Referral marketing is defined as the method of promoting services or products to a newer customer base through the power of referrals and word of mouth. Even though referrals happen over a period, fortune 500 businesses often run online customer referral program with the hope of making it go viral by banking on customer referral platform and engagement.
If you are a fortune 500 business that wants to create viral giveaways through word of mouth to turn customers into brand advocates, combine affiliate marketing with referral and more, you have come to the right place.
I am going to review top three referral marketing software that have caught my attention in recent times:
The first customer referral marketing tool– UpViral referral program is an easy-to-use, cloud-based application that helps you to create viral giveaways, sweepstakes, and competitions.
Usually, the easiest way for people to take part in your offering is by merely visiting a customer referral program URL generated by you or refer a friend by sharing your content on the social network.
It is obvious the more people act on a web page or, the more people share your content all over social media, the higher their chances get to win the contest and get a reward.
It is a great referral marketing software for small businesses as well as big businesses for customer referral programs and word of mouth advertising to turn customers into brand advocates.
Think of a webinar registration page or an early bird subscription page for your newsletter or a new product you are about to launch.
UpViral Referral Marketing Platform applies the logic that people will turn up on your landing page and generate a lead by filling up their details to increase the possibility of earning a reward.
UpVIRAL do not offer a free trial but a risk free 30-day money back guarantee.
If bringing the people to your landing page is not your end goal, then UpViral also supports your plan of only getting them to share your content on the social media channels such as Facebook, Google My Business, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
In a nutshell, UpViral makes sure that anyone can run an effective ‘and’successful marketing campaigns in minutes – without any expertise.
This sounds too good to be true for a referral marketing program, isn’t it? Without further ado, let us take a look at features of this referral program software:
1) Simple, easy-to-use dashboard
It doesn’t matter how many of your campaigns are active currently or since how long – the software makes it easy for you to access them all from a single dashboard on UpViral.
The UX of the referral marketing software is user-friendly, and you won’t have any problem in navigating your way around it.
And if you get stuck, complete training and support are available through the dashboard.
2) Customized email automation system
There is nothing better than automating emails, isn’t it? You can set up trigger or behavioral emails based on the people’s actions.
The feature of referral marketing program guarantees to get more customers shares per visitor.
And if the referral marketing program is a vanity metric you are emphasizing on, then you should automate your email marketing.
If you get automation with your referral marketing software for small business then it is nothing less than a boon.
When you refer a friend or family member any product, you get awarded for it.
You can even send alert emails with your referral marketing management software to motivate the visitors to perform another action like name sharing on the landing pages via UpViral referral program.
Lastly, you can add social sharing buttons in your marketing program to make sharing an ongoing activity. How does that sound to you for a referral program software?
3) A/B split testing
UpViral is a referral marketing platform that covers A-Z of customer acquisition and A/B split testing.
From split-testing multiple landing pages and thank you pages to emails – you can play around with varied content to see which one gets you the best opt-in rates and sharing rates for your referral program software for customer acquisition.
Vanity metrics play a vital role in the engagement of viral marketing, and UpViral makes it easy for you to get the best of the deal to grow your business.
4) Customizable referral link system
UpViral referral marketing management software gives you complete control over how you want to run a points-based referral program.
It is up to you to decide the number of points to be provided per action such as leads, visits or shares.
You can even offer extra incentives for sharing and generate unique referral program invite links to increase customer acquisition.
5) Customizable rewards system
You can offer multiple rewards through referral program or refer a friend programs based on points or actions performed using this referral marketing platform.
Those rewards could be in the form of discount coupons, viral giveaways downloadable files or links.
The rewards system is fully automated and doesn’t need any human interference.
It means you don’t have to manually send out the discount coupon or a viral giveaway to the visitor after he or she performs word of mouth sales or shares your content.
He or she will automatically receive their reward via an email or a web page popup.
6) Easy to setup for contest promotions
UpViral makes it easy for you to schedule the campaigns so that they can be managed smoothly.
When it comes to choosing the winner for any of your viral contest ideas, you can either do it manually or let UpViral referral marketing management software pick one automatically.
You can even automate prize notification and awards with this referral reward marketing software.
