CPA has never been a more important metric for DTC brands. In an unpredictable market where paid channel acquisition costs skyrocket across the board, how do you keep your customer acquisition costs low, your CLV high, and increase your referral and subscriber acquisition?
The Friendbuy and Attentive team talked to three high-growth brands to find out. Read the shortened question and answers below or watch the full replay of the event and hear from ILIA Beauty, Dropps, and Natural Life about how they grow efficiently through subscriber and referral acquisition.
We’d also like to thank our friends at Ecodrive for planting 150 trees in celebration of each registrant to the live event.
Start with a game-changing integration
One thing ILIA Beauty, Dropps and Natural Life have in common to help their subscriber and referral acquisition is the new Friendbuy and Attentive integration.
This exciting integration means that brands can:
- Automatically add emails and phone numbers captured through your referral & loyalty programs to Attentive
- Sync data between Friendbuy, Attentive and your ESP
- Increase referral & loyalty program awareness through your SMS campaigns
We’ll explore how they use the integration to help hit their goals throughout the article below, but you can learn more here if you’re interested in seeing how it can help you with subscriber acquisition.
Meet the experts
How are you currently leveraging your SMS programs & what problems does it solve for your business?
Cassandra, ILIA Beauty
We’re really more in the realm of sending fewer, better messages. We don’t really text just to send a text. We like to make sure it’s really adding value to our customer and that they’re engaged with what we’re saying. Fortunately, our most loyal customers are also our SMS customers, so we try to give them first access to things and make sure they’re the first to hear about our sales and launches. We’re trying to do things like if someone purchases a specific product, we’ll serve them a lookbook or something like that to complement their order or suggest new things. It’s really just trying to make sure people feel connected with us because every time we text we’re interrupting their daily life, and we want to make sure they’re happy to hear from us.
Carolyn, Natural Life
We found there were messages we wanted to get out outside of email, break through the noise, and connect directly with people. We also use SMS as a VIP platform and we’ve had strong retention from it, as people are coming back more frequently and buying more. We were really blown away by the results and performance, we didn’t really expect the AOV to be so high since it is such a mobile platform. But it’s a loyal group and high conversion rates, so it’s been a very valuable channel for us.
Jamie, Dropps
I would describe our SMS marketing strategy as an extension of what we’ve been doing on email. Our strategy on both email and SMS is very automation forward, while trying to personalize as much as possible. As an SMS marketer, I subscribe to a lot of SMS marketing and so I probably know more than most people how annoying it is to constantly get texts from businesses that aren’t really relevant to you. So the more data we can collect to send information when it’s relevant to when you last purchased, what you purchased, and your behavior onsite, it really helps our performance. And then even outside of that personalization, just being able to reach people directly on their phone is really powerful. The first message in our welcome SMS flow has a 7x higher conversion rate compared to our sitewide average.
What problem has your referral program helped solve for your businesses?
Cassandra, ILIA Beauty
I think especially right now, with how much advertising costs have gone up, it’s a really cost effective way to bring in new customers because of the credibility there. You have a friend vouching for your products and your brand, and there’s really nothing better that you can ask for in terms of bringing in new customers.
Jamie, Dropps
Acquisition costs are definitely going up, so as that happens these lower cost channels are becoming more and more important to us. Even in the last few months, our priorities have really shifted to taking the time to optimize what our incentives are for our Friends and Advocates and how we can best leverage the program. Every friend who’s referred through a tool like Friendbuy is someone we don’t have to spend a lot of money to acquire through Facebook.
Carolyn, Natural Life
We’ve heard for years that people were sharing our product organically in their own groups and people were reaching out and asking if there was some sort of reward structure for that. And then once the pandemic hit and we had so much shift to our ecommerce site, it became the right time to roll something out formally to reward our loyal customers and have them reach out to their friends.
How do you value your subscribers and how important has it been to not only scaling your SMS program but the business as a whole?
Carolyn, Natural Life
It’s been really pivotal for us. We launched in November 2020, so we were coming off of six months of really high growth just from the pandemic. We were able to ramp really quickly, and it exceeded our expectations beyond belief. Even though our sender list is a lot bigger with email, our conversion rates are a lot higher with SMS. We’ll prioritize journeys that are personalized, so a win-back, abandoned cart, or back in stock series. Then we’ll send out relevant offers or updates every two weeks or so. Within 50 days of launching, it became a top revenue channel for us. Once we integrated it with our customer service platform so people could have two-way conversations, it became better and better.
