Our new template results from our relentless effort to combine our experience and best practices over the years with our customer's demands and real-life scenarios.
This is why we have introduced a new way of having all the versatility you need when creating a referral campaign. Now you only need one template to accompany you throughout the life cycle of your referral strategy from prelaunch and early-stage adopters( Like Harry's) to full scale long-lasting conversion-based referral campaigns like Revolute's or Airbnb's.
Our new template can offer you in-depth integration with our existing systems and pair in a way no other template could so far in your referral lifecycle. You can easily switch from a prelaunch waitlist campaign over to a conversion-based campaign where your existing customers can bring you their peers.
Which use case can be supported?
So here are some of the scenarios our no-code Installation can support:
E-commerce Sign-Ups:
Scenario: An online store wants to boost its customer base. Integrate the tool with the newsletter sign-up form. Customers who sign up receive a unique referral link. They earn discounts for every successful referral resulting in a purchase, and their friends get a discount on their first purchase.
Course Enrollment:
Scenario: An online learning platform wants to increase course enrollment. Embed the referral tool in the course registration form. Students who refer others earn credits or additional resources for each successful referral, while the referred friends get a discount on their first course.
Membership Programs:
Scenario: A gym or fitness club aims to expand its member base. Connect Viral Loops with the membership registration form. New members receive incentives for successful referrals, such as free sessions or exclusive access to facilities, and their friends get a special sign-up offer.
Event Registrations:
Scenario: An event organizer wants to increase attendance. Integrate Viral Loops with the event registration form. Registrants receive perks or discounted tickets for each friend they refer who also registers, creating a viral loop of event promotion.
Software Trials*:
Scenario: A SaaS company wants to grow its user base. Implement Viral Loops in the software trial sign-up form. Users earn extended trial periods or additional features for successful referrals, and their friends receive exclusive benefits when they sign up.
Travel Bookings:
Scenario: A travel agency wants more bookings. Embed Viral Loops in the booking confirmation form. Travelers who refer friends earn travel vouchers or discounts on future bookings, and their friends receive a discount on their first booking.
Real Estate Referrals*:
Scenario: A real estate agency wants to attract more property listings. Connect
Viral Loops with the property listing submission form. Property owners referring others who successfully list their properties earn commission discounts, and the new listers receive a discount on the agency's services.
Charity Donations:
Scenario: A non-profit organization wants to increase donations. Integrate the donation form with Viral Loops. Donors who refer others receive recognition or exclusive updates, and their friends are encouraged to donate with a special incentive.
Job Referrals:
Scenario: A company wants to incentivize employee referrals. Implement Viral Loops in the employee referral program. Employees referring successful candidates earn bonuses, and the new hires receive a sign-on bonus or other perks.
Mobile App Downloads*:
Scenario: A mobile app company wants to boost app downloads. Connect Viral Loops with the app download form on a web environment. Users referring friends who download and install the app earn in-app credits or premium features, and their friends get a welcome bonus.
By integrating the referral tool with various forms, these scenarios leverage the power of personal recommendations, creating a win-win situation for both the existing users and their preferred connections.
Tutorial Video
You can have a quick overview through our tutorial here:
>>Insert Video tutorial<< here.
Otherwise, we will explain everything below:
Configuration of the Campaign Wizard
Info
Here you name your referral campaign. A name only to be used internally.
Rewards
At this step, you configure the rewards you want to offer to the referrers, invitees, or both.
Info-tip: It is up to you to choose who you want to reward and how. Keep in mind that rewards at this step are only configured as part of an eligibility base, you need to send out the rewards and communicate to the customers the details of how to receive them.
If you want to automate the reward procedure you will need to create a Zap or API call to your app to trigger the flow.
For the referrer rewards (for people who invite others) you have the following options:
Unlimited reward: Give a reward for every single successful referral they make.
For example, you can tell your customers: “For every friend you bring you get $5”
Tiered rewards: Give different rewards as people invite more friends (aka. Referral milestones).
For example, you can tell your customers: “When you make your first referral, you get $5. When you invite three people you will get $40, When you invite six …”
Combine Unlimited and Tiered Rewards: You can combine both to create a very generous campaign but effective campaign.
For example “For every friend you refer, you will get $5 and when you reach the tier of 4 invited friends, you’ll get a free product, when you reach 10 referrals, you get an iPhone.”
For the invitee rewards (people who accept invites from referrers) you have the option to offer or not offer them a reward. This practically works as a Welcome reward.
For example, you can tell invited people “If you join through a referral link, you get 20% off your first purchase”
Referrer page
Here you configure the “Referrer experience”, in other words, how people interact with your referral campaign to invite their friends. This can be the referrer 'hub'
You have three things to configure:
Referrer participation: Choose how people join your referral campaign — automatically through automation or manually through a form.
