Introduction

Referral partners can be an effective asset to your organization. Your referral partners will help you reach more prospective customers while increasing your conversion rate.

However, like any other type of partner program, the referral partner branch of your business won’t run itself. Instead, referral partner software will help you execute, monitor, and optimize the results of your program. Discover which tools you should consider for your program and how to select the right solution.

Which Types of Referral Partner Software Should Your Program Consider?

Software will make your life easier when running a referral partner program, help you reach more partners, and drive better results. There are three critical software types you should consider for your program, although a strong PRM will eliminate the need for additional solutions.

PRM

A Partner Relationship Management tool (PRM) is a powerhouse of a solution for all channel programs. Through a PRM, you can keep track of all of your partners, in-progress deals, and provide a surplus of valuable tools to help them sell. In addition, a great PRM will make all other referral partner program tools redundant. 

If you have other types of partners in your program, a PRM will also help you manage them as well. This enables you to keep track of all of your partners in one place, house all of your marketing and training resources, and monitor the results of your program across the board.

When selecting a PRM to manage referral partners, look for a solution that offers the following features.

Attribution tracking

In a referral program, attribution tracking is mission-critical to ensuring your partners get the credit they deserve for deals they bring in. With a system in place to track deal attribution, it can be easier to connect deals with the correct partners accurately. A great PRM makes this easy, not only tracking which partners bring in which deals, but also allowing you to see the marketing resources that drive conversions.

Co-marketing options

Co-marketing takes a huge load off of your referral partners. With the right tools in place, they can easily co-brand assets you’ve already developed, then leverage them in their outreach efforts to attract prospects and customers. Optimal PRMs will allow your partners to quickly add their logos to existing assets and distribute them as desired.

Content library

Along with co-marketing options, a great PRM will allow you to develop and share a content library. In your content library, you can house assets for your referral partners to leverage during sales and marketing efforts.

Partner dashboard

A dashboard makes it easy for referral partners to see all of the resources available at a glance, along with quick links. An optimal PRM will allow you to build a custom dashboard for your partners so they have everything they need at their fingertips.

Training & certification solutions

Depending on your product, training and certifying referral partners may be essential to influencing deals. The best PRM for your referral partner program will make it easy to provide training and certification courses to participants with a learning library and knowledge quizzes.

Metrics reporting

The best way to grow your referral partner program is to track the results of your channel’s efforts and optimize future campaigns. Great PRMs provide metrics reporting, making it easy to see what’s working and what isn’t. 

Automation capabilities

To scale your partner program, you have to implement automation. Your PRM can help you grow your channel by automating activities such as referral partner engagement, metrics reporting, and more.

Partner landing page creation

Co-branded landing pages are helpful for referral partners to market your solution. With a PRM, your referral partners can easily develop landing pages with pre-developed content you’ve already found to be successful.

Referral Marketing Platform

A great referral marketing platform will help you distribute referral links, conduct marketing campaigns, and send rewards as they’re earned.

As you explore potential referral marketing software tools, look for the following product features.

• Automatically send invites to customers to join the program
• Ability to select custom rewards
• On-website sign-up plug-ins, like pop-ups, landing pages, and referral widgets
• Fraud detection and prevention to avoid suspicious transactions and self-referrals
• Integration with your existing tech stack

These referral marketing platforms are known to be great options for programs of all sizes.

Everflow

Everflow stands as the intelligent Partner Marketing and Tracking Platform that keeps businesses at the forefront of the evolving landscape of performance marketing. Leveraging the power of Google Cloud, it efficiently manages all partnerships in one location, offering comprehensive analytics reporting for in-depth insights, dashboard access for partners to track performance, and the ability to track everything — including clicks, leads, and event conversions from partners.

The benefits from Everflow include:

• Enhanced performance tracking
• Insights on engagement and ROI from each channel
• Automations to eliminate routine management tasks and the ability to pull in key tech stack integrations like HubSpot, Google Ads, and Shopify
• The ability to track all lead, conversion, and post-conversion events for every partner.

