10 Best Referral Marketing Software and Tools in 2023

As long as the communal bonding and trust between people lasts, businesses will enjoy a flourishing customer base with the help of referral marketing. The strategy has been around for ages - customers sharing their positive experiences with friends in the name of altruism and reciprocity, leading new customers to the business.

But only after the arrival of the internet and social media, referral marketing got a real boost. With an ever wider outreach and hassle-free sharing process, any startup can now leverage word-of-mouth to promote its offerings, build the pre-launch buzz, and tap virality afterward.

But to achieve your expansion goals, you need to have the eco-system in place. A technologically advanced system that plans, launches, runs, and promotes a referral marketing program with little to no human effort.

With 82% of Americans seeking recommendations before shopping, this shows a hunger for friendly referrals. As a marketer, you just need the right referral marketing software and tools to cash as many of those prospects as possible. To help you streamline your referral program launch, we’ve brought you the 8 best referral software solutions.

Referral Marketing Program: An Introduction

Any growth achieved through referral marketing is inherently organic, even if it’s implemented or tracked by an advanced system. People’s opinion about your brand or its products holds more weight in convincing others to purchase than a random sponsored ad.

In a poll about “Who are you most likely to believe?” a friendly endorsement or referral will always prevail. As many as 77% of consumers purchase a product or service after learning about it from friends and family.

Based on that premise, businesses employ or incentivize their loyal customers to endorse their products and encourage people in their social networks to purchase. In return for their efforts, advocates are repaid with exclusive benefits such as cash rewards, credits and discounts, freebies, and early access.

With a referral program, you are no longer dependent on your brand commercials to go viral and produce fresh leads. In fact, you acquire them through the influence and trust of your existing customers who promote your business with speed and an ROI greater than any other marketing outlet.

Prospects are more likely to follow up on a recommendation especially when there’s a reward attached. Over 69% of people jump on referrals if there’s a direct incentive linked to it and remain 18% more loyal than customers acquired through other means. But getting people talking in your favor demands a quality marketing strategy and referral software that can execute it flawlessly.

What is a Referral Program Software?

Launching and running a referral program is a major undertaking for any business, regardless of the budget or extent of their workforce. From planning and devising the referral rewards to shortlisting prospects and sending your promotional messages, Customer referral programs involve various moving parts that need constant surveillance.

If you’re hoping to make an impact with a word-of-mouth campaign, stop depending on your manpower. Referral program software is a specialized tool or platform designed to automate all referral processes from curating rewards to managing and tracking customer referrals.

Given their busy schedules, people need swift solutions to their problems - whether it’s the product you’re selling or the rewards offered for every successful referral. Referral marketing tools make sure you can track, evaluate, and assign rewards to each referrer before they lose enthusiasm for your campaign. Some key components of a referral software include:

• Referral Tracking: The software tracks and records referrals made by customers, including details like who referred whom, when the referral occurred, and whether it resulted in a successful conversion.
• Reward Management: Referral program software allows businesses to set up various types of rewards and automate their fulfillment when referral goals are met.
• Communication: Many referral marketing solutions include built-in communication tools to help businesses send automated emails or messages to participants.
• Analytics and Reporting: Businesses can gain valuable insights into the performance including conversion rates, referral sources, and overall ROI of their referral campaign through analytics.
• Fraud Prevention: To ensure the integrity of the campaign and reward procedures are transparent, the software often includes fraud detection mechanisms to prevent abuse or fraudulent referrals.

Why Use Referral Marketing Tools?

In a referral marketing campaign, you need to keep track of every customer partnership, their preferred mode of communication, and each person they refer to your business. For each customer that channels in through a referral link, you need traceability to ensure you’re attributing the reward to the right person.

Through proper surveillance of all campaign mechanisms like email opening rate, referral conversions, potential channels for sharing, and overall ROI, businesses land in a better position to make data-driven optimization to boost performance.

As you scale your business with a bigger product lineup and a wider audience, the right referral software will help you accommodate large volumes of referral participants. Once you tap virality, the software will seamlessly manage incoming leads, register them to the referrer, and send rewards no matter the influx.

