Important: this article is a part of our affiliate martech stack series, where we shed light on the most effective tools for affiliate marketing.
There is hardly a more effective way to promote a company than by word of mouth. Referral software and marketing tools can maximise the impact of your referral programmes so you can acquire more organic leads and turn your customers into brand advocates.
With 92% of customers trusting recommendations from family and friends, a well-incentivising referral programme can grow your customer base exponentially. There’s no better way to spread the word than through customers sharing their success storeys.
That said, running a referral programme manually is quite time-consuming, if not impossible. To be effective with referral programmes, you must prop them up with referral software – a set of tools designed to manage routines such as tracking, distributing, and converting referrals.
- Referral marketing software can help you set up referral campaigns, track their performance, and distribute referral rewards like loyalty points, discounts, gift cards, or cash to those who have met the criteria.
Referral software is of tremendous help for businesses running several referral programmes. Without jumping hoops and juggling reports, you can get an overarching view of your campaigns, seeing where your referral marketing goes and how to improve it.
Source: GIPHY
And now, let’s move to the best referral marketing software you can find online. The presented referral software solutions will help automate your referral programme, bring in new customers, and strengthen the loyalty of constant buyers.
Top Referral Software
Referral Candy – Customer Referral Tracking Software
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate | Direct Traffic | Search Traffic | Paid Referral Traffic | Referral Traffic | Social Traffic | Mail Traffic |
| 577,216 | 2 | 71 | 0.63 | 41.43% | 33.63% | 1.84% | 8.89% | 7.44% | 6.78% |
Highly effective customer referral tracking software ReferralCandy allows you to create segmented and well-targeted referral campaigns through:
- Audience segmentation – allocating referrals for target groups
- Custom ad targeting – displaying different ads to different target groups
- Choice of rewards – tailoring rewards to different referrer and referral groups
- Post-purchase emails – hitting referrals with a well-timed post-purchase email
- Coupon codes for Shopify subscription products – promoting your referral programme via coupon codes if you sell subscriptions using Shopify
On the referral side, the process is as simple as it can be: they get a unique referral link to promote, and they get the chosen reward for every referred customer. On your side, you can manage your referral campaign’s key metrics and automatically detect suspicious transactions – for example, self-referrals – to prevent referral fraud.
ReferralRock – B2B Referral Software
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate | Direct Traffic | Search Traffic | Paid Referral Traffic | Referral Traffic | Social Traffic | Mail Traffic |
| 297,831 | 2 | 142 | 0.65 | 34.58% | 48.80% | 0.10% | 9.84% | 5.93% | 0.75% |
ReferralRock is a B2B referral software platform that allows you to create and launch your custom referral programme in a few days, possibly with expert help. Among the referral incentives are cash rewards, coupons, merchandise, and gift cards.
Here are some opportunities you get with ReferralRock:
- Creating an on-brand referral experience through custom branding, built-in referral offers, and a referral programme visual editor
- Differentiating between referrals through multiple sharing options, personalised links, and a dedicated tracking and sharing portal
- Customising referral incentives for specific marketing goals through a choice of rewards and integrations with CRM systems like Salesforce and HubSpot
ReferralRock allows you to build referral programmes that reward both the referrer and the referred, a win-win for both. Both parties may get the same discount on the same products, or the rewards may differ depending on how you’ve configured the offer (besides two-sided rewards, there are bump, recurring, milestone, and tiered rewards).
InviteReferrals – Referral Automation Software for Social Media
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate |
| 41,744 | 1 | 101 | 0.6 |
InviteReferrals is mobile app referral software designed specifically for social media users, making the referral programme available on your Facebook fan page or website. The software works across all platforms and devices, including mobile, tablet, and desktop.
The software toolkit provides:
- Referral campaign automation
- Support for over 25 languages
- Spam and fraud prevention
- Two-sided rewards for registration and app installs
The referral automation software from InviteReferrals includes in-depth customer journey tracking: link clicks, registrations, app installs, and more. Likewise, you provide referrers with convenient sharing options across major social media platforms, messengers, and email.
Mention Me – Medical Referral Management Software
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate | Direct Traffic | Search Traffic | Paid Referral Traffic | Referral Traffic | Social Traffic | Mail Traffic |
| 957,716 | 3 | 87 | 0.45 | 54.86% | 17.93% | 0.68% | 3.37% | 19.51% | 3.65% |
Mention Me is a referral marketing platform that covers six major verticals: finance & insurance, health & beauty, food & beverage, travel & hospitality, and fashion. The unique AI-driven referral marketing software from Mention Me identifies, activates, and maximises the impact of brand advocates to turn them into profitable referrers.
