Considering the adoption of a referral program strategy to boost sales? Interested in identifying the optimal referral program software for your business?
Were you aware that the lifetime value (LTV) of a customer referred to your business is 16% greater than that of a non-referred customer?
Within this article, you will explore the definition of a referral program and its distinctions from an affiliate program. Additionally, you will gain insights into the key factors to consider before committing to a referral program investment and receive a compilation of leading referral program software options for your business.
What is a Referral Program?
A modern iteration of word-of-mouth marketing, a referral program works like magic in prompting customers to advocate for your brand.
Diverging from traditional methods that involve online reviews or customer survey forms, contemporary referral programs empower customers to share their brand experiences through user-friendly tools like referral links or codes, with the added incentive of rewards.
With referral programs, the goal extends beyond merely urging existing customers to bring in casual leads, a task the marketing team can handle routinely. Instead, customers are encouraged to contemplate individuals who could genuinely benefit from your products or services, thereby generating authentic leads.
One might question why a stranger would engage with your brand. The answer lies in the trust they place in the person referring them to a product or service. This trust often translates into action, as individuals are more likely to act upon recommendations from someone they know, even if they are not yet your customer. This dynamic fosters trust in your brand and intuitively creates a positive customer experience.
What sets referral programs apart as the most trusted form of marketing? The answer lies in the data. According to Finance Online, customers who come through referrals exhibit an 18% higher loyalty rate, a 16% higher lifetime value rate, and a 13% higher spending rate compared to their non-referred counterparts.
Furthermore, the trust in peer recommendations is substantial, with 9 out of 10 customers relying on them. Consequently, customers are more inclined to engage with your brand when recommended by their peers.
Notably, referral programs experienced a significant surge of 425% during the COVID-19 outbreak, as companies swiftly transitioned online to capture their target markets.
Esteemed global brands like Dropbox, Slack, Uber, and more have successfully harnessed the power of referral marketing to acquire customers.
For those considering leveraging referral programs, the next section provides insights into the essential features that should be incorporated into your referral initiatives.
Features An Ideal Referral Program Should Have
#1. User-Friendly Experience
Your program’s experience will influence the willingness of users to send it to others.
And thus, it’s way too important to provide a seamless customer experience.
You might unknowingly put hurdles in the program – complex navigation, poor dashboard, or even an extra step. This could let your customers down.
So make sure your referral program is smooth enough to let users send it to others willingly.
#2. Attractive Incentives
Brand loyalty isn’t everything.
If your customers feel your referral incentives are not worth their recommendations, they aren’t going to share them.
Motivate all parties involved to participate in the program. The better the incentives, the happier your customers are to participate.
#3. Customizations
Another valuable feature of any referral program is its flexibility to adapt according to your brand requirements.
Your referral program should be customizable enough to fit your company’s branding and values.
By customizations, we mean multiple templates, widgets, add-ons, or third-party integrations. These have the potential to shape your referral program.
#4. Persuasive Copywriting
Although, your customers trust your brand, and their peers trust your customers. This cycle isn’t enough to let a stranger click your referral link.
Your referral program should be built on persuasive writing and actionable texts.
Starting from your landing pages to your referral policy and rules, your copy must focus on providing stimuli to motivate a person to act.
#5. Customer Insights
Without analyzing insights from your campaigns, your results would be all around.
Your referral program, at the bare minimum, should be able to track:
- Participation rate
- Share rate
- Impressions and Reach
- Conversion Rate
You must be able to find out what obstacles users are facing or what’s turning them off from spreading the word about your brand.
Referral Programs vs. Affiliate Programs – How are They Different?
Referral and affiliate programs operate as closely aligned strategies, sharing commonalities such as incentives, bonuses, the influence of word-of-mouth marketing, and a shared objective. However, these programs target distinct audiences and offer different types of rewards. Let’s delve into the unique aspects of each.
Firstly, in affiliate programs, participants are not required to be customers of your brand, in contrast to referral programs where such participation mandates customer status.
Typically, an affiliate boasts a substantial audience matching the company’s target profile. While an individual can transition from being a loyal customer to becoming an affiliate, referral programs specifically necessitate participants to be existing customers.
Secondly, those joining affiliate programs are primarily motivated by income, devoid of an inclination toward additional benefits. Consequently, affiliates may not necessarily be customers, drawing professionals like marketers, bloggers, and influencers. This contrasts with referral programs, which often attract customers seeking to save money or obtain bonuses through referrals.
Lastly, the pivotal distinction between affiliate and referral programs lies in relationships. Referral programs evolve from close connections, involving friends, family, or colleagues. Conversely, affiliate programs require no pre-existing relationship between the affiliate and the referred person. For instance, a person purchasing a product via an affiliate link embedded in a blog post may have no personal relationship with the affiliate; the purchase is made based on trust in the affiliate’s recommendation.
