Customer Acquisition & Growth Referral Marketing
July 25, 2023

How to Harness the Power of Referral Tracking

Referral Tracking

Welcome to our blog on the importance of tracking referral marketing campaigns. Referral marketing is a powerful customer acquisition method, but without proper tracking, its potential remains untapped. In this blog, we explore the significance of tracking, uncover valuable insights to optimise your customer referral strategy.


 



Contents


    1. Digitise and automate your referral strategy 

    2. Focus on customer experiences

    3. Cultivate a community around your brand

    4. Use social media to connect with advocates and leads

    5. Work with influencers to boost brand exposure

    6. Encourage social proof

    7. Co-create unique and highly relevant rewards with partners

    8. Create compelling and educational content

    9. Utilise email marketing

    10. Provide opportunities for brand champions to refer offline

    11. Strive to continually optimise and improve your strategy

 


 

Ready to launch your first referral marketing campaign? Congratulations on taking this exciting step! 

But hold on, there's an essential aspect you need to consider: tracking your referrals. 

You need a reliable system to track lead sources and identify your top referrers. Otherwise, you might struggle to maximise the full potential of your referral programme. 

Using a referral tracking system early on in your referral programme drives success. It helps you understand how effective the campaign is and if it's going according to plan.



 

Discover actionable insights on designing, optimising, and launching referral programmes for sustainable customer acquisition and increased revenue. A must-have for marketers looking to scale B2C brands.

New call-to-action





What is Referral Tracking?

Referral tracking means collecting and monitoring relevant referral programme data. It involves tracking every stage of the referral process. This covers the customer's journey from joining the programme to referring other customers. 

Tracking involves measuring key metrics like referral conversion rates. Others include the number of referrals generated, customer engagement, and programme performance. Doing this provides insights to help you make data-driven decisions. The ability to make informed decisions boosts your customer acquisition efforts and ROI. 

Back to Contents

 



Manual vs. Automated Referral Tracking

You can either track referrals with a manual approach or use an automated system. Let's explore the characteristics and considerations of each:


Manual referral tracking

This approach relies on human effort to record and track referral activities.

  • Characteristics:

    • It requires manual data entry for customer information and referral details. This usually involves using a spreadsheet or a tracking system. 

    • Involves manual verification and validation of referrals to ensure accuracy.

    • It involves manual tracking and measuring of referral metrics. Examples include conversion rates, referral sources, and rewards.

  • Considerations:
    • Manual tracking can be time-consuming and prone to human error. Especially as the number of referrals and participants increases.

    • It may lack real-time insights, making it challenging to identify issues. That also limits the ability to optimise the programme based on collected data.

    • Manual tracking is suitable for smaller businesses with a limited number of referrals. It also works for those in the early stages of implementing a referral programme.



Automated referral tracking

This involves leveraging customer referral software to streamline and automate the tracking process.

  • Characteristics:

    • It involves using referral software that records referral activities. This includes customer sign-ups, referral clicks, conversions, and reward fulfilment for both referrer and the new referred customer.

    • It provides real-time data and analytics. This allows you to track referral programme performance and make informed decisions.

    • Automates reward distribution and ensures accurate tracking of referral metrics without manual intervention.

  • Considerations:

    • Automated tracking reduces human errors and can handle a larger volume of referrals.

    • Real-time data and analytics support the timely optimisation of referral campaigns. It also aids the identification of top referral sources.

    • Using automated tracking may involve upfront costs for referral tracking software or platforms. Yet, the efficiency gains and scalability often justify the investment.

    • Suitable for businesses with high referral volumes and complex programme structures. It works best in programmes that need advanced analytics and reporting.


Manual tracking can work for smaller businesses with a limited number of referrals. But automated tracking provides superior scalability, accuracy, real-time insights, and streamlined operations. This makes it the preferred option for growth-oriented businesses.


Back to Contents


 

 

What are the Benefits of Referral Tracking?