The uniqueness of Mention Me is that it provides rare medical referral management software, also known as patient referral management software or physician referral software. This medical referral software can help medical institutions acquire more new patients while incentivising their best personnel and existing patients.
Like other online referral programme software, Mention Me provides tracking links for proper attribution. The detailed analytics of referral programmes will allow you to double down on the most effective and eliminate unprofitable marketing channels, growing your customer base and ROI.
Friendbuy – Popular Online Referral Marketing Software
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate | Direct Traffic | Search Traffic | Paid Referral Traffic | Referral Traffic | Social Traffic | Mail Traffic |
| 47,625 | 2 | 78 | 0.56 | 57.77% | 35.32% | 0 | 6.52% | 0.39% | 0 |
Friendbuy is a referral marketing software that supercharges referral programmes through referral templates, dashboards, anti-fraud control, automated rewards, and analytics & reporting. Likewise, you can integrate Friendbuy with your technology stack, including your other marketing, lead generation, and CRM software.
While Friendbuy may not offer unique features, its easily shareable links and codes will spread your referral campaigns like wildfire to grant you ever-increasing referral revenues and customer loyalty.
Referral Factory – All-in-One Software for Referral Programmes
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate |
| 78,281 | 2 | 114 | 0.65 |
Referral Factory is an online referral programme software that features over 100 referral programme templates, a drag-and-drop referral programme builder, and advanced promotional and analytics tools so you can distill vast amounts of data into actionable marketing insights.
With Referral Factory, you get:
- Intuitive interface and tools to build a referral programme from scratch without coding knowledge
- Extensive customisation options to personalise your referral programme for specific audiences, including ads and rewards
- Ease of link generation and sharing so referrers can seamlessly spread the word and track referrals
- Automated referral analytics to manage your referral campaigns for heterogeneous audiences and across all media
- Integrations with CRM, lead management, and email marketing software to create a coherent marketing strategy
Through partners in over 50 countries, Referral Factory allows you to reward users from different locations and in multiple currencies and reward types, including cash, coupons, vouchers, and more.
Genius Referrals – B2B Referral Software
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate |
| 22,702 | 0 | 22 | 0.3 |
Genius Referrals is a suite of referral software solutions for referrers, affiliates, influencers, and B2B companies, all simplified with widgets and ready-made templates for brand advocating, referral capturing, and post-purchase referral acquisition.
The referral marketing software suite from Genius Referrals includes:
- Referral software
- Affiliate referral programmes
- Influencer marketing software
- B2B partner programme solutions
- Employee referral programmes
- Newsletter referral programme solutions
With fixed and variable rewards for referrers and referrals, you can effectively turn strangers into customers and customers into brand advocates. Among the supported reward types are single, double-sided, multi-tiered, multi-level, fixed, and percentage rewards in cash, products, gift cards, vouchers, account credits, discount codes, and more.
Growsurf – Referral Software for SaaS
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate |
| 54,937 | 1 | 60 | 0.78 |
Growsurf is referral software for SaaS that helps you build a referral programme without coding knowledge through distinctive features like an automatic link generator and white labelling. With Growsurf, you can embed code snippets into your marketing channels to promote instant sharing.
It takes only a couple of days to integrate the plug-and-play referral software into your CRM and align it with your other marketing solutions. Growsurf works best for SaaS, fintech, and B2C market segments, but you can safely try it for different niches as well, considering it has a 14-day free trial.
Extole – Omnichannel Referral Marketing Software
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate |
| 49,861 | 1 | 58 | 0.7 |
Extole is a comprehensive customer growth platform offering acquisition and retention programmes and referral software. The biggest advantage of Extole is that it creates omnichannel experiences while personalising the offering for every referrer and referral, all through enterprise-level referral marketing tools and customer acquisition software.
Extole Referral Marketing Toolkit
| On-Brand Sharing | The ready-made on-brand referral templates and customisable no-code content make it easy to engage a particular customer while retaining branding consistency. |
| Reward Engines | Diverse rewards – loyalty points, gift card, coupons, etc. – and integrated fraud protection enable smart incentivising when every referrer has a reason to promote. |
| A/B Testing | You can test your referral campaigns to move on with the winners and eliminate the losers. |
Extole’s referral software may not offer revolutionary features; however, its alignment with customer engagement and retention tools may become the tip-scaling advantage for marketers craving all-in-one referral platforms.