The best part, referral tracking software isn’t a one-way mirror. To build and foster customers’ trust in your business, it displays a live dashboard that showcases the status of their rewards, active and potential referrals, and info on how to cash them.

How to Set Up a Referral Program?

For any marketing strategy to prove fruitful in the long run, you need a brilliant product in your lineup. Regardless of the incentives you offer, people do need a tangible reason to stick to your brand and refer it to others.

Once you build a product or service that suits your target audience and outscores competitors, you can start laying out your referral strategy. Companies carry out extensive qualitative surveys and interviews of their ideal prospects to gauge user preferences and develop a program that best meets those expectations.

No matter what solution you choose, creating a referral program must involve the following steps. Note that while many of the actions highlighted below are set up and monitored by referral software, human supervision is still vital. Direct your sales and marketing teams to do their due diligence ahead of time.

Create a Referral Landing Page

A referral landing page is the greeting face of your company. For a product launch campaign, a referral page’s purpose is twofold - to inform visitors of the referral program underway and entice them to participate.

No matter the intention, if a prospect tunes in to your website, make sure to cater to them with a stunning landing that piques their interests and compels them to join your campaign. Start with a catchy headline that immediately grabs their attention. A referral headline could go like  “unlock rewards by referring friends” or “earn special discounts and rewards with friends.”

Following the headline, lay out the terms and conditions of your campaign using clear and effective copy. Point out who your program is intended for, what it offers, and how to participate. Use action-oriented text like "Sign Up Now," "Get Started," or "Refer Friends” at the bottom to draw leads.

Decide the Referral Incentives

Stop relying on customer’s intuition and loyalty to generate referrals. If you’re expecting to build hype around your campaign, give your audience a strong reason to vouch for your brand.

Incentivize customers for every successful lead they send your way. Give cashback, discounts, and gift cards if you serve tangible products.

But as a SaaS business manager, offer something that relates to your business and keeps them engaged. It could be early access before launch, a free trial period of premium features, or tiered rewards to build up their interest. Regardless of what you offer, it should be according to the interests and motivations of the customers.

Set Up a Tracking Mechanism

Launching a campaign isn’t enough, you ought to keep a close watch on the program to ensure everything goes according to plan. As a marketer looking to scale your business, be on top of every procedure - define conversion events, set up and track attribution rules, and measure the ROI of your campaign.

Use your in-house IT resources and referral software to measure the referral output. Some commonly adopted referral tracking mechanisms include:

• Unique Referral Links: Assign each referrer a unique tracking link that they share with their friends. When a friend clicks on this link and makes a purchase or signs up, the system records it as a successful referral.
• Custom Promo Codes: Give referrers unique promo codes to share with friends. When someone uses these codes during checkout or sign-up, it signals a successful referral.
• Cookies and Pixels: Implement tracking scripts or code snippets on your website or app to capture referral data. Ensure that the cookies are set up to expire after a reasonable period.
• Referral Marketing Software: If you opt for software, follow the platform's setup instructions to integrate it with your website, app, or CRM system. Configure it to track referrals, conversions, and rewards automatically.

Advertise the Program

To encourage participation from a mass audience, you must first advertise it effectively so it reaches every prospect. The right promotion strategy will not only encourage participation from your current customers but will also drive new referrals to endorse your business.

Referral marketing is a cost-effective marketing strategy only if you employ the following channels actively:

• Email Marketing: The one-to-one interaction with an email, is the closest you can get to transform a customer into a brand advocate. Inform your prospects about the program's benefits and how to participate through targeted emails.
• Social Media: Actively share program details and updates on your social media platforms. Encourage your followers to participate and share referral links that lead to your brand.
• Website: Prominently display information about the referral program on your website's homepage or set up a dedicated landing page.
• Blog and Content Marketing: Write blog posts or create content that explains the program and its advantages. Share these resources on your blog and through social media to extend your credibility in the market.

