The SaaSquatch Referral Program Loop

To better understand how a referral program works we have broken the process down into five core topics: Engagement, Identification, Attribution, Conversion, Fulfillment. These cover the complete referral process from beginning (user discovery) to end (fulfilling rewards).

🔗 Engagement

In order to direct a user's attention towards your referral program you should take advantage of channels that they interact with everyday. The SaaSquatch Referral Widget can both be embedded and served as a popup or modal, and the more visible and easy to access your program is, the better results you will see.

Promotion is something that all referral programs need in order to deliver results as you have to create awareness of your referral program to drive participation. In most cases, promoting your referral program to existing customers across a wide range of mediums will help with the visibility of your program and drive engagement.

On your website or in app, banners, visible referral pages, triggered calls to action, push notifications, and dedicated emails will all increase the visibility of your referral program. Including a footer in your other emails for invoice receipts, reminders, blog articles, and support tickets can also increase awareness of the referral program. A referral program will benefit from promotion across any or all of these channels.

🔗 Identification

As soon as a user is registered in your referral program they are able to start making referrals by sharing out their referral link to family and friends. Enrolling a user in your referral program requires providing SaaSquatch with identifying information about the user such as name, email, and a Required unique account and user ID.

The identification step typically happens whenever a user first creates an account on your website or service, makes a purchase, or logs in.Once a user has been identified and engages with the referral program, the referral process can continue towards Attribution and Conversion.

🔗 Attribution

The process of attributing this referral of a new user is done automatically through SaaSquatch as part of a correctly configured program. Links and referral codes shared directly, by email, or through social media work across desktop or mobile devices and seamlessly attribute the referral connection between the Referrer and the Referred user.

Once the referral connection is made, SaaSquatch will send the Referrer an email notifying them of the progress of the user they referred. Subsequent steps in the referral process will be accurately applied to both the Referrer and Referred User with the referral connection correctly attributed.

🔗 Conversion

Many organizations have this event as the point at which a Referred User pays for a subscription. Other organizations have their goal-post as when a Referred User signs up for a free account, or when a Referred User makes a purchase of a certain value. This target is flexible and can be tailored to your specific business needs.

For Growth Automation Programs, Conversion occurs when an event for a user is sent to us through either squatch.js, our JavaScript library, or via an API call. Events are incredibly flexible and can be anything from a purchase event to a confirmation that a user has completed a custom activity. When the SaaSquatch system receives an event for a user that matches the parameters set out in the rules of your program, the referral successfully converts.

Once the goal-post has been hit, and the user’s status has been updated, the referral process can progress to fulfillment.

🔗 Fulfillment

SaaSquatch supports manual, semi-automated, and fully-automated reward fulfillment options. Rewards come in many shapes and sizes but are commonly discount percentages, account credits, gift cards, or points.

SaaSquatch supports integrations with a range of payment providers and reward systems to fulfill rewards. Integrations with payment providers allow for seamless inclusion of the rewards with your existing billing platform. Highly customized referral reward solutions are also possible through our API-based referral programs.

The easiest way to learn more about the topic of fulfillment is to start by exploring our getting started guides. These guides provide step-by-step instructions for how to implement some of the most popular types of referral program rewards.