Use Cases
Overview
Beyond enabling direct on-site referral marketing, Prosper can be strategically used for a variety of other purposes that can benefit your business. Below are a few of our more popular use cases, with examples and best practices on how to set them up. We recommend setting up multiple campaigns for different use cases, and labeling each one so it is easy to measure your results and compare different campaigns.
These examples are guides are for Shopify users, and if you’d like help with any other platform please contact our Support.
Email & SMS Marketing
Referrals can enhance your email and SMS marketing by engaging leads on your marketing list with discounts that encourage more referrals. To add referrals into your email marketing, the first step is to create a referral marketing landing page on your website. This page will act as a landing point for leads coming from email and SMS marketing that prompts referrals.
To do this, add a new page to your website, and deploy the Prosper campaign you’d like to attach to your email marketing in a highly visible place on the page. We also recommend adding information about your referral program on this page, including what the incentive is, and how users can receive their rewards. See below for an example of a referral landing page.
Once your landing page is set up, the next step is to create a referral marketing email template using your email marketing platform of choice. You cannot embed a referral widget or campaign into an email and instead will want to prompt users to send a referral from your website by linking the call to action in the email to your referral landing page. See below for an example of a referral marketing email.
Once this is done, test that your email is properly formatted and linked to your website. If everything is working you are all set and can begin using referrals in your email marketing.
For SMS marketing the process is very similar, but instead of an email template, you will want to create an SMS template in your SMS marketing tool of choice that provides a link to your referral landing page.
We recommend using referrals in email and SMS marketing if your business has a large lead list and is already using these platforms.
Social Media Following & Sales Channels
Similar to email and SMS campaigns, you can use a referral landing page to direct social media followers to refer friends and purchase products.
To start, create a referral landing page on your website.
Once that is complete, you can add a link to it in the bios and linktrees associated with your social media accounts, and create posts or stories highlighting deals shoppers can access by referring a friend.
Similar to email and SMS marketing, this is a great way for brands with large and/or active social media followings to increase their referrals and convert more followers.
Cart Abandonment
Cart abandonment is a problem for many online sellers. Many times people will add things to their cart but never checkout. Prosper can help reduce the occurrence of this by offering incentives directly on your website’s cart page. In doing so, price-sensitive shoppers often will refer a friend and the incentive for doing so will push them to make a purchase they otherwise would not have.
To set up a cart page integration, create a campaign, or use one already made, and follow our guide on deploying a campaign.
Enhanced Product Discounting
Want to discount products without seeming like a discount brand? This is a problem for many luxury and high-end brands who want to move old or unpopular inventory. Prosper can provide a way to discount specific products without ever putting them on sale, or creating the perception that you are a discount brand, by offering incentives on specific products for referring a friend to them.
To do so, on Shopify, add the products you want to add a referral discount to into a new collection. Next, create the discount you want as the incentive for your referral campaign, and make sure it only applies to the collection you want. Lastly you can deploy your referral campaign onto the product page of all products in that collection. You can also prompt referrals from other pages on your website, just be sure to specify any discount limitations so people don’t get confused.
Website Conversion Rate
Prosper’s unique UI/UX means that online brands can engage users in referral campaigns almost anywhere on a website without increasing friction or drop-off rates. Combine this with the fact consumers who send a referral are 15X more likely to make a purchase, and many brands have used this as a tool to increase conversions across their website.
To do this, brands make referrals a core part of their website strategy, adding them to high-visibility and high-impact areas on their website. Popular placements include Product Display Pages, cart pages and landing pages.
Prosper will always increase the conversion rate for consumers who send referrals, but the largest impact is seen when strong incentives combine with high-visibility placements.
Average Order Value and Life Time Value
Prosper can be used as a tool to upsell and cross-sell customers. The average Prosper user already spends 15% more than an average online shopper, but you can set up campaigns that intentionally increase order size or reengage prior shoppers.
The most effective way to increase average order volume is to create a referral campaign with an incentive that requires a purchase amount greater than your AoV, or an incentive on a select product that is high in price or bundles well with commonly bought products.
Every store is different, so we can’t lay out the exact path to increasing AoV and LTV, but the best way to begin is to make sure you understand your existing AoV and/or LTV, and compare that to your average Prosper AoV and LTV in our analytics page. Additionally, our succes team can help you create tailor-made campaigns that will meet your objectives.
Email & SMS Leads
Email and SMS marketing are some of the best and most popular ways to generate revenue, but the hard part is getting high-intent leads for your campaigns. Prosper automatically captures the contact information of everyone who sends a referral, and can easily sync them to your email or SMS marketing platform of choice to automatically generate new high intent leads for marketing purposes.
This can be done in multiple ways, either using Zapier or iPaaS, and can be done with almost any email or SMS marketing tool out there.
You can find Zapier templates for Klaviyo and Attentive here to get things started.
Prosper follows all laws and regulations for promotional messaging, and all Prosper senders opt-in via check-box before sending a referral.