To summarize the outlined differences, here’s a quick breakdown highlighting the distinctions between a referral program and an affiliate program.
| Referral Programs | Affiliate Programs | |
| Incentives | Non-cash (gift cards, coupons, discounts) and cash rewards | Cash rewards (predefined percentage of sales) |
| Rewards Recurrence | One-off | Payouts (Weekly/Monthly) |
| Partners | First-party partners (users, customers) | Third-party partners (affiliate marketers, bloggers) |
| Target Audience | Friends, Family, Colleagues | Random target audience |
| Morale | Emotion-based | Income-based |
Now that you have a clear understanding of a referral program, let’s discuss some software that helps you build a successful referral strategy.
Here are some popular referral program software to grow your business.
GrowSurf
GrowSurf is a referral program software that leverages word-of-mouth marketing for B2C, Fintech, and SaaS companies.
Its marketing automation SaaS helps tech startups acquire new customers at minimal costs through attractive referral programs.
Features
- Automatic Link Generator: Allow customers to start sharing with a user-specific link without even forcing them to sign up
- Instant Sharing: Easily embed snippets of code into your website, app, and emails to inspire instant sharing
- Easy-to-Set Up: Build your referral program from scratch hassle-free with a single-day setup process
- Automated Rewards: Setup an automated rewarding system within a few clicks by using pre-integrated Zapier and webhooks
GrowSurf’s customers enjoy 300-1000% ROI, with at least 30% monthly growth in referral customers. You can give it a try as it offers a 14-day no-risk trial.
ReferralCandy
ReferralCandy is a mobile-based application company based out of Singapore. It specializes in building customer referral programs for other eCommerce businesses.
Its referral program is highly customizable and runs itself, making it super easy for eCommerce store owners to build and manage their customer referral programs.
Features
- Easy-to-Use: Present your customers with a smooth, user-friendly experience and allows them to start referring within 10 mins of joining your referral program
- Highly Customizable: Easily customize every point of contact ranging from rewards to emails, as per your brand identity and values
- Seamless Integrations: Quickly integrate your eCommerce store and other marketing tools with ReferralCandy in one-go
- Real-Time Tracking: Track your referral revenue and traffic in real-time; Also, get alerted to what people are talking about your brand on social media
Over 3,000+ eCommerce stores trust ReferralCandy’s services. Moreover, it’s a Shopify Plus certified app partner with over 1,700 positive store owners reviews.
ReferralRock
ReferralRock is the best-in-class referral program software designed for businesses of all sizes. It allows you to easily build, track and optimize word-of-mouth marketing for your business.
ReferralRock’s intuitive design allows you to keep members engaged and attracted with creative rewards and timely notifications.
Features
- Real-Time Results: Smart analytics and referral tracking software allow you to analyze real-time customer insights and make data-driven decisions
- Automation and Integration: Seamlessly automate your routine tasks and integrate multiple third-party marketing tools to see results faster
- Personalization: Customizable ready-made templates and ReferralRock’s landing page builder allows you to create a personalized user experience
- Expert Customer Support: Dedicated success manager at every step to boost your customer acquisition process
ReferralRock offers you not just a widget but a full dedicated portal to create and manage a robust referral marketing framework. It has helped over 1000+ businesses generate more brand awareness and referrals without interrupting their existing workflow.
Friendbuy
Founded in 2010, Friendbuy is a technology-first company that helps eCommerce businesses nurture growth with powerful referral programs.
It’s a SaaS platform powering referral programs for global fortune 100s such as Walmart, Disney, Nestle, etc.
Features
- Referral Dashboards: Friendbuy’s referral dashboard allow customers to view their earnings and invites and even permits them to send friendly reminders with a click
- Fraud Detection: Friendbuy’s powerful fraud detection program empowers you to confidently make compelling referral offers and prevent self-referrals
- Analytics and Reporting: Optimize each step in your referral funnel with the help of comprehensive real-time analytics
- A/B Testing: Easily launch experiments to test offers, landing pages, email subject lines, or any other step to figure out what’s working best for you
With Friendbuy, you can expect a 15% growth in the referral traffic, with the cost of acquiring new customers being as low as $1. Moreover, top companies have seen a 25x ROI while using Friendbuy’s referral program software.medium/large enterprise, Talon is the world’s most flexible and robust promotional engine. It’s your go-to software!
Birdeye
Founded in 2012, Birdeye is a leading reviews software and messaging platform for businesses across the globe.
