced habit reinforcement. Personalized follow-ups with incremental value upgrades sustained engagement, cutting time-to-repeat and amplifying bundle sales. Regional and demographic variation showed colder markets were most responsive to coffee creatives, while suburban commuter corridors—where drivers relied more heavily on personal vehicles—outperformed urban areas by around 7 points.
Operational learnings were equally vital: pre-poured coffee during morning peaks minimized counter congestion and sustained Tap→Redeem rates. Combined, these insights proved that behavioral precision and operational readiness—not merely offer value—determine the success of micro-dwell activations.
Key points/summary
Ten-minute expiry created urgency, outperforming open coupons by 2.1×.
Site geometry and signage materially affected conversion rates.
Personalized, habit-sequenced follow-ups sustained long-term behavioral lift
Broader Implications and Future Framework
This program redefined how retailers can activate high-attention micro-dwell environments. The core insight—“presence equals intent”—positions the forecourt as a premium media channel on par with digital performance funnels. By combining immediacy, habit scaffolding, and precise measurement, Moonbrush demonstrated that even a fleeting, utilitarian task like fueling can drive lasting, margin-positive behavior change.
The approach has scalable implications beyond fuel retail: any location with predictable dwell time (EV charging, car washes, pharmacy lines) can replicate the “presence → prompt → threshold → purchase → repeat” funnel. The findings also underscore a philosophical shift in retail media—toward closed-loop measurement where exposure, action, and purchase are tightly linked in real time.
Finally, the study emphasizes that the most powerful lever isn’t merely discount depth, but context alignment: matching the right micro-moment with the right offer and designing every operational element—distance, signage, queue efficiency—to reinforce that behavior.
Key points/summary
Reframes the forecourt as an addressable, high-intent media environment.
Proves that designing for the second visit creates durable margin lift.
Establishes a replicable playbook for real-time, privacy-safe retail activation across categories.
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