Max Denevich

Active users level off, aggregators still own a huge share of digital orders, and real revenue impact is hard to prove.

They have activity, but they don't have impact and result.

Market today, first of all, it's like the aggregator trap.

Aggregators give restaurant digital distribution, but took the customer relationship.

The restaurant paid like 30% of order to no commission per order and ended up like zero data on who just bought from them.

Now brands are trying to get that relationship back, but they are doing it from a position of dependency, and most of them are going about it in a wrong way.

So the first mistake, like launching an app just to have one.

To have an app becomes the goal.

Nobody asks, what does this app actually change about customer behavior?

What journey does it create?

Without a design customer journey, onboarding, habit formation, reactivation, the app is just a branded ordering screen, like a vending machine with your logo on it.

The second mistake, confusing discounts with loyalty.

Most brands still build their loyalty programs around cashback, promo codes, mass discount.

What that actually teaches customers is to come back only when the price is right.

So you are not building loyalty, you are building price sensitivity.

So the brands leaning on loyalty have moved to experience-led mechanics.

So like gamification, status progressions, surprise moments, personalized rewards, and everything like should feel earned rather than bought.

And the third mistake is obsessing over features instead of outcomes.

I see a lot of brands spend six months negotiating which specific feature a platform must have, features they will probably never fully use.

So while completely ignoring whether their customer journey makes any sense,