If you want to engage your contestants a step further, then enable additional custom sharing opportunities for them and let them do whatever they’d like with their entries in referral program.
7) Powerful social sharing features
Referral marketing depends a lot on how you allow the participants to customize and control the way they share your links.
For instance: UpViral can optimize social media channels such as Facebook newsfeed to increase referral program tracking with its referral tracking tools.
When it comes to the social media network Twitter, the people visiting your landing pages can enjoy rich-tweet capabilities built-in.
Using this referral platform , there is complete control over how your shared posts will look through other people’s social media accounts and name sharing for customers.
Additionally, there are user-selected options that make referral program software sharing easy for the users, and the capability is required when it comes to referral marketing.
8) Robust metrics and analytics tools
What’s the point of using referral software for referral marketing when you are unable to detect fraud via cookies or IP referral tracking software? I mean the customer success of a referral program depends a lot on how you track the behavior of the participants.
Fortunately, UpViral referral program takes care of everything related to fraud and eliminates cheating or abuse that may happen on social accounts – a robust channel to keep track of.
You can track the performance of your referral program/referral campaign easily and identify the most successful one using this referral tracking software.
Managing leads and referral program software tracking tool to track your top referrers are a piece of cake with UpViral.
9) 100% mobile-optimized
Oh, yes! The display of this referral software is fully-responsive and supports all kinds of smartphones and tablets. It works on multiple operating systems such as iOS, Android, and Windows!
10) Supports all languages
UpViral is a global referral marketing software and supports a variety of languages. The customer success team is quite responsive.
GDPR and CCPA Update: To know about the GDPR and CCPA details I visited the UpViral GDPR and CCPA update page.
You can always discuss the customer support for in-depth details. Here are the major GDPR and CCPA related takeaways mentioned on their website:
- Appointed a data protection officer.
- Through research of all their business processes and check them for GDPR and CCPA compliance.
- Updated their terms of service and privacy policy.
- A new DPA for the EU citizens.
Integration
The software for referral marketing works natively with vital services belonging to the function of email marketing.
MailChimp, GetResponse, AWeber, GetResponse, Office AutoPilot, Constant Contact, SendReach, Campaign Monitor, Sendy, Mad Mimi, and more.
Using these, you can create a software referral marketing program in hours, not weeks.
With Upviral referral software you can send personalized follow-up emails to users, who have participated, with referral program links by enabling the function of auto-response.
As a marketer, I understand how important it is to study real time analytics so that you know which email marketing campaigns were successful and which were not.
You can track open rates, click rates along with many referrals using this referral software in real time in one click!
One of the hottest and the newest features of UpViral is the deep integration with advanced segmentation and tagging features in referral programs.
Pricing
There are currently three pricing packages UpViral referral program offers.
One is the “Starter” which costs $49 per month, second is the business which is priced at $79/month and third one is the “Premium” which is $199 per month.
Of course, the second pricing package offers more features and is the most popular one as well.
Additionally, UpViral is backed by a 30-day guarantee which means you can try out the referral marketing software for a month, risk-free. Simply contact their world class customer success team for more details.
If you feel your referral program campaign isn’t performing, your website or social traffic isn’t getting the boost you thought it would get, and you are not getting value out of it, all you have to do is submit a support ticket to the customer support team through the dashboard and request for a refund.
The UpViral referral software customer success team will refund your money promptly without asking any questions.
It’s that simple to detach from the referral marketing software!
VYPER
Before I begin to tell you about the impressive features of our second referral marketing tool VYPER, I want you to be honest about yourself and ask yourself if these things stand true for you:
- Your paid acquisition of referral programs is not working.
- You have a subpar conversion rate of referral programs.
- You have customers, but they are not buying again from you.
- You are unable to acquire new customers on social media.
- You want to boost revenues and grow your business.
If any of it holds true, then you should try the ultimate viral marketing tool, VYPER. Think outside the box for a minute.
Execute a viral contest idea that you make your potential customers happy or increase brand awareness in the market.
Run a leaderboard contest to incentivize social engagement or to re-engage with your customer base that isn’t making a repeat purchase with you.
But how do I do that, you ask? With a proper referral software; like in this way – with VYPER, of course.
