Rewards card issuers already have started to move away from a mass-market mentality in which the goal is to create buzz around a rewards program and get as many people as possible to apply, according to John Bartold, vice president, Loyalty Solutions for Epsilon, a marketing services firm.

“Issuers already have tightened up requirements for who gets into a loyalty or rewards program,” Bartold says. “The recession and the indirect impact of the CARD Act are making issuers look at these things a little differently and a little more smartly.”

Credit card companies have reams of data on their customers and probably will start using that data they’ve collected to target their customers in a more relevant way, Bartold says. “It’s not going to happen right away, but I think we’re going to start seeing cards more focused for certain types of lifestyles — where consumers can find a card that matches them rather than a generic spend-a-dollar, get-a-point,” Bartold says.

Card issuers might do that by creating a general program customers can tailor to their own preferences — similar to the Discover CardBuilder approach — or by creating a card targeted toward a specific group of consumers such as sports fans, eco-conscious consumers or music lovers.

“For example, with music and entertainment, you could have a site where customers could download music, you could have a newsletter that reviews artists by genres, you could look at sponsoring a concert,” Bartold says.