Cassandra, ILIA Beauty
Anytime we send an SMS, I like to sit there and watch Google Analytics live with popcorn and savor in the moment. One thing that I specifically love with SMS is that you can curate the experience in such a personal way that customers wouldn’t necessarily get from your social feeds or ads. For example, we looked at our data and can see that someone purchases skin tint. We know if someone purchases that product early, we’ll have a much higher LTV. So we’ll target their journey and make sure they’re receiving messages about their complexion first, and really just try to guide them through that process and build out their regimen early on.
Jamie Cooper, Dropps
There’s definitely a push and pull when it comes to growing your subscriber list. So much of the success of your SMS program comes from your list size. We’ve tried multiple ways of increasing our subscriber list, the most successful by far has been onsite pop-ups and offers. We’ve tried through social and Facebook ads - some of the efforts worked, but the leads they generated weren’t that valuable. So, since onsite is the right way to go, it’s a push and pull of the onsite experience as people don’t like pop-ups but they do sign up through them. Something we’re trying now is an onsite quiz, like find the right laundry product for you, and are testing making the sign up mandatory to see results.
Carolyn Grana, Natural Life
We’ve tried social as well, such as a swipe up on Instagram stories, and it didn’t amount to very much. We also tried a QR code on the back of a catalog with an offer, and that really didn’t drive a lot either. So the most substantial thing we’ve done is the onsite pop-up.
Cassandra, ILIA Beauty
We have such a good partner at Attentive, so it hasn’t been a big problem for us. For acquiring more subscribers, our pop-up has been great, we have a few iterations that are tailored to each customer. We also promo gate, for example we just had our friends and family sale and we changed our pop-up language to say subscribe for access to get 20% off. They could have closed it out and gotten the same offer, but it works. We also run a lot of contests and giveaways. So we’ll email our entire database and say subscribe for SMS and you can win products. In our first post-purchase flow, we also have an email encouraging people to sign up for SMS if they aren’t already.
What are some of the challenges you’ve faced as a brand to understand your customers and communicate with your best advocates?
Cassandra, ILIA Beauty
For us personally, having this integration has been incredible. We’re on a headless build, so having all your programs talk nicely together sounds underrated but it’s so incredibly helpful. When someone subscribes to us through Friendbuy, we give them a special journey that’s curated to where they are. In our first Friendbuy welcome flow message, we let them know they’ve successfully done what they needed to do and defer them to a lookbook. So we’ll say thanks for shopping with us and sharing with your friends, we’ll send your $20 reward as soon as their order is complete. In the meantime, take a look at how real people wear ILIA.
Jamie, Dropps
There is a limited amount of real estate onsite, especially for something like a ribbon or button or pop-up. We’ve had to ask ourselves before, do we promote subscribe for SMS or do we promote refer a friend? So a great part of the Friendbuy and Attentive integration is you don’t have to choose between the two. If the refer a friend bubble is incentivizing enough, it can be a great source of new signups, whether or not they end up referring a friend or whether or not the friend makes that initial purchase. We’ve also started personalizing the language around referrals based on the page someone is on. For example, for our sensitive skin and baby detergent, we started our refer-a-friend prompt on that page because a lot of people that are looking for a product like that are more likely to trust people that have actually used it.
Carolyn, Natural Life
We have our referral CTA in our site header, as it’s top real estate so it’s easy for people to find. Our highest value for people sending referrals is right after someone purchases, so we have a pop-up there. We also have it throughout post-purchase, such as review requests.
Are there certain things you’re looking forward to with the new Friendbuy and Attentive integration, such as subscriber acquisition or workflows and journeys?
Jamie, Dropps
I’m excited about the ability to isolate not just who already signed up to potentially be an Advocate, but to also know whether or not they successfully shared, right in Attentive and segment that way. And then to be able to bring their sharing link directly into the message is huge. I’ve set up a journey that triggers when someone comes in through Friendbuy, and repeatedly reminds people why they may want to refer a friend. It makes a world of a difference to just tell the friend what their code is in SMS. A complaint we often hear from customers if they get their code via email is that it’s so easy to lose.