Check out its excellent features:
1) Execute a viral contest idea like a pro
Absolutely! VYPER referral program lets you create beautiful landing pages even if you don’t have much information on coding to get more customers.
If you have an expert coder on board, he would also find the process of creating landing pages like a pro in one click. Sounds exciting, isn’t it?
2) Create a leaderboard to boost traffic
If you want to run a leaderboard in your contest or referral programs, you can do that too quite easily.
The feature will help you to boost word of mouth and the viral traffic by gamifying your viral contest idea.
The higher a person goes up on your leaderboard, the more engaged he or she will be with the campaign you are running.
Leaderboard instills a sense of competitiveness, and if you execute a viral contest idea based on it, the results would be spectacular.
3) Incentivize social media follow
Why not? Isn’t that the whole point of viral marketing? Get the participants to join your social media Facebook group or follow your YouTube channel to promote your referral programs.
Incentivizing these actions so that the users are more inclined towards completing them. Bonus entries will give your brand awareness a much needed social boost.
Fortunately, VYPER verifies social actions wherever possible through API connections. No more “fraud.”
4) Run “refer-a-friend” style campaigns
Referral programs are fun and can get outstanding results from onine stores if you do it correctly using the right referral marketing platform.
Viral sharing has many advantages, and one of them is that you can attract a lot of people from your current audience as long as you are in their good books.
A referral program could be as simple as sharing your well-executed viral contest idea on social media or refer a friend program by tagging them in a post or using word of mouth.
Referral marketing software for small business can help to grow businesses at a faster pace.
5) Automate your email marketing
There is nothing better than automating emails, isn’t it? And of course, VYPER has stayed on top of this technology.
Using its email follow-up feature, you can send emails straight from the dashboard with the participant’s information such as share link or contest login link embedded in the email itself.
You can set up trigger or behavioral emails based on the people’s actions and customer success. You don’t need to use a separate ESP to do that. VYPER is equipped to manage it all.
6) Set up “milestone” rewards
Everyone loves a freebie, and if you can give your participants gifts, viral giveaways or coupon vouchers on reaching a milestone set by you in referral programs, they will be more than happy to play your well-executed viral contest idea.
Here’s how you can create a milestone in this referral software and turn customers into brand advocates: if someone collects 200 entries in your viral giveaway, you can reward with a $50 voucher on your online stores.
And when they receive 400 entries, treat them with a spa coupon or a viral giveaway.
Coupon offers that can be unlocked at online stores attract participants like crazy, and you can not only increase your social following but also give your website traffic a much-needed boost.
7) 100% mobile optimized
Oh, yes! VYPER understands that mobile is a priority in this day and age for running referral programs. The team states that the contests look amazing on mobile.
The display is fully-responsive and supports all kinds of smartphones and tablets. It works on multiple operating systems such as iOS, Android, and Windows.
8) Run a contest on your domain
If you sign up for their “Enterprise” pricing plan, you have the liberty to remove VYPER branding from your viral contest idea’s landing pages.
You can do away with VYPER’s subdomain and use your own so that all the contestant sees your branding and I think they will make a huge difference.
9) Enjoy the benefits of pixel referral tracking and Google Analytics
Absolutely! VYPER referral software doesn’t ignore analytics and instead takes it much seriously.
You can start with their “Pro” plan to be able to embed Google Analytics code on the landing pages as well as any pixel code (Facebook has the system, and it’s helpful when running a paid contest).
10) Execute a viral contest idea even if you have zero audience
Don’t worry if you have zero audiences. That’s the whole point of running a viral campaign. You have to be a bit creative and seed your viral contest idea.
If you market it well, you will get the right participants for your contest. And if it gets successful, your zero audiences will multiply in hundreds.
Update: VYPER is GDPR and CCPA compliant referral platform, so if you are collecting data through VYPER then the GDPR and CCPA compliance is not violated.
They have added a default section to every term of service page that is easily customizable.
One needs to fill the information otherwise the compliance will be violated.
Client base
VYPER has been in the business for a couple of years with great customer success, and it already has some big brands under its belts such as Foundr, Walmart, Upload, Fatburger, Warner Bros, and more.