Review and Iterate

Any data your referral program software reports should be reviewed and analyzed by sales teams. Use small analytics tools to break down tracking data into reach, participation rate, share rate, active conversions, and anticipated ROI. Spot areas for improvement and devise a detailed strategy to fill those gaps to have a better shot at success.

The 10 Best Referral Marketing Software Tools in 2023

The power of word-of-mouth marketing can not be overstated. The strategy generates 3-5X higher conversion rates than other methods. But to achieve such statistics, you must set up a streamlined referral system that oversees hundreds and thousands of referrals made every day.

Every advocate who participates in your program and successfully refers new customers to your company must be compensated fully, which demands reliable referral marketing software in your arsenal. A tool that can keep track of referrers’ progress and empower them to continue sharing in the future.

We’ve reviewed the 10 best referral software that can help you generate more sales and revenue with the help of people who love speaking up for you.

Prefinery

The success of a launch is often dependent on the pre-launch - the initial groundwork, or the hype you create before introducing your product to the market - and Prefinery plays it better than the rest. It is a referral program software that assists small businesses and startups in extending their customer waiting lists ahead of the launch and cash maximum scalability afterward.

Whether you’re launching a SaaS app or a new fintech product, Prefinery ought to be at the top of your list when personalization and security are in question. The referral platform supports over 3,000+ web app integrations allowing marketers to tailor the referral campaign according to their niche.

Launched in 2008, Prefinery has been the top choice for over 22,000 tech businesses worldwide including Atlassian, Microsoft, Logitech, and Wealthsimple. Companies who’ve leveraged Prefinery as their prime marketing platform have registered a 40% increase in growth.

From the program layout to email copy, Prefinery lets you customize your campaign to make it more relatable to your prospects. The platform is equipped with an advanced form builder, mobile-centric elements, email automation, reward optimization, live leaderboards, and fraud protection.

Pros

• Supports unlimited referral campaigns and emails
• Curates multiple reward types and referral structures
• Enables highly customizable signup forms with a visual builder
• User management platform collects, tracks, and transfers data points.

Cons

• Fewer native 3rd-party software integrations as integrations are done through no-code providers such as Zapier, Make, Pabbly Connect, Integrately, or Sync Spider.
• Referral campaign assets are highly customizable, but no templates provided.

Growsurf

As your product nears the launch stage and the startup ready to make first appearance, there’s little time to waste on marketing and gather valuable leads.

Growsurf lets you design, build, and kick off a customer referral program within days, not weeks — turning fans into advocates and prospects into buyers. Considering your in-house dev team is stretched thin already, Growsurf is designed to be simple from initial setup to attributing rewards to referrers.

From automatic link generation to streamlined reward fulfillment, every step is either automated or requires a simple manual command to trigger an action. You can set up automated gift cards, cash payouts, or account credits within a few clicks or use Zapier or webhooks to introduce all other rewards.

Growsurf powers cost-effective customer referrals overnight, gaining trust across the board by SaaS, Fintech, and B2C companies. The referral platform has steered growth for companies like Alma, MainStreet, InvestEngine, and Willful, presenting a 312% ROI and 15% annual recurring revenue with over 1.88M referrals.

Most of all, it’s 100% white-labeled. Not writing the program code manually won’t hinder the campaign’s performance or your access to a larger clientele.

Pros

• Enables access to various email templates
• Allows auto-upgrade to a higher plan
• Feature double opt-in which confirms signup by email
• Supports easy native form integration using automagic

Cons

• Basic campaign analytics do not track emails
• Does not feature a landing page builder

Viral Loops

Referral marketing operates on a basic impulse of customer loyalty and recommendations, Viral Loops intends to streamline it further. Viral Loops lets you create and launch referral programs inspired by billion-dollar brands to boost your visibility and with it your chances of accessing new leads.

Whether you intend to create referral programs, pre-launch waiting lists, newsletter refer-a-friend campaigns, or invite-based giveaways, Viral Loops gives you tried-and-tested solutions in each realm. It’s a top choice for marketers aiming to build anticipation for their new startups through waiting lists for early adopters or sets of tempting giveaways to raise the overall hype.

