We’ve analyzed all kinds of e-commerce tools, and today it’s ReferralCandy’s turn. This tool offers its customers an affiliate program (referrals) for e-commerce and easily integrates with CMS platforms of all kinds.
Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, Mailchip… And many more tools. This versatility makes it a very interesting tool, and that’s why we’re going to analyze what ReferralCandy is and how it can help you.
What is ReferralCandy?
To begin with, it is worth talking about what ReferralCandy is and what type of customer it is aimed at. As we have already told you, ReferralCandy allows you to create an affiliate network for your e-commerce. They configure everything you need to configure.
All you have to do is customize it for your brand and specify the types of rewards that are given to those who make the referrals. Affiliation systems are SUPER useful if you use them well, and they are used by businesses of all kinds. If we go to the big ones, the list is very broad: Dropbox, Uber, Airbnb or Amazon are some of the companies that use this type of strategy.
The type of strategy that ReferralCandy proposes is the digitization of the word of mouth of all life. And make no mistake: word of mouth has always been the best marketing strategy. With affiliate marketing, you give an extra push to word of mouth, as you encourage users to recommend your product or service.
For a smaller business, ReferralCandy’s prices can be a bit painful. But we would tell you that, if you can save that investment on the other hand and hire an affiliation tool, you would gain. It’s an easy way to get people to share your products on social networks and generate a community around your company, instead of displaying Google ads or other marketing tactics.
If all this sounds good to you, keep reading this analysis from ReferralCandy.
[irp posts=”10940″ name=”Dinesh Raju (ReferralCandy): “Online and offline channels have a part to play in giving customers a premium shopping experience in 2019″]
Advantages of ReferralCandy
With most affiliate programs, the system is as follows: The company specifies a reward for each referral. Once you have done this, you can create an area with custom links generated for each user. These links are shared with friends so that the referral can be easily traced.
But ReferralCandy is much more than that. Yes, that’s the basic idea behind the application. But ReferralCandy gives you many more options you can play with.
Pre-designed templates to attract more referrals
The backbone of any referral program is the ability to promote it while still looking professional. We assume that many e-commerce owners are not developers, so ReferralCandy templates can be very useful.
The templates are like landing pages, as they are simple and optimized pages, designed to increase references and sales. The templates are mobile-friendly and are easy to connect directly to your website.
Therefore, you only have to upload an image and a background, and then explain what a user gets when he recommends your product or service to an acquaintance.
If you have programming skills you can also play with the templates, as ReferralCandy allows you to enter the HTML and CSS code to customize them.
Multichannel promotion tools
The big question for most e-commerce that launches their own affiliate network is: Where do I start promoting it?
While many applications offer you the tools to create an affiliate platform, ReferralCandy goes one step further by including a complete kit to make it known.
First of all, ReferralCandy has a module to send email campaigns. It automatically makes every person on your mailing list become included in your affiliate program. Once you have integrated your contacts, an email is sent notifying them, so they can go to your website and start sharing the personalized links.
Personalized emails don’t end there. When someone makes a purchase on your e-commerce, they also receive an email asking them to join the referral program. This way, no one is left out and you don’t let any of your users escape.
ReferralCandy also offers landing pages and a registration area that you can embed in your e-commerce. The checkout is a good place to add an embedded referral module.
Automatic distribution of rewards
All rewards are sent automatically. Therefore, after launching a referral program you don’t have to send individual emails to people who receive their rewards or to those who have taken advantage of what they share.
This works by detecting the shared links you’ve ended up converting. You won’t see anything if a person doesn’t click on the link and make a purchase, so you won’t have any confusing data.
There are multiple types of rewards available (discount coupons, cash rewards, personalised gifts and more) and you can modify the type of reward at any time during your affiliate campaign. You can also run several referral programs if you wish, depending on the types of customers you have.
We’ve mentioned this before, but part of the distribution of rewards is protection against fraudulent activities. Sometimes people try to take advantage of affiliation programs by creating invalid referrals or trying to get more rewards than allowed. Because of this, ReferralCandy tracks and reports suspicious cases so you can block a user.
Finally, the reward management system helps you with your coupon codes. Coupons and cash rewards are sent automatically, but you can manage them if necessary.
Tracking income and engagement
Without analytics, a referral program is of little use. ReferralCandy’s engagement and revenue centre are very useful, as it gives you very visual statistics about your affiliate program, and how users interact with it.
You’ll be able to easily measure how much customers like your business, and you’ll be able to tell which customers are having the most success in your referral program. Once you locate these “VIP” users, you can reach agreements with them and give them greater rewards. You can even find blogs or influencers that you didn’t know about and that is bringing a lot of traffic to your website.
This area also covers the growth of your referral program, with metrics of how many emails are sent, the number of purchases, clicks and much more.
ReferralCandy Pricing
ReferralCandy doesn’t have a free plan, so you can’t escape paying a monthly fee. However, ReferralCandy offers a free 30-day trial, which allows you to try the product and cancel it at any time.
ReferralCandy’s price plans are very simple:
Premium Plan
It’s the main plan, which costs $49 a month + a monthly ReferralCandy commission.
The commission starts at 5% but decreases as your website grows and as you get more sales.
The scale of commissions is as follows:
- A 5% commission on your first sales of $1,000 per referral.
- A 3.5% commission for the next $10,000 in referral sales.
- A 1.5% commission on the next $100,000 in referral sales.
- A commission of 0.25% for all of the above.
As you can see, commissions are only charged when the sale comes from a ReferralCandy referral. Therefore, if you make a sale with your mailing list or with SEM campaigns, ReferralCandy will not charge you anything (obviously).
The price control panel of this tool has a calculation tool where you specify your monthly sales and tells you how much you would have to pay and the ROI you could expect.
Enterprise Plan
The only other pricing plan available is for Enterprise customers. You will have to contact ReferralCandy to set up a custom plan, but the minimum rate shown on the website is $3,999 per month. You don’t have to pay any commission, but it’s designed for businesses with very high numbers.
How good is the customer service of ReferralCandy?
ReferralCandy is known for offering a high-quality Customer Service.
On the one hand, they offer guides and case studies on their website. You’ll also receive email support and access to an extensive knowledge base.
The Reference Marketing Guide is one of the best places to start when you’re launching your campaigns, and the Help Center is where you’ll find most of the articles on how to manage and configure your program. ReferralCandy also provides access to the API, along with a blog and a full demonstration for those who are thinking of acquiring it.
The only problem we see with ReferralCandy’s customer service is the lack of direct support. They don’t offer the option of calling a technician directly or even chatting live via the web. Maybe in the future, they will add it.
Conclusion: Is ReferralCandy the best software to create your affiliate network?
As you probably have seen, we can not find any drawbacks in the use of this tool with which you can create your own affiliate network.
ReferralCandy is very useful to grow your brand, in a usable, simple and very efficient way.