If you want to use the referral marketing software and see how it works for your campaigns, I’d suggest you go for it and join the impressive line of the clientele of VYPER.
Integrations
You will be happy to know that software for referral marketing -VYPER integrates with a variety of third party applications such as Shopify, WordPress, Magento, Wix, BigCommerce, AWeber, Sendy, Drip, ConvertKit, Klaivyo, and MailChimp.
Of course, this isn’t the end, and VYPER plans to keep adding more relevant tools in the future. So, watch this space for more.
Pricing
There are currently two pricing packages offered by VYPER and there is no free trial. Here are the details:
One is the “Enterprise” which costs $75 per month (if paid annually), the second one is “Agency” which is $150 per month (if paid annually).
Of course, the enterprise pricing package is the most popular one for serious marketers while “ “Agency” as the name suggests perfect for companies with multiple brands or agencies.
The best thing about VYPER is that it won’t charge you for anything until you start collecting emails and launching viral contest ideas.
That means every sign-up on VYPER is for free, and you have the liberty to use the referral marketing software however you’d like!
VYPER referral software is backed by a 30-day guarantee which means you can try out the referral marketing software for a month, risk-free.
If you feel your campaign isn’t performing and you are not getting value out of it, all you have to do is the request for a refund.
The VYPER referral program team will do refund your money promptly without asking any questions.
It’s that simple!; however, they are pretty confident you’ll be “crushing” the tool by the end of the month! But that’s up to you.
Gleam
Here’s the software for referral marketing with an impressive clientele of 1 million businesses including HubSpot, LootCrate, BeardBrand, FullScreen, Mud, SitePoint and more.
Unlike UpViral and VYPER, Gleam offers four kinds of apps to execute a viral contest idea.
You can use all the apps or purchase one app and scale accordingly.
Without further ado, let us explore the four types of applications that Gleam referral software offers:
1) Competitions
You can set up viral giveaways, execute viral contest ideas and sweepstakes to boost customer engagement online in referral programs.
Gleam allows you to verify the entries to social media channels.
Your participants can enter any competition with one link and refer their friends with custom viral referral program links.
The Competitions app offers a responsive widget which ensures a seamless mobile experience. It supports 25 languages from all across the globe.
Gleam automatically flags suspicious activities in the campaigns and invalidates fraud entries in one click.
Intending to retain existing customers and acquire new customers, Gleam also offers a Smart Popup Widget which pops up when the user is browsing through your website.
The same also gets triggered with a call-to-action set up by you. The main aim is to engage the user in every way.
Gleam also helps in picking the winners easily through manual entries and even automatically.
2) Rewards
Did you know 40% of participants follow brands on email and social media to get discounts and special vouchers?
Everyone loves a freebie, and if you can give your participants gifts, viral giveaways or coupon vouchers on reaching a milestone set by you, they will be more than happy to play your well-executed viral contest idea.
You can capitalize on this behavior with referral marketing tools like Gleam. Creating viral giveaways is a challenge, but with Gleam, this could be a piece of cake for you.
The referral marketing software allows you to develop unlockable rewards using numerous action combinations to keep up the buzz around your contests for your new and existing customers alike.
3) Gallery
What if I tell you that you can create and display content about your business in a visually appealing fashion? That’s right!
Feel free to curate media from your contest #hashtags, participant profiles on social platforms and images from your contests and viral giveaways in an album.
Moreover, you can embed the photo album anywhere that accepts HTML. The design is responsive and works beautifully on all devices.
4) Capture
Gleam offers templates, known as Capture, for eCommerce, brands, sweepstakes, and coupons just so you can easily sync your email list with a reliable an email provider and send daily or weekly newsletters, frequent product updates, viral giveaways, and significant business announcements.
Moreover, you can limit your campaigns to individual countries, and explore hyper-targeting to yield better results.
After all – money doesn’t grow on trees! You can also do an A/B testing to check which Capture works best for your users.
Gleam also offers a CSS editor so that you can change how your Capture looks or feels anytime you like.
Doing so is pretty simple and doesn’t require you to be a pro at CSS editing. Just pick up one line of Javascript code and drop it on the header of the website.
It’s a drag-and-drop feature.