Cassandra, ILIA Beauty
Our next focus is to do more to have the Friend convert. All of our efforts right now are really focused on the Advocate, so I completely agree about having the code in your phone, that’s going to be huge for us as well. We’re still exploring and learning, but I think between talking to the Friend more and using those tags we’ll be able to do a lot.
Carolyn, Natural Life
I’m most excited about being able to communicate with each segment in different ways, but specifically to be able to express our gratitude to those that do refer. Because we’re a smaller brand, it means so much when someone is out there vouching for us, so to be able to express that through text messages will be nice.
How do you promote these programs to get more referrals and acquire subscribers?
Cassandra, ILIA Beauty
For SMS, we have our pop-up as mentioned. We also do our email flows that we have in post-purchase journeys, and we periodically send out campaigns about it. For Friendbuy, we have a pop-up on the post-purchase screen which has been really helpful for us, and we also have emails about it in our flows. It’s also organically on our site on our drop down menu. We also do limited time campaigns with increased Advocate offers to have it feel special.
Carolyn, Natural Life
The most impactful thing for us to acquire more subscribers and referrals is really maintaining and increasing our site traffic. For example when we have a decrease in Facebook spend, we see a decline in SMS subscribers, orders and referrals.
What has worked, what hasn’t, and what are you trying next for your incentives for your referral program and for SMS?
Jamie, Dropps
When I joined the team, the incentive structure I inherited was $30 off for the Advocate, $15 off for the Friend, with minimum purchase requirements for both. I had a feeling that $15 off could be hurting our AOV, and the minimum purchase requirement could be hurting our conversion rate. So I tested $15 off versus 30% off, without the minimum purchase requirement. Which in our industry, 30% off is rarely going to equate to $15 dollars. We saw that conversion rates went up, revenue went up, and AOV went up. The previous philosophy on the team was that the bigger the incentive, the more people will refer, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. There are numbers that stand out more to people, and you need to think about your incentive relative to your AOV, and think about your minimum purchase requirement and free shipping minimum. It’s hard to know what that sweet spot is without testing it, so I definitely recommend using the Friendbuy A/B testing tool. On the Attentive side, for new customers that sign up for SMS and get an offer, we were doing 15% off and tested that against 20% off, and it increased our conversion rates.
What’s one tip you’d give a brand today that’s trying to scale and optimize for low cost-per-acquisition?
Jamie, Dropps
If you’re not doing SMS marketing yet, you should start. It does take time to build that list and a lot of the return is going to come from the automation process, which is great once you’ve set it up but it does take a time investment. If you do use some of these programs but haven’t done any testing, try that as well.
Cassandra, ILIA Beauty
My biggest tip is to really think gritty. Find creative ways to use the tools that you have and test to see what works best for you. With just about every partner we work with, they offer great out of the box solutions. But sometimes we want to get more specific, and the way things are presented are often not the only way, so don’t be afraid to A/B test and get more creative.
Carolyn, Natural Life
Don’t be afraid of frequency. We’ve always been cautious of over messaging, over emailing, and over texting our customers. But with the way things have changed the last few years and an increase in distracted consumers, multiple touchpoints aren’t a bad thing. People come to your site because they’re interested, they order because they like you, they refer because they had a great experience, and you’re not bothering them by messaging them.
How is your SMS subscriber rate compared to your email? Have you found ways for SMS subscribers to stay longer?
Jamie, Dropps
Universally, your SMS unsubscribe rate is going to be higher than your email unsubscribe rate. With email you can set up your inbox so that you won’t see a lot of the promotional emails, so you won’t feel the need to unsubscribe. So I wouldn’t be alarmed if you have a higher unsubscribe rate for SMS than you do for email, I think it says more about email than it does about SMS. My philosophy is if someone unsubscribes from SMS, it’s good for me and it’s good for them. I don’t want to be bothering someone who isn’t interested anymore. I don’t want to be spending money to text someone who isn’t interested anymore. In terms of longevity, I do think texting at a consistent and predictable frequency is important. You don’t want to send back to back messages but you don’t want to go a month without texting someone, so building expectations helps. Our rule of thumb is once or twice a week. But, if someone just purchased or just abandoned their cart, they’re in a state of being very engaged with you, and it’s not a bad thing to send them more messages in that time, it’s when they expect and want to hear from you.
If you’re interested in learning more about how Friendbuy and Attentive can help your referral and subscriber acquisition, reach out to our team here.
