What a year it’s been! As I reflect on last year, I couldn’t help but smile thinking about all the amazing things we helped our customers accomplished in 2024. From small businesses launching their first referral programs to established brands scaling their word-of-mouth strategies, we’ve shown the impact we can make when we focus on our customers.

Here’s how we grew referral programs for our customers in 2024:

  • 1.2 million new members joined their programs
  • 465 thousand referral shares sparked new conversations
  • 9.2 million referral visits from potential customers
  • 494 thousand new referrals for their business

Here’s a look back at the 2024 highlights.

Q1: Better Member Portal & Quick Wins

In January of 2024, we started the year focusing on improving the member experience as well as getting in some quick wins to make life easier for our customers.

  • Enhanced Portal Views (feature) – our biggest Member Portal redesign yet, bringing more clarity and control to how members view their referrals and rewards. Updates included better visual interface, more robust search and filtering options, more control over properties, better mobile experience, and many more quality of life improvements.
  • Bulk Member Migration (feature) – move batches of members from one program to another based on email or external ID.
  • Reward Management: rewards customers actually want (guide) – how to create customizable rewards in our reward builder based on specific actions in your CRM or system of record, plus review of some common reward structures.
  • Referral Banner (feature) – display a banner (referrals only) when they visit your website to create a better experience for new referrals learning about your business.

Q2: Referral Insights & Kickoff Admin Overhaul

In April, we started to share more referral insights and began development of our admin UI overhaul.

  • Modern Admin Overhaul (feature) – Complete redesign of the admin UI making it more visually appealing and easier to navigate so you can get your work done faster (major updates include new Home Page Experience, Quick Actions, and Shortcuts).
  • Customer Referral Reward Design 101 (video) – deep dive into rewards in our first webinar of 2024 covering effective reward design, 5 biggest rewards mistakes (and how to avoid them), and our framework for creating better reward offers.
  • 2 Most Important Referral Metrics (insights) – explores the 2 leading indicators to predict if a referral program will succeed, then shows aggregated data on how people share, where they share, and the impact of sharing.
  • Multi-Org Account Management (feature) – maintain brand consistency across all programs while giving individual teams and users the flexibility they need (great for managing multiple locations, brands, franchises, etc. under a single account).

Q3: New Analytics & Optimization

Moving into July, we rolled out our new Analytics Dashboard and all the supporting content on how to analyze and optimize programs based on data.

  • Analytics Dashboard 2.0 (feature) – overhauled our analytics dashboard to focus on the most important referral metrics so customers know where to focus their optimization effort and get better results.
  • Referral Analytics and Optimization (video) – introduces the Referral Funnel framework and key referral indicators to analyze referral programs, then walks through how to use the new Analytics Dashboard to identify (and fix) the 4 most common problems facing referral programs.
  • 2 Important Referral Integrations (video) – walks through the most common integrations needed when setting up a referral program with an emphasis on sharing and tracking referrals.
  • How to Improve Referral Conversion (insights) – deep dive into understanding the steps in the referral journey, the metrics that matter, and suggestions for how to improve referral conversions.
  • QR Codes, Direct Add Experience & Share Options (feature) – added several fun features to improve sharing and get more referrals for our customers.

Q4: New Customer Services, Referral Management, & Early Christmas

We wrapped up the year with several major updates, including our new referral service and new features to make it easier to set up and manage effective referral programs.

  • New Referral Services (service) – every customer gets a dedicated program advisor who provides direct help, including reward recommendations, messaging written for them, and technical assistance as they build, scale, and optimize their programs.
  • Referral Page Templates (feature) – added new conversion-optimized templates to make it easier to create high-performing referral pages that are optimized for mobile.
  • Major HubSpot Integration (feature) – our deepest CRM integration yet to sync data directly between Referral Rock and HubSpot (contact enrichment, referral updates, track referral conversion, promote with HubSpot email campaigns).
  • 3 Silent Killers of Referral Programs (Nov) – we analyzed 339 referral programs to uncover the 3 biggest mistakes and how customers can avoid them.
  • Christmas Grab Bag (feature) – wrapped up the year with new features, including Microsoft & Apple ID, Universal Support Center for Members, reward improvements, and new import tools.

Who made it all happen?

All 20 of our Referral Rock team members made this all happen. All our frontline staff in sales and services, as well as our product team that shipped so many great features. Without them we couldn’t do what we do to deliver for customers. Thanks team!

What next?

We have a lot planned for 2025 and can’t wait to build more features for our customers. Check out “Referral Rock’s Best of 2024 Awards” where our Founder/CEO Josh Ho shares the most popular features and content from 2024 plus provides a sneak peek into what’s coming in 2025.