Referral tracking systems are vital for the smooth operation of a referral programme. It's difficult to measure the impact of a referral programme on your business without effective tracking.

Businesses often experience a significant boost in referral revenue after launching a programme.


In fact, it's not uncommon to see a 3x boost in referral revenue within two years of launching a programme.


A tracking system is what allows you to attribute this growth to your referral programme.

Here are some benefits of referral tracking:

 

  • Measure customer satisfaction. You can measure customer satisfaction by tracking referral conversions and participant feedback. Low participation or negative feedback show areas for improvement. While high referral activity indicates customer satisfaction.

  • Measure conversion rates. Tracking conversion rate data helps you measure the success of your referral campaigns. It helps you determine the number of referred leads that result in sales or desired actions. This allows you to leverage available resources to maximise conversions.

  • Identify the top referrers. Referral tracking helps businesses identify their most influential and successful referrers. This strengthens relationships and encourages referrals by rewarding advocates. 

  • Prevent Referral Fraud. You can spot fraudulent referrals or system manipulation by monitoring referral activity. This ensures the referral programme's credibility and that honest advocates receive fair rewards.

  • Attribute Sales Changes to Your Referral Marketing Campaign. You can measure the impact of referrals on revenue growth by comparing referral-generated sales data to general sales metrics. This information helps determine referral marketing ROI and informs future marketing strategies.

  • Understanding Your Customers. Referral data can reveal customers' patterns, preferences, and motivations. This knowledge helps tailor messaging, incentives, and programme design to customer preferences. Doing so improves referral campaigns and customer engagement.

Back to Contents



 

 

Setting Up Referral Tracking Systems - How to Track Referrals

 

1. Unique Referral Links or Codes 

Give each participant a unique referral link or code that they can share with their network. Tracking how they use the links or codes helps you attribute referrals to the right source.


2. Referral Tracking Software

Use dedicated referral tracking software or platforms that automate the tracking process. The features on these tools often include conversion monitoring and real-time analytics.

Your referral management software should integrate with your customer loyalty and reward programme or CRM platform. This allows you to pass tracking data through your sales and marketing processes.


3. Conversion Tracking Pixels

Add conversion-tracking pixels to your website or landing pages to track referral-generated conversions. These pixels track when a referred visitor takes a desired action, such as signing up for a service. Platforms like Google Analytics or Facebook Pixel are great for conversion tracking.


4. Referral Tracking Codes in URLs

Add specific tracking codes or parameters to referral links. This enables you to track referral activities through website analytics tools. You can then analyse referral traffic, conversions, and other relevant metrics. Do this by filtering and segmenting the data based on the tracking codes.


5. CRM Integration 

Integrate your referral programme with your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Track referral activities and other customer interactions by linking referrals to customer profiles. This comprehensive view of each customer's referral history enables better customer relationship management.


6. Customised Referral Tracking Systems

Develop a custom referral tracking system tailored to your business's needs. This method requires technical expertise but allows for a hyper-personalised tracking solution. It can involve building a referral tracking module within your existing software. Creating a standalone system is another option.


7. Create Dedicated Landing Pages 

Design and develop unique landing pages for your referral programme. These pages should have a clear call to action. It should provide relevant information about the programme, incentives, and benefits for participants.

Connect your dedicated landing pages to analytics tools like Google Analytics. This allows you to access valuable data like conversion rates on the landing pages. Analysing this data helps you understand the effectiveness of your landing pages. It also supports data-driven decisions for optimisation.


8. Spreadsheets

Google Sheets or Excel can be useful for tracking referrals. It's an inexpensive option for small businesses that cannot afford referral-tracking software. You can tailor them to your needs, and they support integration with third-party apps.


9. Referral Forms

Using referral form fields helps you find out how customers discover your business. This data helps you identify marketing efforts or channels driving successful referrals. It also enables you to optimise your marketing strategy. 

