The document discusses best practices for referral programs used by top brands to drive customer acquisition. It covers optimizing user participation through placements on the homepage, navigation, order confirmations, and standalone referral pages. It also discusses optimizing performance by measuring sharing rates, referral visits, and conversion rates, then testing different calls to action, offers, and shared content. The document provides benchmarks and examples from companies that have achieved referral programs contributing 7-30% of new customers with a cost per acquisition under $10.
5. Introduction to Friendbuy
www.friendbuy.com
Friendbuy is a customer referral platform. Marketers build campaigns, A/B test and track results to accelerate customer acquisition without
the hassle of ge!ing dev teams involved every time they want to make changes or generate reports. Referral programs are incredibly cost
effective, delivering single-digit CPAs.
We’re going to cover best practices that top brands use to drive referrals and customer acquisition:
6. The following best practice examples come from
companies that actually sell something.
!
What follows should be especially helpful to marketers who are
looking to acquire new, paying customers today.
!
Referral programs can drive anywhere from 7% to 30% of your new customers, and a CPA
well under $10 bucks. That’s what we’re going to talk about…
8. People always ask:
“How do I get more referrals?”
!
That’s easy.
!
Focus on two things that
really move the needle.
!
User participation
&
Optimization
9. Again, two things really ‘move the needle’ for referral program performance.
User Participation Optimization
13. User Account Page
Best practices:
!
• Embedded
• On bu!on click - if you have to
• PURLs
14. Stand Alone Referral Page
Promote / drive traffic from:
!
• Homepage & Navigation
• Dedicated email blasts
• Trigger emails & newsle!ers
• Social following
• Customer service follow up
• Email signature
15. Dedicated Email Blasts
Best practices:
!
• Single call to action
• Clear offer
• Schedule (monthly / quarterly)
16. Your ‘reach’ may be bigger than you think…
1 Website
Homepage, navigation, order confirmation, user accounts, product pages,
stand-alone referral page…
2 Email
Stand alone blasts, transactional (registration confirmation, order
confirmation), newsle!er templates, receipts / invoices…
3 Social followers
Twi!er, Facebook, LinkedIn…
4 Blog pages
5 Help desk pages / support ticket signatures / scripts
20. Sharing Rate - optimize call to action
Best practices:
!
• Clear call to action
• What’s in it for them
• What their friends get (if double-sided)
• Address book importing
21. Sharing Rate - optimize call to action
1 Get Half Off a NatureBox!
2 Get $10 for free!
3 Get 50% off your next NatureBox!
4 Get $10 when you snack with friends!
The irony here is that a NatureBox costs $20. So all
the offers are mathematically the same. But #4
outperformed the rest and drove up sharing rates.
23. Referral Visits - optimize shared content
A B C
• Purple bracelets • Green bracelets
• “Expires in 24 hours!”
• Woman on beach
• “Expires in 24 hours!”
+ 35% Gain
25. Referral Visits - optimize shared content
Hey Pal,
You're one of my smartest friends, so you're
probably pre!y fed up with overpaying for razors.
I was, so I joined Dollar Shave Club. They deliver
great blades to me every month for just a few
bucks. No more schlepping to the drugstore and
no more overpriced, ridiculous shave tech that I
don't need.
Razor plans start at just $3/month. Check it out
and let me know what you think.
P.S. When you use this link to join, I get $5. Cha-ching!
Doubled referral sales
Best practices:
!
• Message is on-brand
• Always testing
27. Referral Conversion Rate - welcome referred visitors
Best practices:
!
• Session-based
• Dynamic message
28. Referral Conversion Rate - welcome referred visitors
Best practices:
!
• Dedicated landing page
• No distractions
29. 1 Offers for sharer & friend
2 Calls to action for sharer & friend
3 Shared content (copy & images)
4 Shared email subject line
Elements for testing
5 Referred visitor experience
30. Calls to Action - quick tips
Tip 1: Verb + What’s in it for me?
Tip 2: “I want to ___________.”
• Get $10 in store credit.
• Get a free month.
• Give $10, Get $10
• Share and earn $10
32. Sharing
Sharing Rate
Several Friendbuy partners have exceed a 50% sharing rate, a worthy optimization goal for anyone.
The sharing rate will vary by widget location (homepage, user account pages, order confirmation page, etc.) So ge!ing as
many widget placements as possible is highly encouraged.
Here are sharing rate benchmarks (aggregate across placements):
• 7% – meh
• 15% – solid
• 30% – you’ve nailed it
How you can improve Sharing Rate
• A/B test offers (store credit, free gi#, etc.)
• A/B test content (copy, design, images,
etc.)
33. Referral Visits
Visits per share
The tricky part here is that Facebook and Twi!er don’t report impressions, busting the normal click-thru rate marketing
calculation - the number of friends who see shared content on Facebook, Twi!er or an email message and click to visit
your website. While email reporting does include opens, unique opens, and CTR, the best way to approach this - in
aggregate and normalized across all channels - is to measure the number of visits per share. That levels the playing field.
Here are referral visits (per share) benchmarks:
• 1 visit per share – meh
• 2 visits per share – solid
• More than 5 visits per share – you’ve nailed it
How you can improve Visits Per Share
• A/B test offers (store credit, free gi#, etc.)
• A/B test shared content (copy, design,
images, etc.)
34. Referred Visitors Conversions
Referral conversion rate
The referral conversion rate is the percentage of referred visitors (friends) that convert when they get to your site.
Referred visitors should convert at a higher rate than your organic conversion rate.
Here are referral conversion rate benchmarks.
• Less than 4% - meh
• 10% - solid
• More than 15% - you’ve nailed it
How to improve the Referral Conversion Rate
• A/B test offers (store credit, free gi#, etc.)
• A/B test shared content (copy, design,
images, etc.)
35. Cost Per Acquisition
CPA
Referral programs yield ‘single digit CPA’s.’ That is to say, your new customer acquisition cost is less than $10.
Compared to display advertising ($40 CPAs), Pay Per Click ($30) and retargeting ($10), referrals are extremely efficient.
Here are customer referral program CPA benchmarks:
• $9 CPA - meh
• $5 CPA - solid
• $2 CPA - you’ve nailed it
Key Takeaway: Single-digit CPAs.
36. Revenue
Li! on Revenue
Referral programs contribute to the bo!om line in a very meaningful way.
Here are revenue li# benchmarks:
• Less than 5% - meh
• 5 to 15 % - solid
• 30% - you’ve nailed it
43. Do’s and Don’ts
Do Don’t
Open access Let anyone refer Force a login
Availability Make it visible, everywhere Bury it in your footer
CTA’s & Offers Be clear & concise Be wordy or vague
Test Measure and optimize Set it and forget it
User
Participation
Optimization
44. Looking for more?
!
For additional in-depth articles about the topics
we’ve covered, you can check out
friendbuy.com/blog