ReferralCandy

ReferralCandy is a referral marketing program software for online stores. They integrate directly with your online store, such as Shopify, WooCommerce, or BigCommerce, enabling you to monitor analytics and set up retargeting. With Referral Candy, you can track successful referrals and mitigate potential fraud.

At this time, Referral Candy does not provide consulting or integration services, which can be a drawback for new programs needing additional support.

Refersion

Refersion helps you track and manage your brand ambassador, influencer, and affiliate marketing programs to improve your ROI. Refersion makes it easy to manage marketing campaigns, deliver on-time payments, and attribute sales.

A feature that sets Refersion apart from other options is its network of 3.6M premium affiliates and content publishers that you can browse to find your next partner. However, users say that the interface can be confusing at first, and customer support can take a while to respond to requests.

Referral Rewards Platform

A referral reward platform will help you track the impact of your various referral partners and reward them accordingly. 

When evaluating referral rewards tools, look for software that:

• Integrates with the rest of your tech stack, including your PRM or CRM and email platform
• Provides dashboards to show partners their progress
• Automatically distributes rewards to partners when earned
• Shows detailed analytics and metrics reporting
• Enables A/B testing

These solutions are known to be best-in-class referral rewards platforms.

Friendbuy

Friendbuy is a referral rewards program promising accelerated customer acquisition and increased loyalty. Their platform is designed for e-commerce, direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands looking to launch referral programs.

Friendbuy supports referral tracking, contact and rewards management, referral templates, ROI tracking, and more features designed to support your referral partner program. It’s important to note that Friendbuy is designed for D2C business models and has a relatively low level of customization capabilities, which can make it a bad fit for B2B organizations with specific needs.

Yotpo

Yotpo has a surplus of features, making it a powerhouse for managing referral partner programs. Their tool provides moderation, coupons and loyalty rewards, reviews and ratings, product recommendations, and more.

You can get started with Yotpo for free to see if it’s a good fit for your program, but this option is limited to the reviews feature. It can be pricey to unlock all of the features, since you must purchase higher tiers of support.

Can You Run a Referral Partner Program without Specialized Software?

If you’re especially committed, you can run a small referral partner program through a spreadsheet, but it will be messy, challenging, and ineffective. Additionally, as your program grows, you’ll experience more pain points from this method and hinder your results.

Thankfully, many software solutions help you run an effective program. These platforms can help streamline your efforts, automate manual tasks, improve metrics tracking, and help you scale your program faster.

Why Welcome Referral Partners to Your Channel Sales Program?

Referral partnerships are an effective way to scale your revenue through the power of your most loyal customers. Buyers inherently trust referrers, and you benefit from that established trust. In fact, 78% of B2B marketers say referral partners generate leads of good or excellent quality.

Through referral partnerships, your partners promote your products and services to their audience. You only pay for their efforts if they make a sale, so it’s a relatively low-risk investment — 54% of B2B marketers say referral marketing has a lower cost-per-lead.

Though it isn’t required, you should provide training and marketing resources to help them sell better.

Allbound: An All-in-One Platform for Referral Partner Management

Allbound combines all the best features of various referral partner platforms into one cohesive solution. Through Allbound, you can onboard, train, engage, and monitor the results of referral partners. 

You can also keep track of all your other partner types in one space, making it easy to see which marketing assets perform well across the board, monitor trends in your program, and streamline your partner management efforts.

Grow Your Channel Through the Power of Referrals

Referral partners can be a powerful asset for growing your channel, but only when leveraged effectively. With the right software, you can optimize the impact of your referral partners, increase your ROI, and grow your revenue. 

While a referral rewards system and a PRM can help you manage your referral marketing program, a solid PRM is the perfect standalone solution to meet your needs and streamline your efforts.

Learn more about effective channel partner management.

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