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.

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.

Gaining new customers for your business can be an expensive challenge, but with these customer referral program ideas it doesn't have to be! Before we jump in, let's back up and talk about the benefits of referral marketing.

It’s no shock that more and more businesses are investing in referral marketing these days, but executing like marketers running the best referral programs out there is no easy task. Especially since numerous research has shown that a well-executed referral program has the power to fuel higher conversion rates than any other channel1. 

Whether you’re looking to build a new referral program or optimize your existing campaign, we’ve curated some of the most creative referral program examples that are sure to get your juices flowing!

As most marketers are well aware of: Facebook is making significant changes to what users will see on their News Feed. Before your ad team erupts in chaos about how terrible this announcement is for brands, publishers and other third-party players, let’s take a look at how your company’s referral program can actually use this new algorithm to its advantage.

Let’s say you came into work tomorrow, opened your marketing analytics dashboard (better yet, a referral program dashboard), and saw that an Instagram influencer campaign had driven 20x ROI for your fashion eCommerce brand. Or maybe you’re the Head of Marketing for a B2B business and found that a partner webinar had driven 1,000 qualified leads and 200 new customers with an average lifetime value of $5,000. How would you react?