Referral and loyalty tools are essential for direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands looking to build and nurture customer relationships. Referral tools enable brands to create programs that incentivize current customers to refer new customers, often offering rewards for both the referrer and referee. Loyalty tools, on the other hand, focus on rewarding repeat customers for their ongoing business, typically through points, discounts, or exclusive offers.
For DTC brands, these tools are important as they help foster a community of brand advocates and loyal customers. Referral programs leverage word-of-mouth marketing, which is highly effective and cost-efficient. Loyalty programs, meanwhile, encourage repeat purchases and can increase customer lifetime value. Both types of tools aid in creating a strong brand connection and enhancing customer retention.
Popular tools in this category include ReferralCandy and Smile.io. ReferralCandy is popular for its ease of setup and integration with various e-commerce platforms, making it a favorite for brands seeking to implement straightforward, effective referral programs. Smile.io is renowned for its comprehensive loyalty program capabilities, offering a range of customizable rewards and engagement options. Both tools stand out for their user-friendly interfaces and proven success in boosting customer engagement and driving sales through referrals and loyalty initiatives.
One the most powerful marketing weapons if used correctly. Brands in the apparel space such as Rothy’s rely on tools like Talkable and other like UNDERDAYS leverage ReferralCandy. Here’s the full list.
Storista enhances D2C brand engagement on Shopify by enabling the integration of Instagram content via widgets. Brands can embed Instagram Posts, Highlights, Stories, or Reels on their website, showcasing products in a familiar format to boost sales and engagement. The app allows for content synchronization, multiple widget templates for brand alignment, and performance optimizations to ensure a seamless user experience.
Affiliate marketing made frictionless. Social Snowball makes it easy to build, launch, and automate your word-of-mouth marketing programs. Whether you want to turn your customers into revenue-generating affiliates or launch a TikTok influencer program, Social Snowball is the control center that lets you configure programs, track referral sales, send commission rewards, and automate it all.
Smile.io powers reward programs for 30,000 merchants across the globe, making it the most popular eCommerce rewards platform in the world. Create a mobile-friendly program that rewards your customers with points, VIP status, and referral bonuses.
Influence.io is designed to streamline influencer marketing for D2C brands. It helps brands identify, connect, and collaborate with the right influencers to boost their visibility and sales. Influence.io ensures that influencer partnerships are effective and impactful via robust analytics and campaign management tools.
Superfiliate has built a platform that empowers brands to run end-to-end affiliate, influencer and referral programs, turning every link shared by a creator or customer into a co-branded landing page. Co-branded landing pages create a personalized experience for the shopper as every page has its own unique content, curated products and reviews from the creator, driving a higher conversion rate (by >20-30%) and deepening the sense of partnership between the brand and the creator. Superfiliate also handles campaign management, product seeding, payout management, tracking/ analytics, promotions and much more within the affiliate, influencer and partner workflows. Native integrations with email, sms, subscription, payment, analytics & measurement providers make it seamless to onboard, launch, accelerate growth and measure success.
UpPromote is the top recommended affiliate/referral solution for Shopify brands. Create loops within your sales funnel centered around influencers, brand ambassadors, and existing customers with the most-favored affiliate marketing software.
Talkable is referral program software for eCommerce brands. Build the program you like from feature set, to the overall look and feel of it. Then A/B test it to adapt it to fit your customers' needs. Talkable is best for brands with $4M+ annual revenue.
ReferralCandy helps online stores attract new customers, increase sales and grow their brand with easy-to-setup and automated referral and affiliate programs.
High-growth brands can get more out of every customer with Friendbuy. With a best-in-class referral and loyalty program, brands can achieve at least 5-15% of new customer acquisition, with a 4x higher lifetime value. Friendbuy works with DTC brands like Casper, AWAY, and Outdoor Voices as well as Fortune 100-ranked companies like Walmart, Disney and Nestle. Plus, Friendbuy integrates seamlessly with your tech stack, so you can incorporate referrals and loyalty seamlessly into your customer journeys.
Everything you need to build a better D2C brand, business and tech stack.