These referral forms may not provide extensive behavioural data. Yet, they serve as an initial touchpoint for building relationships with potential customers. Once customers make referrals, you can follow up and guide them along your sales funnel.


10. Cookies

Cookies are small text files stored on a user's device when they visit a website. They contain information such as the user's browsing behaviour and preferences. By using referral tracking cookies, you can attribute referrals to specific users. 

When a user clicks on a referral link or code, the device generates and stores a unique cookie. This cookie allows you to track the user's actions on the website. This includes buying a product or signing up for a service. 

Cookies are a convenient way to track referrals without asking users to fill out long forms.

 

Back to Contents


 

Key Metrics for Referral Tracking

Here are five essential metrics to track when monitoring referral activities:

1. Number of Referrals

This metric measures the total number of referrals generated through the programme. It allows you to measure the level of participation from advocates. It also helps assess the success and growth of the referral programme. 

2. Conversion Rates

This is the number of referred leads or customers who complete a desired action. Monitoring conversions helps test the effectiveness of referrals in driving actual conversions. It shows the quality of referrals and helps you optimise your referral programme.

3. Revenue Generated

Tracking referral-generated revenue provides a direct measure of the programme's financial impact (ROI). It shows the contribution of referrals to your gross revenue. Monitoring revenue justifies the investment in referral marketing. It also guides future decisions on resource allocation and programme optimisation.

4. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

This measures the revenue a customer generates during their relationship with you. Analysing the CLV of referred customers reveals the long-term impact of your programme. A high CLV from referred customers means referrals attract valuable and loyal customers.

5. Referral Source Performance

This helps you to identify the best referral channels, advocates, or campaigns. Knowing this helps you divide resources effectively and optimise your marketing efforts. It also aids in nurturing relationships with influential referrers.

Word-of-mouth is one of the most cost-effective marketing channels. Businesses with a robust referral programme in place save on substantial amounts of advertising and promotional campaigns.

Leads generated from referral marketing are also more valuable. Firstly, the low cost per acquisition increases margins as large expenses on traditional marketing channels are not necessary. Various studies and many marketers also agree that lead generated from word-of-mouth typically spend more than other leads and on average have a higher customer lifetime value (CLV). 

Back to Contents




 

Analysing Referral Data and Insights to Optimise Your Referral Programme

Analysing referral data requires multiple essential steps. Accurate data yields crucial details about your customer base in relation to your overall referral strategy. In turn, this leads to fine-tuned optimisation efforts as a result of data-led initiatives and improvements. 

 

How Can You Analyse Referral Data?


1. Data Collection 

Collect comprehensive referral data. This includes the number of referrals, conversion rates, revenue generated, and customer demographics. Ensure data accuracy and consistency by using reliable tracking methods and tools.


2. Segmentation 

Segment referral data based on various demographics, channels, or referral sources. Segmentation in referral analysis helps you identify performance drivers within different groups. It enables personalised optimisation strategies tailored to each segment's characteristics, preferences, and behaviours. 

Understand how different demographics, channels, or referral sources affect referral programme performance. With that, optimise your targeting, messaging, and resource allocation for the best results.


3. Performance Analysis 

Analyse referral performance metrics across different segments. Identify successful referral sources, high-converting demographics, or top-performing channels. Flag any bottlenecks, drop-off points, or areas for improvement in the referral journey.


4. Actionable Insights

Extract actionable insights from the analysis to inform optimisation strategies. Invest more resources and incentives in high-performing referral sources or channels. Tailor messaging and incentives to the needs of demographics with higher conversion rates.


Referral Programme Optimisation Strategies

Collecting and analysing data alone cannot drive positive results in a referral campaign. You must have a clear strategy to make that data work for you. Optimise your referral programme after data collection and analysis in the following ways:

1. Incentives and Rewards

Use tracking data to adjust the rewards offered to advocates and referrals. Align incentives with referral performance to maximise engagement and participation.

