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In this case study, we review how ipaymy was able to build an ambassador program that generates 30% of their new leads and how you can do the same!
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Ambassador Program Overview
ipaymy is a financial technology company focused on building payment solutions for small businesses. ipaymy's stack of payment technology products enables businesses everywhere to optimize their accounts receivable and accounts payable operations with their easy-to-use, yet powerful all-in-one business payments platform.
“We build technology to help small businesses thrive.”
- Vanessa Carmen Teo, Customer Support Manager at ipaymy
ipaymy decided to leverage word-of-mouth to drive growth for their brand. They needed an automated solution that was simple to set up but provided them with an advanced tool to track referrals all the way through the funnel.
They wanted to achieve:
- A cost-effective approach to encourage word of mouth
- Increased user engagement
- Transform existing users into advocates
- Get more customers
The team designed an ambassador referral program that offers double-sided incentives for both the referrer and the newly referred user.
“We decided to run a referral program because it was beneficial to all parties. It allowed us to gain new leads and reward new and existing customers.”
- Vanessa Carmen Teo, Customer Support Manager at ipaymy
Ambassador Program Rewards
ipaymy understands that incentives are a key part of an ambassador referral program and that the right incentives on both sides, i.e. the referrer and the referral, help in making a flywheel of growth.
“The most important aspect of running a successful referral program is the ease of receiving and applying the rewards. Ultimately, that is what all customers want.”
- Vanessa Carmen Teo, Customer Support Manager at ipaymy
Of the various types of incentives commonly offered in referral programs, ipaymy decided on rewarding their users with referral bonus money.
“For every successful business referral,
both parties will receive a promo code valued at $200.
For every successful personal referral,
both parties will receive a promo code valued at $30.”
“We used email automation to send out the promo codes to the users upon a successful referral.”
- Vanessa Carmen Teo, Customer Support Manager at ipaymy
Ambassador Program Participant Flow
ipaymy knows that participant flow should be at a point where it has a maximum likelihood of conversion and also is a moment that happens frequently. They decided to embed the program within their web portal.
Step 1
As soon as users visit the home page the first CTA ‘Sign up now’ is available at the top of the screen, which when clicked, will take the user to sign up for their product.
Step 2
Users sign up for their product by filling out their name, email, password, phone number, type of account (business or personal), and agree to the terms & conditions.
Step 3
Users are required to verify their email address by clicking on the link in the verification email sent to the email address they provided during signup.
Step 4
The Referrals landing page is strategically placed in the left side menu within the ipaymy user account dashboard. The ‘Join Now’ CTA, when clicked, will subscribe the users to the referral program and move users to the next step of the referral funnel.
Step 5
They may now invite other people to sign up by sharing their unique referral link via Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger or email.
Here is how the referral link is shared via Whatsapp.
Step 6
When referrals sign up to ipaymy through the referral link shared with them, they will receive the referral reward in the form of a promo code for a fixed amount off the ipaymy fee on their first payment.
Step 7
Once the referrals have completed their first payment using their promo code, users will receive their referral reward similarly in the form of a promo code that gives the same amount off the ipaymy fee on their next payment.
There is absolutely no limit to how much users can earn - the more friends users refer, the more they earn!
Step 8
Users can visit the Referral Program landing page when they log in to their account anytime to find out how many people have signed up from their referral link and how many referrals have successfully completed the required conversion action, i.e. made a qualified payment on ipaymy.
Ambassador Program Launch
ipaymy’s referral program went live in September 2020. They used two social media channels -Facebook and Instagram, to connect to their users and introduce the program.
This is their announcement on Facebook on Sept 16, 2020. The referral message on the post was short and to the point. It provided the most important messages, i.e the action the users needed to take and the ‘hook’ that would inspire them to want to refer, in just a couple of short sentences.
Announcement on Instagram on the same day.
Program Ongoing Promotion
Participants are reminded and educated about the referral program with a number of touchpoints.
“We promote the program on social media posts and directly on our platform itself. We also encourage our Account Managers to spread the word of our referral program to our customers.”
- Vanessa Carmen Teo, Customer Support Manager at ipaymy
Website CTAs
The ambassador referral program has been one of the core drivers of user growth at ipaymy. Placing the most important content, including the Referral landing page, on the top navigation bar allows ipaymy to prioritize what they want the website visitors to focus on.
ipaymy’s Referral landing page, as the primary action for the full website, aims to encourage visitors to take the required action and increase conversion. The page includes in-depth information on how the program works and an expandable section for the full program terms & conditions.
Placing the CTA ‘Get Started’ right underneath the incentives is a good move as the incentives act as a motivator for users to click the CTA and join ipaymy first.
Email Automations
ipaymy uses a scheduled series of emails to continue to nurture current users with the purpose of encouraging engagement and increasing sales.
ipaymy extracts referral program data through the ReferralHero integration and adds it to their 3rd party emails. Allowing them to send personalized ongoing reminders about the program itself.
“The ReferralHero analytics section gives us insights on how often our users refer their friends and who are the top referrers. This provides us good data points on our loyal customers and allows us to create new campaigns to target these users.”
- Vanessa Carmen Teo, Customer Support Manager at ipaymy
Ongoing Social Media Posts
Posting regularly on social media has also given ipaymy the opportunity of generating more leads as users are constantly reminded of their referral program.
Dedicated Referral Program ‘Help’ Page
ipaymy dedicates a few pages of their support site to help answer some of the most common questions on their referral program,
- How does the referral program work?
- How do I refer a friend or business to ipaymy
- Why did I not get a reward promo code after referring a friend?
Ambassador Program Results
ipaymy’s referral growth has been steadily increasing week after week from the initial 37% to 114% now.
“We wanted a way to drive traction and gain more customers. Encouraging referrals has been a very good way to spread the news. This campaign is still ongoing since it first started and has been steadily giving us new leads throughout the years!”
- Vanessa Carmen Teo, Customer Support Manager at ipaymy
On the day of the first public social media announcement on Sept 16, 2020
- Number of subscribers: 91
- Number of referrals: 21
Results after one week on Sept 23, 2020
- Number of subscribers: 130
- Number of referrals: 35
- Referral rate: 24.6% (32 subscribers have referred more than 1 person/total 130 subscribers)
- Referral growth: 36.8% (35/(130-35))
Results after one month on Oct 16, 2020
- Number of subscribers: 252
- Number of referrals: 84
- Referral rate: 28.2% (71/252)
- Referral growth: 50% (84/168)
All time results as of Jan 3, 2023
- Number of subscribers: 2202
- Number of referrals: 1172
- Referral rate: 21.5%
- Referral growth: 113.8%
“ReferralHero allowed us to achieve 30% growth of new leads.”
- Vanessa Carmen Teo, Customer Support Manager at ipaymy
ipaymy has now been able to unlock exponential growth for their business, and their success is not unusual.
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