Viral Loops is a trusted contender for your marketing campaigns, with a record-extending up to 47K+ active campaigns, 25M leads generated, and 15M successful referrals — all in a span of 7 years.

With Viral Loops, you can create dedicated referral landing pages, add customized widgets to the website, and set up live dashboards to track and analyze performance. The software integrates well with automation tools you’re already working with, and wastes no time turning happy customers into brand advocates.

Pros

• Allow marketers to create unlimited campaigns
• Feature an array of campaign templates
• Offer unlimited emails sent to top prospects
• Give access to live chat support throughout onboarding

Cons

• Only allows one reward type
• No multilingual/localization support

Referral Factory

Referral Factory - a Plug and Play referral software builder is where marketers fed up with managing referrals on Excel sheets usually turn to.

For startups that wish to capitalize on word-of-mouth marketing but lack the human or capital resources to execute a referral strategy, Referral Factory offers the perfect way out. It gives access to over 1,000 pre-build referral program templates you can imitate and set up as your own within minutes.

What’s even better is that you don’t need to integrate any tracking scripts on your website or landing page. Referral Factory features a built-in page builder that lets you create and optimize referral pages specific to your niche without dedicating a team of developers.

Once the referral program is live and functional, you can start onboarding referrers by uploading a database or advertising your campaign on mainstream channels. Any customer that shares your referral link or a visitor that accesses your website through the special link, can be tracked and managed on a dashboard.

Pros

• Set up a referral campaign fast and easy
• Create a live referral dashboard to track performance
• Access chat and video support on all referral plans
• Access and integrate existing workflows with the program

Cons

• Entry-level packages can be hard to customize
• Require additional payment to use own domain

Referral Rock

While referral marketing appears to rely on organic word-of-mouth, the campaign involves lots of moving parts, requiring automation at every step. Referral Rock is an automation software built to enable B2B and B2C businesses to set up their word-of-mouth campaign on autopilot, drive more shares, and boost brand awareness.

Despite 83% of customers willing to share positive experiences, only 29% actually do. Signing up with Referral Rock will ensure those handfuls of prospects steer consistent, reliable, and scalable growth for your business without you steering every sale.

Even if you’ve set up a loyalty program, Referral Rock has all the infrastructure you need to automate, personalize the user experience, and integrate it with existing workflows for maximum outreach.

Referral Rock is relied upon by over 1,000 B2B and B2C businesses not only because of pre-drafted messaging or auto referral enrollment but also because of its iterative approach to the launch itself. A startup can onboard the platform, set up the referral mechanics, and launch the program within days, not months without needing an in-house developers team.

Pros

• Supports 25+ third-party integrations
• Build and automate email campaigns
• Allows on-brand customization for every referral procedure
• Supports various referral structures and reward options

Cons

• Does not support iOS and Android systems
• Some integrations are only applicable to premium plans

Ambassador

Even a 5% increase in customer retention can result in a 25% - 95% increase in profits over time - and Ambassador has been helping businesses achieve that for years. What some refer to as the holy grail of customer referrals, Ambassador is an all-in-one platform that can create and manage influencer, partner, advocate, and affiliate marketing programs. The platform qualifies in:

• Unique Share Links and QR Codes: Participants can access unique referrals or QR codes that can be easily shared with friends online and in person.
• Portal and Asset Library: Businesses can curate promotional content for their marketing campaign by loading engaging videos, images, and other multimedia.
• Personalized Landing Pages: Tailor your landing page specifically for your target audience and the rewards you’re offering. Disclose information about your campaign and the product it offers.
• Referral Tracking and Attribution: With Ambassador, you can seamlessly supervise your advocates, monitor KPIs, and optimize the program based on the results, in real-time.

Ambassador features advanced features for marketers and brand advocates to use. Like your in-house development team, customers are also equipped with out-of-the-box features like payouts, points & account credits, and hosted ambassador portals to enhance user experience.