2. Messaging and Communication

Use the insights gathered from data analysis to refine referral programme messaging. Tailor messages to different segments, addressing their specific needs and motivations. Personalised referral invitations improve the chances of your messaging resonating with existing customers. 

3. Referral Experience Optimisation

Streamline the referral process based on identified drop-off points or areas of friction. Simplify the referral form and optimise your landing pages. Ensure a seamless user experience to improve conversion rates.

4. Targeted Marketing Efforts

Use valuable insights gained from analysing high performing referral sources and demographics to strategically focus your marketing efforts. Analysing your best performing brand advocates will reveal crucial information. Allowing you to identify common patterns of behaviour to predict which customers are most likely to become effective advocates. 

In fact, with enough data, you could even accurately estimate where exactly every individual customer is on their advocacy journey. So not only can you allocate marketing resources more effectively, you can refine marketing outreach to resonate with different segments of your customer base. Collectively this will boost the ROI of your marketing efforts.

5. Optimise for mobile

Prioritise optimising your referral programme on mobile devices. There's almost 7 billion smartphones worldwide. The majority of your customers will opt in for mobile-friendly referral programmes. It's highly unlikely they'll log into their accounts on desktops or laptops.

Typically, customers engage with loyalty and referral programmes whilst on the go. This is particularly true for referral programmes. Many businesses encourage referral through popular social media platforms and messaging apps due to their excellent data tracking abilities. 

6. A/B testing 

Split test various elements of your referral programme to understand what works better for your referral programme. Elements include the wording used in marketing, design features, and the structure of your rewards and incentives.

Results from the split test will reveal valuable insights, such as what's resonating with your audience and what isn't getting enough traction. You'll be able to leverage these insights to make informed, data-drive decisions to further optimise your referral programme. 


Back to Contents

 



11 Top Tips for Implementing an Effective Referral Marketing Strategy


You should follow these top 11 tips to build your referral marketing strategy. These will set you off on a great start and improve your chances of launching a successful referral marketing programme.  

 

 

1) Digitise and automate your referral programme


By implementing dedicated software to automate customer referral programmes, businesses can streamline the entire process, eliminate manual tasks, reduce the risk of errors, and efficiently scale their referral initiatives. This automation allows businesses to prioritise the nurturing of customer relationships, while the software handles the logistics of tracking, rewarding, and analysing the success of their referral marketing efforts.

Here's a more detailed explanation of how it works:

  • Generates unique referral links or codes: Referral marketing software provides each customer with a unique referral link or code that they can share with their friends, family, or colleagues.

  • Tracking referrals: When someone clicks on a referral link or uses a referral code, the software tracks this activity. It records details such as the referrer's identity, the referee's information, and the time of the referral.

  • Notifying referrers and referees: Once a successful referral is detected, the referral tool automatically sends notifications to both the referrer and the referee. These notifications can be personalised and include information about the referral and any applicable rewards.

  • Reward management: The process of managing rewards, keeping track of the requirements for earning rewards, such as successful conversions or purchases that come from referrals, is simplified. The software automatically calculates and distributes rewards, guaranteeing precision and timely delivery.

  • Analytics and reporting: Analytics and reporting features track the performance of the referral programme. Businesses can gain insights into referral activity, conversion rates, and the effectiveness of different channels or campaigns. This data helps optimise the programme for better results.

  • Integration and customisation: Integration with existing customer relationship management (CRM) or e-commerce systems, make it easy to sync referral data with other business operations. Additionally, it allows customisation of programme rules, rewards, and branding to align with the business's specific needs and goals.

Back to Contents

 


 

2) Focus on customer experiences 

In an article by PWC it’s reported that....

73% of consumers rank customer experience closely behind price and quality of the product as the main factor behind their purchase decision. For your referral programme to succeed you need to ensure customers enjoy a positive CX. 

That means a frictionless referral process, clear and understandable terms, robust and convenient technology, omnichannel support and exciting incentives. To truly enhance CX however, you should focus on the customer journey. 