It enables businesses to acquire customers on autopilot with custom-built referral and loyalty programs.
Features
- Cross-Platform Functionality: Allows customers to refer your business on social media, emails, or other messaging apps with a user-specific referral link
- Set-Up Autopilot: Completely automate your referral program from sending emails to distributing rewards and allow it to run by itself while you enjoy your day
- Notification Alerts: Get alerted by notifications in Birdseye’s inbox whenever you get a new referral and engage with them quickly
- Comprehensive Reporting: Easily track, monitor, and analyze all referrals and activities (shares, clicks, leads) under one dashboard
Over 60,000 businesses use Birdeye referral program software to attract and engage new leads.
Invite Referrals
Invite Referrals is an easy-to-setup cloud-based referral program software. It’s currently the best referral software supporting multiple platforms – mobile app, website, and social media.
Invite Referrals is a feature-rich referral software enabling you to scale your referral marketing and generate quality leads for your business.
Features
- In-Depth Reporting: Get detailed customer insights and keep track at every step of the program; get comprehensive campaign reports on a daily or weekly basis
- Highly Customizable: The WYSIWYG editor allows you to customize your referral campaigns from top-to-bottom without requiring any designer or coder
- Fraud Prevention and Security: In-built fraud prevention mechanism protects your program from any suspicious activities so that you remain focused on nurturing your referrals
- One-Time Integration: Has an embedded asynchronous smart code to get the software up and running within minutes without hampering your website speed.
Invite Referrals automatically adapts itself according to the device or platform you deploy it on to provide a user-friendly experience wherever it’s been used.
Invite Box
Invite Box is a social referral program with the ‘Refer a Friend’ widget, allowing customers to share your referral program with friends or family easily.
It offers multiple referral types – goal-based rewards, instant rewards, giveaways, and referral contests. These referral types enrich your word-of-mouth marketing and spread the word quickly and effectively.
Features
- Keep track of your customer’s online activities and instantly reward them when they share your referral link via social channels
- Get better ROI by rewarding high-value bonuses to customers who bring in a set number of referrals
- Create buzz around your online business by hosting random giveaways and sweepstakes across multiple platforms
- Create custom referral contests intended for high-value promotions to bring in high-ticket referrals and widespread brand awareness
The best part is that setting up the Invite Box is a two-step process:
- Set your terms and conditions for your referral program
- Embed the code into your webpage(s)
That’s it!
Moreover, it comes with a no-risk trial period. So you can always try it before you trust it and let the results speak for themselves.
Genius Referrals
You already have spent ample money on acquiring customers. But was it just for a single purchase?
It’s time to make your customers advocate for your brand.
Genius Referrals is a powerful referral program software that works as hard as your customers.
It automates your entire referral program, creates brand advocates, and generates better ROI for your business at the lowest cost.
Features
- All-In-One Dashboard: Allow advocates to track, analyze and take complete control of their referral program with an easy-to-understand dashboard
- Real-Time Notifications: Stay connected with your advocates by sending push-notifications regarding any new referrals or bonuses
- Easy Sharing: Generate user-specific referral links and enable instant sharing across multiple platforms with a click
- Reliable Customer Success: Enjoy 24*7 customer support throughout the year to offer a seamless referral program experience
Still not sure about Genius Referrals? Try a 30-days free trial of the software and test it yourself.
Referral Factory
Referral Factory offers the most affordable referral program software in the industry.
It’s best suited for small to medium-sized enterprises with a tight budget yet has growth potential.
Features
- Pre-Built Templates: Choose from a selection of 1000+ pre-built templates built by referral marketing experts to get started quickly
- No-Code Customizations: Use its powerful drag-and-drop builder to customize the look and feel of your campaigns, from changing page layouts to colors and branding without any coding
- Tracking and Analytics: Monitor your campaign results from your dashboard, including details of registered users and ‘who referred whom’
- Scalability: Referral Factory’s powerful APIs easily integrate your referral program with existing business processes to help your campaign scale as your business grows
With ReferralFactory, you can build referral programs in 21 different languages. In fact, over 1000+ business owners run powerful referral programs with Referral Factory – without writing a single line of code.
Wrapping Up
Are you still confused about which referral program software is best for your business?
Here’s a quick glimpse of all the software mentioned above and their “Best For” uses.
| Software | Best For |
| Grow Surf | B2C, Fintech, Tech startups |
| ReferralCandy, Friendbuy | E-commerce stores |
| Referral Rock, Birdeye, Invite Referrals | All types of enterprises |
| Invite Box, Genius Referrals, Referral Factory | Small and Medium enterprises |
Pick a referral program software that suits your business needs and grow your business with the power of word-of-mouth marketing.
