In almost every industry, referrals are the gold standard of customer acquisition. Research has repeatedly shown that referred leads close faster, buy more, and stay longer — all with significantly less effort and at a much lower CPA than non-referred prospects. A University of Pennsylvania study[1] found that referred customers are more loyal and profitable — by a 16% margin — than their non-referred counterparts.

For marketers that are running manual business referral programs, more often than not, it can feel like you’re on a hamster wheel. Your goal is to drive new business by bringing in more referrals from existing customers. But to bring in more referrals, you need more time, resources, and money to incentivize your customer base as well as track, pay, and manage your referral program members. But to get that investment from the suits upstairs, you need to show an uptick in new business. Which ...

Effective referral programs are more influential than you may think. In fact, 82% of Americans seek recommendations from friends and family when considering a purchase. Additionally, 67% say they’re at least a little more likely to purchase a product after a friend or family member shared it via social media or email - for example, through a referral program.

Developing measurement, management, and analytics functionality in-house for an automated affiliate marketing program is certainly possible, but it requires a laborious process that typically involves many internal departments, especially your technical development team. In addition to the internal infrastructure and tools necessary to scale affiliate marketing, your manually managed program will require significant investments of time and resources.

Most savvy marketers today are driven by data. And the numbers don’t lie: eCommerce referral programs work. Having a referral program can help your brand keep up in an industry where word-of-mouth travels far and wide.

Affiliate management isn't an easy task. It's not about having a ton of members in your affiliate marketing program that may or may not share your links. It's not about having a popular influencer mention your product, which may or may not lead to conversions. It is all about developing the right relationships with the right types of affiliates. 

While not all effective referral programs yield the same results, there are some steps you can take to set your brand’s referral program up for success. Long story short, your goal is to help your brand ambassadors help you.