Where is your customer on their buyer’s journey? Are they close to advocating your brand on your behalf? If so, what kind of rewards could just push them enough towards referring others? 

A discount on their favourite product would be an ideal solution since you’d be tapping into the other two main factors of their purchasing decisions. Firstly, they must be happy with the product’s quality to repeatedly purchase it. Plus the discount on their favourite product is a benefit in terms of price. 

Together, these become a great incentive that you could leverage in return for advocacy, whilst keeping the customer satisfied, delighted and engaged.

 

Back to Contents

 


 

3) Cultivate a community around your brand

Community building and referral marketing walk hand in hand. After all, you’re relying on brand advocates to represent your brand in their social circles. Together, these social circles make up a community of people around the brand champion. 

Setting up a forum or board for your customers to discuss products, services, experiences and reviews is absolutely essential for a brand community to thrive. When that community consists of brand advocates primarily surrounded by people they know, it pretty much guarantees community growth. 

You need only look at social media platforms like Facebook. That grew exponentially due to our desire to connect with people we know and love. It relied on the natural social links and bonds we share with family and friends in order to build a global community. 

Your referral programme could utilise a community to express a friendly brand persona or family-orientated ethics e.g., “welcome to the X family” upon signing up. Okay, that sounds a little cliche, but your imagination is the only limit. What’s important is you’d be cultivating a community with a sense of kinship and cohesion and those are fundamental in referral marketing and customer loyalty. 

 

Back to Contents

 


 

4) Use social media to connect with advocates and leads

Social media is a major part of billions of lives across the globe. Love it or hate it, there’s no denying it’s influence on our society. Businesses can use it to great effect to connect with consumers. In fact, there’s hundreds – if not – thousands of examples when businesses have thrived from using social media.

In relation to a referral programme, social media can be used to encourage feedback and reviews, promote social proof, and drive engagement.

According to Exploding Topics, 88% of American consumers want incentives for sharing products on social media.  

This tells us that for the majority of consumers, social media is a preferred platform for advocating brands. Using social media in tandem with a referral programme is a great avenue for your overall strategy. As some customers may not want to or feel ready to sign up to your referral programme. Providing incentives for your customers to share products on social media serves as a sensible middleground.


In addition, connecting with your customers on social media fosters stronger relationships with them and your brand.

 

Back to Contents

 


 

5) Work with influencers to boost brand exposure 

From the same Forbes article linked in the previous section, there’s an incredible stat that shows 50% of Millennials trust the views of influencers. Your product or service doesn’t have to solely be the star of the show. Any influencer you work with could also promote your referral programme.

Many YouTubers and influencers also share unique referral links for followers to redeem time or usage limited discounts. Since these people have a far wider reach thanks to their huge audiences, your brand stands to gain considerably high volumes of new leads.

What’s more, followers actually strike up an emotional bond with the influencers they follow. This pro-social connection is akin to real life friendships. Effectively, an influencer referring us to a brand can be the same as hearing a recommendation from a friend. So, you’ll be gaining a larger pool of higher quality leads too. 

 

Back to Contents

 


 

6) Encourage social proof 

Trust is a central theme of referral marketing. The whole point of implementing a referral programme is to leverage the most trusted form of advertising. Encouraging social proof e.g., reviews, feedback and testimonials allow you to compound the trust earned in your referral programme. 

Your social proof doesn’t necessarily have to pivot around the quality or price of your products or services. In return for a reward, you could encourage customers to leave a review specifically on your referral programme to drive interest towards it. You gain more brand advocates from your existing customer base and your referral marketing can be leveraged as an acquisition tool. 

 

Back to Top

 


 

7) Co-create unique and highly relevant rewards with partners

Partnering with other brands adds another dimension to the incentives of your referral programme. Unique, highly relevant rewards are often the result of brand alliances. Co-created value helps businesses craft a truly compelling point of difference, helping them to stand out in their respective markets. 