You are in complete control of your campaigns on Gleam – aesthetically and technically.
Gleam update: To ensure the confidentiality and lawful processing of the data that Gleam collects of their new customers, visitors, campaign users are in strict compliance to GDPR and CCPA.
So, one can use Gleam without any GDPR and CCPA related concerns.
Integrations
I feel the VYPER alternative integrates with a maximum number of applications.
From CRM, eCommerce and email marketing to Crowdfunding, events, music, and gaming – Gleam cover various functions.
The Upviral alternative integrates with all major social media accounts, Vimeo, Kickstarter, Spotify, Twitch, Mixer, Eventbrite, AWeber, Campaign Monitor, ConvertKit, Drip, Constant Contact, GetResponse, HubSpot, Brevo, SalesForce, Zoho, Typeform, Google Analytics, and Shopify to name a few.
Pricing
You can get complete access to all Gleam apps in just $97 per month. That’s the “Pro” plan by the way.
Gleam also offers a “Business” plan and a “Premium” plan in just $397 per month and $997 per month respectively. As per their website you do not get this referral marketing software free trial(trial packs).
However, you can also start with just one app and scale as per your convenience and business requirements.
While Competitions is available for $10 per month, Rewards, Galleries, and Captures are up for grabs at only $29 per month.
IMO, sign up on Gleam for free to run unlimited competitions using limited features and user data. If you are comfortable using the referral marketing software, purchase a plan, you like the most.
An overview of all the referral marketing software discussed in this guide:
Referral marketing software | Pricing | Features summary |
---|---|---|
UpViral | The Paid plan starts at $49/mo. | What is good? Affordable and smart advertising options. Huge results with low costs. Robust tools for analytics and metrics. What is not good? The customisation is limited. |
VYPER | The paid plan starts at $149/mo . | What is good? Huge variety of contest options that you can create. Very easy to use. What is not good? A bit pricey compared to other similar referral program. |
Gleam | The paid plan starts at $97/mo . | What is good? Very intuitive and easy to use referral program. If pricing is not an issue then one can really get good returns in higher-tier plans. What is not good? Design options very limited . Expensive for smaller businesses. |
Our Experience
After exploring all the three referral marketing software, I have concluded that each of them would come in handy – depending upon what your business does or how big of a viral campaign you want to do.
And you can always take the help of the free trial if available. There are other competitors as well like ambassador referral marketing software which we will need to study before drawing any conclusions.
Have you ever used any of this software before? If yes, how has your experience been so far? Please share it with me in the comments below.
What is referral marketing?
Referral marketing is the process of promoting your products to new people through referrals. These referrals usually come through your word of mouth. There are several tools to do this and you can always opt for a free trial to see if it works or not.
What are the benefits of referral marketing?
The benefits of referral marketing include a loyal customer base. When you refer a friend or family to your product then they are more convinced about the credibility of the product and these referrals are called word of mouth. It is estimated that new customers got through referral marketing are more loyal and profitable than normal customers.
Which is the best referral marketing software and what does it do?
Some of the referral marketing software are UpViral, VyPer and Gleam. You can always check if there is a free trial available that can help you assess how good the tool is for your referral programs.
How do referrals work and how do you create a referral?
Referral software usually allows you to create referral program where the customers who refer others are awarded with incentives, cash prices and discounts. It can be done via word of mouth marketing.
Are referral marketing software free?
Yes, Vyper does have a free plan for lifetime but with a limited number of leads per month. Some of the referral program software offers free trial as well.
How much does a referral marketing software cost?
The prices of referral marketing software varies for different referral software.
Wow, Great Information. I read your blog very useful information to me. Thanks For Sharing it. Really Thanks.
That is a very helpful article and technique for new users like me.
Thanks for this awesome list Caroline!
Gleam is overall a fine software, but a small issue that I would like to point out is that there is no clear cut way to extract name and email ids. Recently, I wanted to create a small campaign that required only name and email Ids. But, there was no way to do it directly. I know some people may not find it problematic, but I did.
Thanks to your review that now I know there are several softwares like Tapfiliate that help with the management of referral marketing. Referrals is a great way to popularize your brand and also make it known among masses.