Pros

• Easy to set up and manage
• One-click integration with the existing stack
• Provides impressive onboarding support
• Allow flexible payment options with fraud prevention

Cons

• Requires ongoing subscription payments
• May need technical assistance from developers

Friendbuy

As a business owner, your relationship with customers shouldn’t end with the signup or purchase. With the best referral software, you can get more out of every customer in the form of additional purchases and referral leads - and Friendbuy is here to help you accomplish that.

Unique lightweight code snippets, mobile-friendly widget templates, seamless sharing process, and automated reward fulfillment, you name it! Friendbuy offers everything, making it the preferred choice of big brands like Walmart, Casper, Nestle, and Disney.

Over the years, Friendbuy has exhibited an impressive track record - a 5% - 15% increase in customer acquisition, 25x return on investment, and 4x higher customer lifetime value.

No matter what integration tools you’re comfortable with, Friendbuy has the capacity to integrate your existing tech stack and workflow for better performance. Thanks to in-program optimization, you can institute rewards for specific actions - purchase, refer-a-friend, or app download - that are valuable to your business.

Still, if you face any challenges during the onboarding process, get in touch with referral marketing experts to learn best practices to accelerate your sales.

Pros

• Records 25x increase in ROI
• Grows email subscribers list automatically
• Provides a launch roadmap tailored to your business
• Features foolproof fraud detection algorithms

Cons

• Doesn’t support all-round customization
• Expensive subscription packages

SaaSquatch

If there is one referral marketing platform that favors startups, SMBs, and multi-national unicorns cash their market presence to grow sales - SaaSquatch takes the lead. The referral automation tool is steering growth for some of the most mainstream SaaS companies including Jobber and Western Union.

Knowing every business has its own set of challenges, SaaSquatch extends access to features that can help build and personalize programs related to your business model, user journeys, and tech stacks.

While the platform specializes in referral programs, SaaSquatch has expertise in building partner and affiliate programs that can foster sales revenue for any business. You can set audience-specific rewards, attribute them to a specific action, and curate special messages when the rewards are fulfilled.

With a few clicks, you can gain access to various template designs and pre-made programs. So for companies with a limited budget and time constraints can execute their referral campaign from the get-go. Feel your business goals are a distant dream? Talk to SaaSquatch’s representatives to know what route you should take to steer forward.

Pros

• Support multi-program functionality
• Set up tiered and purchased-based programs
• Track user behavior and in-app actions
• Access coaching and engineering support

Cons

• Expensive compared to competitors
• Limited customization features

Invite Referrals

Businesses no longer need to be tech-savvy or assemble an in-house team of developers to have a shot at referral marketing. With the courtesy of Invite Referrals, it has become one of the most cost-effective and easy-to-set-up marketing strategies.

Whether you run an e-commerce business or a SaaS business, Invite Referrals has the infrastructure to grow your business and acquire new customers. It supports integrations with multiple platforms like MailChimp, Shopify, BigCommerce, and Zapier, making it a reliable choice for over 20,000+ businesses.

From planning and execution to tracking conversions and assigning rewards to referrers, the software monitors every step of your program and keeps you onboard for the latest developments.

Invite Referrals measures everything from referrers, invites, referral visits, and installs, to your top advocates and displays the analytics in one dashboard. Program participants also have access to a number of dashboard slides including the leads generated, conversions, and pending rewards. This way businesses can maintain transparency with the audience which goes a long way in building trust.

Pros

• Ensure a simple and easy installation process
• Provide safer and secure payment checkouts
• Associate rewards with multiple actions or events
• All customer interactions can be tracked with a single dashboard

Cons

• Support limited referral program templates
• The dashboard can be difficult to grow accustomed to

Extole

More and more businesses are capitalizing on the unprecedented growth potential of referral marketing, and Extole is at the forefront of helping them accomplish that. The dynamic referral marketing software helps you create campaigns that encourage and reward customers for driving successful leads and fostering loyalty.

Extole is not just for budding startups. If you’re already running an enterprise, Extole can set up real-time, omnichannel solutions to steer growth as a business demands. Not only are they easy to enact for your brand, the software is scalable and secure meaning you won’t have to shift your campaign as your user base expands.