Saasquatch – Referral Software for SaaS with Gamification
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate |
| 47,687 | 1 | 64 | 0.81 |
Saasquatch is a referral marketing software suite that employs tools for referral, loyalty, and lifecycle programmes. Among the most distinctive referral software features are gamification, reward triggers, and referrer leaderboards.
The platform is geared towards SaaS, retail & eCommerce, fintech, and telecom industries, enabling multiple integrations and an app-centric user experience. You can even use an online referral programme ROI calculator to predict the financial results of your future campaigns.
Talkable – Compliance-Ready Referral Software
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate | Direct Traffic | Search Traffic | Paid Referral Traffic | Referral Traffic | Social Traffic | Mail Traffic |
| 132,968 | 2 | 66 | 0.6 | 63.18% | 24.47% | 0 | 7.18% | 3.15% | 2.03% |
Talkable is referral software that allows the creation of custom referral programmes and maximises their success on the fly and strategically. From A/B testing to segmentation to fraud prevention to reporting, the referral software toolkit contains everything you need to hit the right referrer and referrals with the right offer at the right time.
It’s worth noting that the referral campaigns can be made CCPA and GDPR-compliant so you can stay on the legal side of the fence while reaching as many referrals as possible. Similarly, Talktable provides industry-leading fraud prevention and detection algorithms, allowing you to limit the marketing practises within your campaigns.
Influitive – Customer Advocacy Referral Software
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate | Direct Traffic | Search Traffic | Paid Referral Traffic | Referral Traffic | Social Traffic | Mail Traffic |
| 327,037 | 4 | 191 | 0.5 | 63.25% | 8.99% | 0 | 4.85% | 6.72% | 16.20% |
Influitive is an online customer advocacy and engagement platform offering a referral software toolkit complemented with tools for review generation, social media performance amplification, product adoption growth, and more.
With Influitive, you can effectively manage customer preferences, leverage your social media presence, grow product adoption, obtain customer feedback, and drive more customer referrals while not sacrificing the quality of your service.
ReferralHero – Referral Software for SaaS
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate |
| 43,254 | 1 | 61 | 0.75 |
ReferralHero is an all-in-one referral programme platform that provides referral software for SaaS, fintech, blockchain & crypto, and mobile applications designed to streamline your referral marketing in just two weeks.
The referral software toolkit is quite advanced, including widgets, on-brand designs, memorable referral links, customisation options for social media platforms, and localisation opportunities. You can create a referrer leaderboard, segment users by engagement, and enable behaviour-triggered emails for timed promotions.
Buyapowa – Comprehensive Referral Software
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate | Direct Traffic | Search Traffic | Paid Referral Traffic | Referral Traffic | Social Traffic | Mail Traffic |
| 36,316 | 2 | 41 | 0.74 | 24.58% | 74.43% | 0 | 0.98% | 0 | 0 |
Buyapowa is a comprehensive reward marketing platform that offers referral marketing software alongside multiple reward programmes: affiliate programmes, brand partner programmes, influencer programmes, and more.
Buyapowa includes all features mentioned in our referral tools list while making it possible to manage different referral programmes from a single place.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is referral management software?
Referral management software – also known as referral software or referral marketing software – is software designed to run, track, and analyse your referral marketing programmes. Referral software can bring it all into a single dashboard so you can effectively manage your referral campaigns.
Affiliate vs. Referral Marketing; Affiliate Software vs. Referral Software
Affiliate and referral marketing are not the same:
- Referral marketing incentivises existing customers to promote the advertiser’s offering
- Affiliate marketing incentivises and manages third-party ad campaigns that promote the advertiser’s offering
Is there free referral marketing software?
Here is some free referral marketing software that you can use for a limited time:
- InviteReferrals – 14-day free trial
- Growsurf – 14-day free trial
- Referral Factory – 15-day free trial
- Genius Referrals – 30-day free trial
- ReferralHero – free trial
At the same time, there’s little to no truly free referral marketing software, meaning you’ll likely have to buy a subscription.
Where Can I Get Healthcare Referral Management Software and Patient Referral Management Software?
Here are some of the companies that provide healthcare referral management software:
It’s worth noting that few companies provide narrow-focused referral software like physician referral software, medical referral management software, or even employee referral software, so you might need to align the “general” referral software you have access to with your specific marketing objectives.
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