Optimizing the Greenlight referrals program
Greenlight’s referral program is one of the company’s most efficient channels, accounting for 11% of all new registrations and costing less than half of other methods.
The only problem? Most customers invited 1 new family to Greenlight, if at all. Our task was to grow this effective channel without increasing spend.
Greenlight’s referrals program operated with a tiered rewards structure:
1st friend = $30,
2nd = $50
3rd+ = $70 (up to $600)
While $600 is a nice reward, customers had to invite 10 friends to actually recieve the full amount. That was such an impossible task, most never tried.
We wondered if making the big prize easier to win would make customers more likely to try.
We designed an experiment to test our hypothesis called “Super Boost.”
If customers could invite 3 friends in 2 weeks, they’d earn $300.
The campaign was a huge success.
Our normal quarterly promotion typically generated a 17% lift and cost $36,000.
“Super Boost” generated a
25% lift and only cost $2,400.
We learned:
Greater rewards drive people more if they believe they can achieve them.
People are encouraged by big rewards, but only a few succeed.
A person who would ordinarily only refer 1 person now invites 2 (but likely not 3 or 4)
These findings inspired us to change our baseline referrals program to offer greater prizes for a customers 4th and 5th referral.
Program comparison
Legacy
Rewards cap
$600
10
N/A
N/A
New
$600
5
~4-5%
~150-200/mo
Friends needed to reach max reward
Expected lift in referrals registrations
Additional incremental referrals
While making changes to the program itself, we also opted to update the dashboard for easier usability.
As rewards became more valuable, people were more concerned with tracking the status of their promotion to ensure conditions were met.
We designed a clearer navigation structure and tracking cards to detail the status of your referral.
Results from testing indicated users understood the new program better with shorter explanations. They hardly needed to refer to the screen for extra details, grasping the rules from tracker and status cards.
The new designs are slated to be implemented next month, and we’ll be able to tell if the Superboost concept is successful full-time.