Since we live in a mobile-centric society, most of your business processes including the referral campaign should be with this mainstream audience. Extole specializes in creating mobile-first experiences to engage a larger audience, and create exceptional experiences, for a lasting relationship.

The software platform provides solutions for marketers in retail, consumer fintech, banks and credit unions, consumer services, and franchisors. As long as you’re rewarding customers with gifts and recognition, you’ll continue to enhance loyalty and leverage their full potential.

Pros

• Provide guidance from onboarding to optimization
• Features built-in advocate segments for specific targeting
• Develop an omnichannel marketing approach specific to your enterprise

Cons

• Integrating CRM software can be challenging
• The referral dashboard can be frustrating to understand

How to Choose the Perfect Referral Marketing Software

When it comes to choosing referral marketing software, people are inclined to follow the hype. There’s a lot more at stake if you intend to leverage word-of-mouth to spark hype for your product launch.

Picking the right program for your business often depends on your niche, target audience, and the magnitude of the launch. Still, there is no cookie-cutter answer to finding the right software. You may have to conduct a trial period before finalizing a referral package. Watch out for the following feature when you’re sifting through your options:

Integration Support

Integration support allows data to flow seamlessly between your referral program software and other business mechanisms. In other words, you don’t need to manually insert referral data, participant information, and performance metrics but instead, synchronize the referral software with your existing technology stack.

The software you are buying should support integration with analytics platforms (e.g., Google Analytics), email marketing platforms (e.g., MailChimp), social media platforms, and API access to ensure seamless operations.

Potential for Scalability

As your business expands and your customer base grows, your referral campaign will likely attract more participants. A scalable software will seamlessly manage increased traffic, referral activity, and participant data without performance issues or system crashes.

Slow or overloaded systems can frustrate users and discourage them from referring friends or engaging with your program. Whether you're launching a special offer or seasonal campaign, you need software that can handle a sudden influx of participants and referrals without compromising performance or user experience.

Customization Flexibility

Every business has unique objectives for its referral program. Whether you aim to boost customer acquisition, increase revenue, or enhance brand awareness, customization ensures your program can adapt to your changing needs. Select a referral software that allows you to design and modify program rules, rewards, and incentives to align with your specific goals.

Analytical Functions

Marketing campaigns don’t always go as planned, You need to constantly monitor your performance, look into analytics, and gauge them to your objectives, to ensure you are on track.

Many referral program software platforms offer real-time analytics, allowing you to monitor program activity as it happens. Some of the KPIs you need to look into are leads acquired, referral conversion rate, and revenue generated via each referrer. Watching out for these analytics will help you fine-tune your referral structure for better results.

Customer Support

Setting up and integrating a referral program into your campaign can be complex, especially during the initial stages. With every new integration, there is a learning curve for your team.

Having access to responsive customer support ensures that you can seek technical assistance and resolve any issues promptly. It can guide you through the customization process, helping you tailor the referral program to align with your brand identity, messaging, and specific goals.

Closing Note

Sure, referral marketing is simple and easy to execute. But as far as management is concerned, you’re bound to face some music unless you employ referral software.

Whether you want to spread your message across to a wider audience, shape a robust promotional campaign, receive and assign effective referrals, or streamline reward distribution, referral software is vital to growth.

With the growing trend of word-of-mouth marketing, new software is popping up making it hard for newcomers to find their ideal choice. We’ve reviewed and detailed the 8 top referral marketing software and tools that can maximize the potential of your referral campaign.

But if you want a robust platform, that streamlines your referral procedures at a lower cost, Prefinery.com is the way to go.

FAQs

How to select the best referral marketing software?

When choosing the top referral software, consider your business niche and the magnitude of the referral campaign. The right referral software should allow scalability, enable customization, integrate existing workflows, and ensure customer support.

What are the benefits of using referral software?

Implementing referral software can ensure:

• Cost-effective customer acquisition
• High-quality lead generation
• Automated reward fulfillment
• Data-driven analytics and insights
• Capacity to Scale