It’s this variety of choice of incentives between brands that lets both the brand advocate and the referred lead select the right incentive and welcome reward for them. For example, the brand advocate might want a reward associated with a partnered brand. Whereas the lead or referral would like a discount on your service (since they are just signing up).  

By partnering up with brands whose products and services complement your own, together you can pull from a wider roster of rewards to attract a larger pool of brand advocates and keep long term brand advocates engaged with referral rewards. 

Why not check out our blog here for 10 innovative partnerships to inspire your referral marketing campaign? 

 

Back to Contents

 


 

8) Create compelling and educational content 

Compelling and educational content grows more and more in importance for brands as they realise it’s a great way to keep customers engaged. Fact is, educational content could be used to great effect alongside a referral programme. The last thing you want to do is lose your customers’ interests in a repetitive cycle of incentive/ offer > referral > reward. 

By producing content you keep them engaged outside of the referral programme. Yet, there’s nothing stopping you from creating content based around your referral programme either. In our example below, you’ll see some of the biggest brands dedicate webpages solely to their referral processes. 

These are an important part of enhancing the overall customer service too. As more consumers than ever want to resolve issues or queries themselves. Therefore, by supporting your referral programme with educational content, you weave in self-service and keep customers engaged even when they are outside of the referral cycle.

 

Back to Contents

 


 

 

9) Utilise email marketing

Email marketing is another great way of promoting your referral programme and ensuring customers remain engaged with the brand. It allows you to send personalised messages to the customer, inform them on important updates about the referral programme, and the latest incentives they should watch out for. 

Email marketing is also the second highest rated referral method. Surprisingly coming in above word-of-mouth referrals and social media. Perhaps this is due to convenience as the customer can forward the email to their network during a time when it suits them. It’s also easier for brand advocates to track and hold onto until they find qualified leads who may eventually need your product or service. 

 

Back to Contents

 


 

10) Provide opportunities for brand champions to refer offline 

Although the digital world and its innovations has taken over the majority of how we conduct business strategy, there’s still a case for providing customers an opportunity to refer others to your brand offline. Particularly if your business model is B2B. After all, you spend a lot of time at conferences, events and networking sessions. 

During these meet ups with potential clients you could offer them physical cards, flyers and brochures that have QR codes. These personal QR codes can be used by the brand advocate in the referral process. So that any time they attend an event they can let others scan their codes and initiate the discovery stage of the customer journey with your brand.   

 

Back to Contents

 


 

11) Strive to continually optimise and improve your strategy 

Referral programmes, like every other type of customer loyalty programme, require consistent efforts over long periods of times. A programme will never be “completed”. Although they yield huge ROI they still require optimisation and improvements that are informed by data. 

You need to know benchmark numbers (such as 2% referral rate is generally considered healthy) to understand how well your strategy is working. Any drop in numbers could indicate that the referral process is growing stale for some of your most loyal brand advocates. Therefore, you need to find ways to keep the experience exciting, engaging and nurturing a sense of loyalty. 

 

Back to Contents

 


 

Referral marketing examples

In spite of the great benefits referral marketing offers, only 30% of US businesses have a referral programme in place. Yet some of the biggest names in their respective industries see huge successes due to their referral marketing strategies. 

Let’s take a look at some examples below to see how each of these businesses acquire new customers, increase brand awareness and drive business growth, using strategies that take into account the best practices we’ve listed above. 

Dropbox 

Dropbox achieved huge growth because of its referral programme. According to many online sources, the cloud storage provider grew by 3900% within 15 months of implementing its referral programme. It’s no wonder Dropbox has become the flagship example of what a successful referral programme can help businesses achieve.

Existing customers are offered additional storage space for every person they refer who signs up to the service. The referral process is simple and the incentive is extremely attractive. Both of these together create a winning formula that significantly increased user acquisition rate and made Dropbox perhaps the most famous example of referral marketing. 

 

Uber

Uber has a dual-sided rewards programme that sees both customers and drivers receive referral rewards. From a customer’s perspective, the rewards programme offers them a free ride after the person they referred has taken their first ride. In addition to this, the new customer is welcomed with ride credits that are spread across their first several trips. 