Referrer dashboard location: Choose where you will host a page to give referrers their referral link and progress tracking — host it on a Viral Loops Page or your website/app.
Referrer dashboard elements: Configure the interactive elements/widgets that make up your referral dashboard such as a widget that shows the referral link and how many referrals they have so far.
Invitee page
This is the step where you set up how referred friends accept invites. In other words, what happens once someone clicks the referral link.
It is here that you define when invitees (referred friends) are associated with their referrers.
The key here is that you need a form of some kind that invitees fill in.
You configure this flow in three areas:
Invitee page: Define what kind of web page people go to after clicking the link — a page on your website (ex. /signup) or a Viral Loops page.
Invitee widget: If you select a Viral Loops Page or a page on your website that does not have a form you can configure a Viral Loops form that will capture referred leads.
Sharing appearance: Configure link shortening and the Open Graph settings of the referral link.
Info-tip: The invitee step can be an entry point for your Web App or a dedicated page for your referral campaign. You can have multiple "entry" points but a referral link will only point to one. An example would be to connect your sign-up form for your WebApp so that when someone signs up automatically becomes part of the campaign and a referral link is created.
You can later provide instructions on how to go to the referral dashboard and interact with the campaign.
Double opt-in (DOI)
At this step, you configure if new participants have to verify their email addresses before inviting their friends.
Your options are:
No DOI: Recommended if you already have another verification system in place.
Invitee only: Ask referred friends/invitees to verify their email (and configure that email)
All participants: Ask everyone who joins the referral program to verify their email address.
Goals
Define what counts as a successful referral for your campaign. Rewards get distributed when the referred friends reach this goal.
Accepting an invite (what you set up in the Invitee step) is not necessarily the end of the referral flow, as may only want to give a reward when Invitees complete an action.
Here you have two options when it comes to what counts as a successful referral:
Campaign participation: A referral is complete when Invitees join the referral program too (ie. when people accept an invite as defined in the Invitee step)
Custom event or conversion: A Referral is complete when referred friends join and then take an action like a purchase — triggered when they visit a specific URL, or you send an API/SDK call. You can see our Installation guide here for more info on how this works on the technical side.
Communication
Here you configure some optional emails to be sent from Viral Loops.
This is useful if you want to save time from integrations or you do not even have a CRM/Email provider in place to send email flows from.
Here you have two options:
Welcome email: This is the first email that your participants receive when they join the campaign.
Successful referral email: Send an email to the users who successfully referred others.
Integrations
Here you configure the integrations you want your campaign to work with.
You have the options for CRM integrations (like HubSpot)that manage your customer base or simpler operational integrations that you use in your day-to-day (Google Analytics)
You can find instructions inside each one.
Installation
This last step goes into the actions you have to take to publish your campaign. It’s organized like a checklist and its contents adapt based on your selected options over the previous steps.
Details can be found here:
What kind of rewards can I have?
As far as it concerns the rewards for each milestone, you can choose anything of value for your target audience. If you need help choosing rewards, take a look here.
Interested to learn more? Then, check out our Playbook as well as our blog here and discover how you can start a referral marketing campaign from scratch and make it successful!
What possibilities open
The Universal Template from Viral Loops offers a versatile way to create referral campaigns for various users and businesses.
It allows web applications, including both consumer and B2B SaaS, to set up referral programs tailored to their complex sign-up processes, such as trial periods and multiple sales calls, ensuring only current customers can send referral links and rewards are issued for specific actions performed by the referred friends.
Event organizers can integrate referral programs with their event management or ticketing systems, rewarding referrals when certain conditions are met, like a referred friend being redirected to a specific page by the ticketing platform.
Media companies can use it to encourage their audience to bring in new viewers or readers through omnichannel referral programs.
E-commerce sites can incorporate referral programs into their checkout processes, allowing customers to refer friends at the point of purchase and ensuring rewards are given for verified purchases.
Then, regardless of industry, all businesses can tinker around with different reward and incentive schemes until they find out what works best for them.
One can offer rewards both both referrers and invitees, while also stacking reward tiers for referrers or if your customers feel more generous, you can create campaigns that only give rewards.
Then you can consider non-tangible incentives. Use a Viral Loops ranking list to foster competition, a campaign expiration date to create some FOMO, and more.
Hopefully, by this point, you understand that the possibilities are endless.
For us at Viral Loops, this new configuration allows us to have infrastructure that is less opinionated and creates the right ground to build on.
With the Universal Template, new features can be released across all types of campaigns faster, instead of having to customize them to fit every case-specific template
This way, we can develop more tools and tactics faster that will bring a return on investment to our customers.
For example, we might add a reward distribution system by integrating with payment providers and merchant networks so you can give out rewards automatically, an affiliate marketing solution, or a template designed for mobile apps.