The rewards programme has seen huge success as a result of its wide promotion, omnichannel support, seamless and convenient UI and UX, and mobile-centric app. Uber is also able to track rewards and custom journeys as a result of unique codes. By doing this, they ensure brand advocates are rewarded in a timely manner and newcomers are incentivised at the right time to maintain their loyalty.  

 

Evernote

Evernote implemented a referral programme that rewards both the referrer and new user with premium features. They’ve gone one step further and offered an affiliate incentive to their referral marketing. For every successful referral an existing customer earns money. 

Brand advocates share their unique referral links with the new leads. Financial incentives are a great way to encourage brand advocacy. However, if this doesn’t suit your business model, you can select from a wide range of rewards, such as exclusive access to premium features, early access, discounts and freebies.

 

Back to Top

 



Mistakes to Avoid When Setting up a Referral Marketing Strategy 

For your referral marketing strategy to be a success you need to be aware of potential mistakes that could undermine it. By avoiding these mistakes and following the best practices listed above, you’re guaranteed to set up a successful referral marketing strategy. 

 

Complex referral process 

The referral process should never be complicated. Friction always causes frustration. A frustrated customer will abandon the process altogether and possibly even churn. Therefore, it’s important that the referral process is user-friendly, simple to use and easy to understand. Brand advocates should also be able to track their referrals. 

Frustrated customers are 13% more likely to tell 15 people or more about negative customer experiences. Negative word-of-mouth is the exact opposite of what you want to get out of your referral programme. 

 

Not tracking or measuring results 

Following best practice and implementing all of the right strategies might seem enough to bring success. However, without tracking or measuring results, you risk exposing your business to avoidable pitfalls. 

Every business has its own set of unique challenges, opportunities and circumstances. Best practices and strategies e.g., personalised interactions will work more effectively for different businesses. By tracking and measuring results, you can gauge the effectiveness of each strategy you implement and adjust it accordingly. 

In addition, tracking is absolutely essential for effective referral marketing. After all, you need a full picture of who is championing your brand in order to reward them. The customer journey of every individual must be assessed too. That way, you can determine how close they are to brand advocacy and push them with an incentive. 

It’s through consistent analysis of data we can find so much more about our customers and their behaviours. In addition to measuring the impact of the referral programme by assessing key metrics e.g., referral conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, and ROI. 

 

Not following up

The most successful referral marketing strategies encourage brand advocates to refer more than once. It’s for this reason that follow ups are crucial. Brand advocates should always be acknowledged. As a gesture of appreciation, businesses should contact brand advocates spontaneously. 

Emails or SMS are the best option as these can be issued at scale. The messages should contain a thank you message, ask if they enjoyed their reward, and hope they’ve got a lot to talk about the brand with someone they’ve brought onboard. This ensures the brand advocate remains engaged. It also maintains a continuum between referrals so that it doesn’t feel like a one-time transaction. 

This makes brand advocates feel like they are actively taking part in building your brand. A tiered reward system could be incorporated where brand advocates level up on account of how many successful referrals they make. 

 

Back to Top

 


 

Thinking About Launching a Customer Referral Programme?

You should now have a clearer understanding of how to build your referral marketing strategy.  Referral marketing is a great way of bringing in highly qualified leads and growing your customer base. Our 11 tips above will help you shape a successful referral marketing strategy as you consider the fundamentals and implement them without making common mistakes.  


 

Discover actionable insights on designing, optimising, and launching referral programmes for sustainable customer acquisition and increased revenue. A must-have for marketers looking to scale B2C brands.

New call-to-action



 

 

 

 

Related article

August 10, 2023

Welcome to our blog post on referral programme automation. You’re in the right place to learn...

Start your customised Propello journey today

Explore the platform's scalability, features and customisation options and get answers to your unique questions.

Request a demo >